Paternal Power in Late Antiquity

1998 ◽  
Vol 88 ◽  
pp. 147-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antti Arjava
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Family System ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Second Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
Roman Society

One of the most peculiar features of Roman law was the father's dominant position. In theory, he exercised an almost absolute authority, patria potestas, over his descendants until his own death. The uniqueness of their family system did not escape the Romans themselves. In his mid-second-century legal textbook Gaius explained:Item in potestate nostra sunt liberi nostri quos iustis nuptiis procreavimus. Quod ius proprium civium Romanorum est; fere enim nulli alii sunt homines, qui talem in filios suos habent potestatem, qualem nos habemus. Idque divus Hadrianus edicto, quod proposuit de his, qui sibi liberisque suis ab eo civitatem Romanam petebant, significavit. Nec me praeterit Galatarum gentem credere in potestate parentum liberos esse. (Inst. 1.55)Again, we have in our power our children, the offspring of a Roman law marriage. This right is one which only Roman citizens have; there are virtually no other peoples who have such power over their sons as we have over ours. This was made known by the emperor Hadrian in an edict which he issued concerning those who applied to him for Roman citizenship for themselves and their children. I have not forgotten that the Galatians believe that children are in the power of their parents. (Translated by W. M. Gordon and O. F. Robinson, The Institutes of Gaius (1988))This account immediately raises at least one fundamental question: If patria potestas was a distinctive feature of Roman society, how did the other peoples of the Empire react to it after the universal grant of the Roman citizenship in A.D. 212?

Ownership and Power in Roman Law

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Roman Society

Private ownership played a central role in all periods of Roman society. In its early development, the Roman law of property knew two different ways in which private ownership of res mancipi and res nec mancipi could be transferred. In the late third century BC, the Roman jurists and the praetor were able to distinguish clearly between simple possession and full ownership: dominium ex iure Quiritium. Later on, they separated from this same dominium certain entitlements to use and enjoyment, which they classified as iura in re aliena. On one side, the original bundle of powers of the owner was hived off to constitute the usufruct, which coincided with what we might refer to as the “ordinary enjoyment” of the object. On the other side many praedial servitudes were created which allowed a landowner to make a limited use of another’s land. This chapter surveys that process.

Xenophanes, Aeschylus, and the doctrine of primeval brutishness

1985 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Ancient Medicine

The belief that primitive men lived like beasts and that civilisation developed out of these brutal origins is found in numerous ancient authors, both Greek and Latin. It forms part of certain theories about the beginnings of culture current in late antiquity. These are notoriously difficult to trace to their sources, but they already existed in some form in the fifth century b.c. One idea common to these theories is that of progress, and for this reason a fragment of Xenophanes is sometimes cited as their remote prototype: ‘The gods did not reveal all things to men from the beginning; instead, by seeking, men discover what is better in time’. Mainly on the strength of this fragment, Ludwig Edelstein devoted the first chapter of his bookThe Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquityto Xenophanes, and W. K. C. Guthrie has even declared that there is good reason to attribute to him a fuller account of progress, one that would include details found in later authors who speak of the early life of mankind. One of these details is the statement that the life of primitive men was ‘brutal’ or ‘beastlike’ (θηριώδης). In these authors the implication of that term varies from ‘unschooled in the basic crafts’ to ‘inhumanly violent and bloodthirsty’. In one sense or the other it is repeatedly encountered in ancient references to this subject. Accounts of primitive brutishness which make use of the wordθηριώδης(orθηριωδ⋯ςcan be found in theSuppliantsof Euripides, in the Hippocratic treatiseOn Ancient Medicine, in three passages of Diodorus, one of which is thought by some to contain Democritean doctrine, in four passages of Isocrates, in a fragment from a satyr-playSisyphuswhich the ancient sources attribute variously to Euripides and to Critias, in a fragment of Athenion, in a second-century inscription, in Plutarch, in Tatian, in Themistius, and in a scholion to Euripides.

Liturgical Poetry in the Late Antique Near East

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ophir Münz-Manor
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Near East ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Biblical Poetry ◽  
Contemporary View ◽  
Cultural Dialogue ◽  
The One

The article presents a contemporary view of the study of piyyut, demonstrating that Jewish poetry of late antiquity (in Hebrew and Aramaic) was closely related to Christian liturgical poetry (both Syriac and Greek) and Samaritan liturgy. These relations were expressed primarily by common poetic and prosodic characteristics, derived on the one hand from ancient Semitic poetry (mainly biblical poetry), and on the other from innovations of the period. The significant connections of content between the different genres of poetry reveal the importance of comparative study. Thus the poetry composed in late antiquity provides additional evidence for the lively cultural dialogue that took place at that time.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Bakhos ◽  
Michael Cook
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
The Other ◽  
Interested Reader ◽  
The Way

The Introduction describes the way in which the volume originated and briefly surveys the chapters contained in it. Four chapters (by Joseph Witztum, Patricia Crone, Gerald Hawting, and Michael Cook) originate from papers delivered at the conference ‘Islam and its Past: Jahiliyya and Late Antiquity in the Qurʾan and Tradition’. The other four chapters (by Devin Stewart, Nicolai Sinai, Angelika Neuwirth, and Iwona Gajda) were not presented at this conference. All the chapters are concerned directly or indirectly with Islamic revelation, and for the most part with the Qurʾan. We live in a time when the study of the Qurʾan has been making a remarkable comeback after spending a generation on the backburner. This volume will give the interested reader a broad survey of what has been happening in the field and concrete illustrations of some of the more innovative lines of research that have recently been pursued.

The Roman Martyrs

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lapidge
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
The Church

The Roman Martyrs contains translations of forty Latin passiones of saints who were martyred in Rome or its near environs, during the period before the ‘peace of the Church’ (c. 312). Some of these Roman martyrs are universally known — SS. Agnes, Sebastian or Laurence, for example — but others are scarcely known outside the ecclesiastical landscape of Rome itself. Each of the translated passiones, which vary in length from a few paragraphs to over ninety, is accompanied by an individual introduction and commentary; the translations are preceded by an Introduction which describes the principal features of this little-known genre of Christian literature. The Roman passiones martyrum have never previously been collected together, and have never been translated into a modern language. They were mostly composed during the period 425 x 675, by anonymous authors who who were presumably clerics of the Roman churches or cemeteries which housed the martyrs’ remains. It is clear that they were composed in response to the huge explosion of pilgrim traffic to martyrial shrines from the late fourth century onwards, at a time when authentic records (protocols) of their trials and executions had long since vanished, and the authors of the passiones were obliged to imagine the circumstances in which martyrs were tried and executed. The passiones are works of pure fiction; and because they abound in ludicrous errors of chronology, they have been largely ignored by historians of the early Church. But although they cannot be used as evidence for the original martyrdoms, they nevertheless allow a fascinating glimpse of the concerns which animated Christians during the period in question: for example, the preservation of virginity, or the ever-present threat posed by pagan practices. And because certain aspects of Roman life will have changed little between (say) the second century and the fifth, the passiones throw valuable light on many aspects of Roman society, not least the nature of a trial before an urban prefect, and the horrendous tortures which were a central feature of such trials. Above all, perhaps, the passiones are an indispensable resource for understanding the topography of late antique Rome and its environs, since they characteristically contain detailed reference to the places where the martyrs were tried, executed, and buried. The book contains five Appendices containing translations of texts relevant to the study of Roman martyrs: the Depositio martyrum of A.D. 354 (Appendix I); the epigrammata of Pope Damasus d. 384) which pertain to Roman martyrs treated in the passiones (II); entries pertaining to Roman martyrs in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum (III); entries in seventh-century pilgrim itineraries pertaining to shrines of Roman martyrs in suburban cemeteries (IV); and entries commemorating these martyrs in early Roman liturgical books (V).

VALLEY AND VILLAGE IN LATE ROMAN CYPRUS

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Rautman
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Rural Populations ◽  
Rural Life ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Basic Information ◽  
East Mediterranean ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
Important Place ◽  
Roman Society ◽  
The Village

Recent investigations of Roman society and economy have sought to recover the histories of the varied provinces and their rural populations, whose circumstances and lifestyles remain poorly understood. The need is especially acute for Cyprus, which occupied an important place in the production and exchange networks of the East Mediterranean. A generation of archaeological survey work has assembled much basic information about this island landscape, and demonstrates that many parts of the Cypriot countryside were well integrated into the economy of the late empire. Analysis of the Vasilikos valley and the village at Kalavasos-Kopetra provides a detailed view of rural life and its transformation during Late Antiquity.

Condicio supervacua and related conditions 
in Roman law

2015 ◽  
Vol 83 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 77-106
Author(s):  
Veronika Kleňová ◽  
Zdenko Takáč
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Legal Norm ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Legal Situation ◽  
Legal Effect ◽  
Proper Condition ◽  
Legal Opinion

The article deals with the conditions that did not have the legal effect of a ‘proper condition’. The authors distinguish these conditions from a ‘proper condition’ pointing out that the distinguishing feature is an ‘uncertainty’ carried by the condition. Firstly, the authors focus their attention on the condicio supervacua – the term is explicitly used only by Pomponius in the case of legacies. It did not have the effect of a ‘proper condition’, because the uncertainty expressed by the condition already resulted from the legal norm itself. It was an explicitly expressed condicio iuris pursuant to the modern definitions of the term. The authors analyze and compare various cases that seemingly deal with condiciones iuris too. The analysis makes it clear that they were regarded as supervacuae, unless the testator changed the legal situation in some way through their expression. He had to insert some new uncertainty that did not result from the legal norm itself. The other kind of condition that the article deals with is condicio institutionis/substitutionis expressly re-applied to a legatum. This condition is different from condicio supervacua, because in this case the new uncertainty was added by the testator himself. Despite some doubts, the legal opinion which prevailed in Roman law was that such a condition did not have the effect of a ‘proper condition’ in relation to a legacy. The reason is that even if the testator re-applied the condition of institution also to a legacy, he extended only the uncertainty of aditio hereditatis and did not insert any new uncertainty into the legacy itself.


Martyrs and Life-Writing in Late Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 374-385
Author(s):  
Koen De Temmerman ◽  
Danny Praet
Keyword(s):  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
Narrative Representations ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Narrative Frame ◽  
Traditional Scholarship ◽  
The One

This chapter explores martyr accounts. Scholars traditionally divide these texts into two types: narrative representations of the suffering and death of martyrs (the so-called passiones) on the one hand, and dramatic representations of the trial preceding this (the so-called acta or praxeis), on the other. The exact semantic range of both labels is debated, but in any case the distinction does not capture the textual reality in its full complexity: even the predominantly narrative texts often contain an interrogation scene, whereas most so-called acta always have a narrative frame, however minimal it may be. In addition, there is no formal unity across the board. This chapter first addresses some of the intellectual premisses that in traditional scholarship on martyr acts were for a long time conducive of historical questions, much to the detriment of the study of these texts as narratives in their own right. The chapter then observes that many martyr acts recount not only the deaths of their protagonists but also cover (parts of) their preceding lives, and it explores how these texts adopt and adapt narrative and rhetorical protocols from traditional life-writing to shape the lives of their protagonists. Finally, attention is paid briefly to the thematic cluster of erotic love, desire, marriage, and the preservation of chastity that drives many such narrative elaborations. It is concluded that whereas research on these texts has long been driven by historical interests, they are also treasure-troves for scholars interested in narrative in general and life-writing in particular.

ON THE ETYMOLOGIC DERIVATION OF SOME COMMONLY USED WORDS IN PEDIATRICS: INFANT, CRETIN, MECONIUM, AND ICTERUS

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 870-870
Author(s):  
T. E. Cone
Keyword(s):  
Newborn Infant ◽  
Newborn Infants ◽  
Old French ◽  
Intestinal Content ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Whole Plant ◽  
Thick Juice ◽  
Brown Color

infant-from Latin infans; in (neg.) + fans speaking (fans is the participle). In Roman law infant means a child not old enough to talk... Cretin-Old French-chretien, a Christian. Perhaps used first as a perjorative term by the ancient Romans because to them the first Christians were stupid enough to "turn the other cheek" when attacked by mobs or by the lions in the Roman amphitheater. Meconium-from Greek mekonion meaning the poppy juice obtained from pressing the whole plant which gives a thick Juice of black, greenish-brown color. The intestinal content of the newborn infant has a similar consistency and appearance and so Galenadopted the term for the content of the bowels of newborn infants. (Meconism means the opium habit). lcterus-from Greek ikteros, a yellow bird, probably the golden thrush or a species of oriole. Pliny relates that if a person suffering from jaundice looks at a yellow bird, the bird will die and the patient recovers. Icterus was first used in pediatrics by Ludwig von Buhl (1816-1880) when he described icterus neonatorum.

Roman Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clifford Ando
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
National Context ◽  
Historical Factors ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Contemporary Study

Roman law has been a system of practice and field of academic study for some 2,400 years. Today, the field enjoys unprecedented diversity in terms of linguistic, disciplinary, and national context. However, the contours of contemporary study are the product of complex and imbricated historical factors: the non-codification by the Romans of the classical period of their own public law; solutions taken in the classical period and later to resolve conflicts among sources of law of very different antiquity; the codification in late antiquity of academic jurisprudence regarding private law; the on-going prestige of Roman civil law in medieval and late medieval Europe, which made it a resource for analogical argumentation in both public and international law; and much else besides. This chapter evaluates the contribution made by some of these factors to Roman legal history as a contemporary endeavour, with an eye to its future.

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