Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, legal historians predominantly characterized the *Nomos Rhodion Nautikos* (the Rhodian Sea Law)—an eighth-century Byzantine compilation of maritime customs—as a crude and degraded derivative of classical Roman jurisprudence. Steeped in the tradition of classical Roman civil law codified in Justinian’s *Corpus Juris Civilis*, these earlier scholars evaluated the Byzantine maritime code almost entirely through the lens of classical property doctrines and the celebrated Roman decree on maritime jettison (*lex Rhodia de iactu*). Because the *Nomos Rhodion Nautikos* incorporated procedural innovations, collective risk-pooling agreements, and customary norms absent from classical statutes, traditionalist scholars dismissed it as evidence of post-classical legal degeneration during the Byzantine era.
However, recent historiographical scholarship has fundamentally challenged this traditional appraisal, demonstrating that the *Nomos Rhodion Nautikos* was neither a clumsy corruption of Roman law nor a static relic of antiquity. Rather, contemporary legal historians argue that the compilation represented an autonomous and sophisticated legal framework purposefully tailored to the commercial realities of medieval Mediterranean seafaring. Unlike the agrarian-focused, land-based property regimes that dominated classical Roman civil litigation, Byzantine maritime commerce required flexible mechanisms to distribute catastrophic transit risks among shipowners, merchants, and crew members without crippling commercial enterprise. By codifying evolving customary practices regarding general average contribution, crew compensation, and cargo liability, the Rhodian Sea Law established a functional regulatory framework that bridged localized maritime customs with imperial administrative recognition. Thus, rather than reflecting legal decline, the *Nomos Rhodion Nautikos* exemplifies the adaptive vitality of Byzantine jurisprudence in formulating a resilient commercial code that prefigured later European maritime law.
Based on the passage, what is the author's primary purpose?
Cevap: To challenge the traditional view of the Rhodian Sea Law as a degraded copy of Roman law and argue it was an adaptive, autonomous legal framework / To argue that the Rhodian Sea Law was an innovative and adaptive maritime legal framework rather than a corrupted version of Roman law / To demonstrate that the Rhodian Sea Law was a sophisticated, adaptive legal system suited to medieval maritime commerce rather than a debasement of Roman law / To reevaluate the Rhodian Sea Law as an autonomous, practical legal innovation rather than a crude derivative of classical Roman jurisprudence