Augustus and the Economics of Adultery

2021 ◽  
pp. 187-204
Author(s):  
Marilyn B. Skinner
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Second Punic War ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
The Republic

This chapter examines Augustus’ legislation criminalizing adultery in the light of first-century BCE social arrangements that allowed Roman noblewomen to manage property without interference from their husbands and sometimes with little input from natal kin. During and after the Second Punic War (218–201 BCE), concentration of wealth in female hands had triggered major legal changes and produced a corresponding shift toward marriage sine manu (“free” marriage). By the end of the Republic, the phenomenon of legally independent (sui iuris) women controlling their finances, especially with purely nominal oversight from tutors, created apprehension among husbands without a say in their wives’ dealings and arguably contributed to widespread concern over female sexual license. Responding to such anxieties, Augustus’ adultery law imposed economic penalties upon convicted women that, in addition to serving as deterrents, probably facilitated the transfer of property out of irresponsible (female) hands into the hands of those more deserving.

The Meaning of Pax

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Cornwell
Keyword(s):  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Prose Poetry ◽  
First Century ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Religious Dimensions ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Historical Writings ◽  
Relationship Of

This chapter examines the semantic range of the concept of pax, considering its place in the Roman imaginary alongside ‘associated concepts’ (particularly concordia, otium, bellum, and victoria). The traditional Republican meaning and uses of the term pax are examined in a variety of contexts (contemporary prose, poetry, historical writings, numismatics, and religious dimensions) in order to establish more precisely the conceptualization and meaning of pax within the conventional political language of the Republic. Whilst pax was used to describe a usually unequal relationship of power with either the gods or other civic entities, as well as interpersonal relations, it did not conventionally have a strong political presence in Roman thought prior to the first century BC.

scholarly journals Varro, the Name-Givers, and the Lawgivers: The Case of the Consuls

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 588-609
Author(s):  
Valentina Arena
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophical Framework ◽  
The Republic

Abstract This essay aims at identifying a tradition of lawgivers in the political culture of the late Republic. It focuses on the antiquarian tradition of the second half of the first century BC, which, it argues, should be considered part of the wider quest for legal normativism that takes place towards the end of the Republic. By reconstructing the intellectual debates on the nature of the consulship, which at the time was carried out through the means of etymological research, this essay shows that, when set within its proper philosophical framework, ancient etymological studies acted as a search for philosophical truth and, in the case of Varro, identify the early kings as the first Roman lawgivers. In turn, the language of political institutions and its etymologies, conceived along philosophical lines, could become a weapon in the constitutional battles of the late Republic.

scholarly journals Normalizing Foreign Relations Law After Zivotofsky II

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 22-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. Spiro
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
First Century ◽  
Court Ruling ◽  
Supreme Court Ruling ◽  
War Powers ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Missing In Action ◽  
Significant Attention

These have been heady times for those interested in foreign relations law. The last twenty years have seen the field transformed. In the 1970s and 1980s, Vietnam had triggered significant attention on constitutional war powers, but that interest was more political than scholarly. Other foreign relations law issues were debated only at the margins. The Restatement (Third) supplied a largely unchallenged conventional wisdom in the area, even if some of its main points were more aspirational than descriptive. The courts had long been missing in action; though they had been active in the first century or so of the Republic on international law and foreign relations law issues, probably the most important Supreme Court ruling in the area from the second half of the twentieth-century merely served to confirm the judicial timidity. On many of the most important issues of foreign relations, sparse judicial precedents (such as they existed) had no more than oracular application to contemporary questions. Other actors nonetheless managed to achieve constitutional equilibria with little help from the courts or scholars. The second half of the twentieth-century was characterized by a remarkable level of constitutional stability regarding the allocation of foreign relations powers.

10 Evolution and Gestalt of the Italian State

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattarella Bernardo Giorgio
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
First Century ◽  
Marked Rise ◽  
The Republic

This chapter presents an analysis of Italy's administrative history. It looks at the historical development of Italian public administration and administrative law in Italy beginning from the nineteenth century. The chapter then proceeds to the first half of the twentieth century, focusing primarily on the policies of Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti, which saw a marked rise in changes and developments within administrative law. Also of note during this period was the role of administrative law during the era of fascism in Italy. The latter half of the twentieth century would mark a departure from this period, focusing mainly on liberal administrative law and the Republic. Finally, the chapter turns to the features of administrative law in the twenty-first century, before closing with some concluding remarks on the features peculiar to Italian administrative law.

“Empress” at Rome

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Corey Brennan
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Imperial Family

This chapter emphasizes that for Rome, the title “empress” is a term of convenience. The closest Latin equivalent to “empress” is ‘Augusta,’ which by the later first century CE became expected for an emperor’s wife, but was extended to other women of the imperial family. This chapter explains ‘Augusta’ by highlighting the evolving distinctions for powerful women from the Triumviral era of the Republic and the era of Augustus (especially for his wife Livia). It also traces the formation of the imperial household (domus), and the granting of divine honors to women, in both life and death. However, the prominence that members of Rome’s imperial family enjoyed had its own dangers: in the mid-first century CE, seven of the eight empresses met unfortunate ends. Later, when the emperor Domitian’s rule grew intolerable, his wife introduced another potent precedent for an empress—by helping to assassinate him in the year 96.

Politics and Culture in Turkey

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bilge Yesil
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political History ◽  
The State ◽  
First Century ◽  
Media Culture ◽  
Media System ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Political Economic

This chapter examines Turkey's political history, specifically the country's main pillars of statism, nationalism, and secularism. These pillars emerged in unique forms in the aftermath of the establishment of the Republic in 1923 and became subject to divergent processes of transformation during the 1980s and 1990s, and then again in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The chapter illustrates how statism, nationalism, and secularism have suffused both the Turkish public sphere and its media culture. It also provides background for the ensuing examination of Turkey's contemporary media system, especially in regard to the development of political economic alliances between media proprietors and the state.

The Roman Garden

1950 ◽  
Vol 19 (57) ◽  
pp. 97-105
Author(s):  
James Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Private Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Political Views ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Social Habits ◽  
Almost All

Aman's character is judged not merely by his public services and his political views but also by his private life and individual interests. Similarly the history of a nation is to be read not only in its military exploits, its constitutional experiments, its art and literature, but also in the social habits and predominant interests of its citizens. Just as a garden mirrors the character of its owner, so the gardens of a nation reflect the character and the degree of advancement of the State. It is no coincidence that the popular garden of the Roman Republic was the simple kitchen garden, while under the Empire pretentious landscape gardens were the vogue. The vitalizing energy of the Republic found an outlet in the productive vegetable plot: the elaborate but sterile gardens of the Empire were symbolic of incipient decay.Until the first century b.c. almost all Roman gardens were cottage gardens. Their plan and culture were governed solely by practical needs. From them the mistress of the house used to replenish her larder and medicine-chest and adorn the family shrine with flowers. Pliny the Elder reminds the luxury-seeking populace of a later date that in the past at Rome a garden was the poor man's estate: it was the only market he had from which to provide himself with food. The prime function of a garden was to make its owner self-sufficient. This self-sufficiency was more easy of attainment in ancient Italy than in more northerly countries, for the diet of the Romans consisted, for the most part, of salads.

scholarly journals Collective thought-action: On lecture performances, transmedia knowledge and designing possible worlds

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-340
Author(s):  
Jon McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Common Knowledge ◽  
First Century ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Civic Discourse ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
The Republic

The election of Donald Trump has exposed a politics of resentment dividing rural and urban populations, as well as communities and colleges. This division stretches back to Plato's Academy. When Plato threw the poets out of the Republic, he banished practices such as poetry, music, and dance from the realm of true, epistemic knowledge, which he opposed to doxa or common knowledge. Centuries later, this opposition would shape European colonialism's approach to indigenous life worlds, whose "primitive" rituals, myths, and fetishes would confront the "civilized" methods, histories, and objects of Western knowledge. These same oppositions structure ideological critiques of popular culture. However, the emergence of lecture performances, theory rap, and info comics within twenty-first century research universities suggests that traditional knowledge production is under stress inside and outside the academy. Emerging is a transmedia knowledge that engages different audiences by mixing episteme and doxa. At stake here: the role of aesthetics in post-disciplinary societies of control and in resistant modes of collective thought-action. Across both the arts and sciences, scholars worldwide are turning to transmedia knowledge not simply for communication but also for co-creation of research. Here transmedia knowledge can function as civic discourse and as a conduit of a generalized aesthetics.

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