Showing posts with label Roman Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman Law. Show all posts

May 18, 2020

Swain on Intoxication: Being "Without the Power To Drink Or Contract" @AuckLawSchool

Warren Swain, University of Auckland Faculty of Law, has published 'Without the Power to Drink or Contract' at 24 Edinburgh Law Review 26 (2020). Here is the abstract.
Intoxication as a ground to set aside a contract is not something that has proved to be easy for the law to regulate. This is perhaps not very surprising. Intoxication is a temporary condition of varying degrees of magnitude. Its presence does however raise questions of contractual autonomy and individual responsibility. Alcohol consumption is a common social activity and perceptions of intoxication and especially alcoholism have changed over time. Roman law is surprisingly quiet on the subject. In modern times the rules about intoxicated contracting in Scottish and English law is very similar. Rather more interestingly the law in these two jurisdictions has reached the current position in slightly different ways. This history can be traced through English Equity, the works of the Scottish Institutional writers, the rise of the Will Theory, and all leavened with a dose of judicial pragmatism.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

November 4, 2019

Waldron on Non-Normative Principles @JeremyJWaldron

Jeremy Waldron, New York University School of Law, has published Non-Normative Principles. Here is the abstract.
How should we think about legal principles? In analytic jurisprudence, the best-known account of legal principles — Ronald Dworkin’s account — assigns them a normative function in law, albeit not a hard or determinate one. But legal principles sometimes serve a characterizing rather than a normative function: they tell us about the character of a legal system rather than giving us instructions about how to deal with difficult cases. There is a further question whether characterizing principles can nevertheless perform some sort of normative function in legal argument. In the second half of this paper, I consider the operation of constitutional principles, like the rule of law and the separation of powers.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

June 11, 2019

Livkhovski on The Eagle and the Dove: Jewish Law Scholars and Roman Law During the Interwar Period

Assaf Likhovski, Tel Aviv University, Buchmann Faculty of Law, has published The Eagle and the Dove: Jewish Law Scholars and Roman Law during the Interwar Period in Pensiero giuridico occidentale e giuristi romani: Eredità e genealogie (Pierre Bonin, Nader Hakim, Fara Nasti and Aldo Schiavone eds., Torino: G. Giappichelli, 2019). Here is the abstract.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, a group of Jewish legal scholars working in Eastern Europe, and later in Mandatory Palestine, sought to « revive » (i.e., modernize) Jewish law and turn it into the legal system of the Jewish community in Palestine — and later the legal system of the State of Israel. Inspired by the nationalist legal ideas of the German historical school, as well as the successful revival of the Hebrew language, the Jewish legal revival project created a body of scholarship on Jewish law, established the first Jewish law school in Mandatory Palestine, and even influenced the work of a unique communal court system that functioned in the Jewish community in Palestine until the end of British rule in that territory. The Jewish legal revival project had an ambivalent attitude to Roman law (both ancient and modern). Modern scholarship on Roman law, especially nineteenth-century German legal scholarship, was seen as a model to be emulated by the Jewish legal revivers. Indeed, the Jewish legal revival project was often simply understood as a process of reorganization of the materials of Jewish law based on legal categories, models, and methodologies taken from modern Roman law scholarship. On the other hand, the legal revivers saw Roman law as the « other » of Jewish law, often arguing that the principles underlying the latter were utterly different from those of the former. Roman law was thus imagined and used by the early-twentieth-century Jewish law scholars discussed in this article in contradictory ways: sometimes as a legal system that should be emulated, and sometimes as a legal system whose norms and institutions should be shunned. Thus, as this article shows, Roman law, as it was described in the legal thought of the group of legal scholars I study, was used as a foil against which modern Jewish legal identity could be created.
Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

June 6, 2019

Giltaij on Reinventing the Principles of Roman Law @helsinkiuni

Jacob Giltaij has published Reinventing the Principles of Roman Law. Here is the abstract.
This contribution examines whether the work Prinzipien des roemischen Rechts (1934) by the German professor of Roman law Fritz Schulz (1879-1957) counts as an example of "refugee scholarship".
Download the work from SSRN at the link.

September 19, 2018

Domingo on Sources of Roman Law

Rafael Domingo, Emory School of Law; University of Navarra School of Law, has published Sources of Roman Law. Here is the abstract.
This chapter addresses the origin and development of Roman legal sources — that is, the methods and procedures for establishing new legally binding rules, standards, and norms. The source of a legal norm gives it ultimate validity. Legal sources can be classified in many different ways. In this chapter the classification will be based on the distinction between power (potestas) and authority (auctoritas) because this is probably the most comprehensive way to understand the legal implications of Rome’s transformation from the Republic to the Principate and then to the later Empire. During the Republic, the legal sources produced by individuals or institutions vested with power (popular assemblies and magistrates) were basically the statutes (leges and plebiscita) and the edicts of the magistrates. On the other hand, the legal sources produced by individuals or institutions vested with moral authority (auctoritas) were the legal opinions (responsa) of the jurists and the resolutions of the Senate (senatus consulta). The Principate brought a major alteration in the system of legal sources when the authority of the jurists and senators was subordinated to the power of the emperor. The emperor granted legislative power to the Senate. As result, senatorial resolutions became, in practice, legislation, that is, a source of coercive power instead of a source of moral authority. The responsa of the jurists, however, were submitted to imperial influence, opening the door to imperial rescripts, elaborated by the imperial chancellery under the direct control of the emperor. During the later Empire, all sources of law ended up being mere expressions of the imperial power (imperial constitutions). The authority of jurists and senators ceased to be a constitutional limit on imperial power. Moral authority and imperial power were entirely identified in the person of the emperor, whose will had the force of a statute.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

July 25, 2018

Grebieniow on Inheritance Law and Roman Law

Aleksander Grebieniow, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Law, Institute for Legal History, has published Inheritance Contracts & Roman Law. Here is the abstract.
The use of inheritance contracts is one of the most controversial issues about the Roman Law. It is not unanimous to whether the Romans knew them, and if so, whether they have practised disposing of one’s assets in the event of death by means of an agreement. It appears that the question can’t be solved without asking, how should we understand the notion of ‘inheritance contracts’. Are the modern concepts compatible with Roman legal experience being not compatible with each other? There are though certain proofs of ‘a contract-oriented way of thinking’ of the Roman jurists. They indeed prohibited some contract having a succession over a third person for an object but were not using a broader concept of inheritance contract. The present paper is meant as a reconsideration of this topic, with particular focus on the justifiability of the research questions which have been asked until now.
The full text is not available for download from SSRN.

May 30, 2018

Kearley on Roman Law Scholarhip and Translation in Early Twentieth-Century America

Timothy G. Kearley, University of Wyoming College of Law, has published Roman Law Scholarship and Translation in Early Twentieth-Century America. Here is the abstract.
This article provides an overview of the book Lost in Translations, which examines the lives and work of five twentieth century American Roman law translator-scholars: Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Fred H. Blume (1875-1971), who single-handedly translated Justinian’s Code and Novels; gentleman-scholar Samuel Parsons Scott (1846-1929) and classics professor Clyde Pharr (1883-1972), both of whom created massive translations of ancient Roman law; Charles Phineas Sherman (1874-1962), a lawyer-professor who translated some Roman law and wrote prolifically about it; and, finally, Charles Sumner Lobingier (1866-1956), a judge-professor who wrote about Roman law, translated a little, championed the publication of Scott’s work, and was connected to all of the others. All of these men were prominent during their lifetimes but are largely forgotten now. It is hoped that Lost in Translations will draw attention to the work these extraordinary men did and stir an interest to our classical past.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

April 10, 2018

Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Political Sublime and the World Order (Hart Publishing, 2018) @hartpublishing

New from Hart Publishing:

Pier Giuseppe Monateri, Professor of Law, University of Torino, Dominus Mondi: Political Sublime and the World Order (2018).

Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.


This monograph makes a seminal contribution to existing literature on the importance of Roman law in the development of political thought in Europe. In particular it examines the expression 'dominus mundi', following it through the texts of the medieval jurists – the Glossators and Post-Glossators – up to the political thought of Hobbes. Understanding the concept of dominus mundi sheds light on how medieval jurists understood ownership of individual things; it is more complex than it might seem; and this book investigates these complexities. The book also offers important new insights into Thomas Hobbes, especially with regard to the end of dominus mundi and the replacement by Leviathan. Finally, the book has important relevance for contemporary political theory. With fading of political diversity Monateri argues “that the actual setting of globalisation represents the reappearance of the Ghost of the Dominus Mundi, a political refoulé – repressed – a reappearance of its sublime nature, and a struggle to restore its universal legitimacy, and take its place.” In making this argument, the book adds an important original vision to current debates in legal and political philosophy.

 Media of Dominus Mundi

January 26, 2018

Bateman on The Hermeneutics of Sovereignty: The Written Word, State Sovereignty, and Freedom of Religion in the Late Antiquity Roman Empire @cg_bateman

C. G. Bateman, University of British Columbia, Faculty of Law, has published The Hermeneutics of Sovereignty: The Written Word, State Sovereignty, and Freedom of Religion in the Late Antiquity Roman Empire at 34 The Journal Jurisprudence 311 (December 2017).
Words are important. We order our lives around words. States and international bodies, themselves, are set forth as being based on what amount to collections of words in constitutions, charters, and codes. But these written legal instruments all refer to more basic philosophical principles and notions of justice, and those are the basis and justification for the laws themselves. But that they are written is important, and it gives us a starting point for trying to determine just what those principles are on which our society is based. We can also look back at the laws of earlier times to see just what principles guided their justifications, and very likely see reflections of our own choices on principles in theirs. The various states of the world constitute themselves based on documents which refer to these principles, as noted. What makes them a state, and one that can be thought of and recognized as a state vis-à-vis other states, is based on another principle laden idea, that of state sovereignty. But state sovereignty is not a thing, it does not really have an existence, instead it describes things, groups of people who order their lives around words. State sovereignty, in a real sense, is just words; what is far more important is what it signifies, and that is fairness and functional order in a defined societal unit. Words have been essential to the creation of sovereign states since at least, referring to the history of the Western world, the seventh century B.C.E; and for most of the intervening twenty-seven centuries, the belief in a single deity has set the parameters for what the Constitutions of the various Western states in our common history were based on. It is only in the last five centuries, perhaps, that Religion began to lose its sin qua non status in the organization and delivery of social services and justice in the Western experience. If historical context means everything, then historical context is everything when it comes to interpreting historical events. Like historian John Lukacs noted: “…the history of everything amounts to the thing itself.” Constantine and other emperors of Rome made laws they believed would encourage the stabilizing of their societies; we make laws for the same reason. We use the same means, legislation, but we justify it not on the pleasure of the gods, but on principles we believe in just as strongly. But these principles are in flux, and just as religion was jettisoned as a justification, so some of our ideas about justice have had to change.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

September 19, 2017

Silver on Serfdom By Contract In the Late Roman Empire

Morris Silver, City College of New York, Economics Department, has published Serfdom by Contract in the Late Roman Empire. Here is the abstract.
Legal codes and other documents of the late Roman Empire reveal a system, the colonate, which resembles serfdom in the Middle Ages. Farmers (coloni) had their (head and land) taxes paid by estate owners in whose census rolls they were registered. If the land changed ownership coloni were entitled to stay and were registered in the tax roll of the new owner. However, coloni and their offspring lacked the right to migrate. The paper argues that the pristine or original form of the colonate is a voluntary contractual arrangement among free farmers, estate owners, and the imperial Fiscus which acquired a public law dimension because it required a change in the personal status of the farmer. By means of this serfdom contract the contractors expected to share in the aggregate gains from reducing tax-collection costs and from stabilizing tax revenues. The paper goes on to suggest that a secondary or derived form of the serfdom contract probably emerged in response to the Roman state’s interventions in credit markets. The paper next considers the implications of the colonate for economic efficiency and concludes with some observations on the reasons for changes over time in its importance.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

July 12, 2017

Domingo on Justinian and the Corpus Iuris: An Overview @RafaelDomingoO1

Rafael Domingo, Emory University School of Law; University of Navarra, has published Justinian and the Corpus Iuris: An Overview. Here is the abstract.
The authors explores the most important legal undertaking of Antiquity: the Corpus Iuris Civilis promulgated by Emperor Justinian. Justinian’s codification is the bridge that links Antiquity, the Byzantine Empire, and Europe. It is also the link between civil law and common law, and between canon law and civil law. To know about the Corpus Iuris is to know about something that was instrumental for the development of justice and law in the past, continues to operate in the present, and will probably have its impact in the future. The Corpus Iuris, especially the Digest, has not only a historic value but an intrinsic one because it embodied the creative spirit and permanent character of all of Roman jurisprudence.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

June 27, 2017

Domingo on the Law of Property in Ancient Rome @EmoryLaw

Rafael Domingo, Emory University School of Law; University of Navarra, has published The Law of Property in Ancient Roman Law. Here is the abstract.
This paper addresses the Roman law of ownership and the rights that modified it, including, for instance, the rights of predial servitude and usufruct. Classic Roman jurists focused on private property over other kinds, such as sacred property and public property. Their doctrine of ownership was so influential that it has prevailed for centuries and even now maintains a substantial presence in the legal systems of the civil law tradition and in the realm of international law. There are even similarities to English property law, although English common law developed separately, based largely on feudal law.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

June 26, 2017

Domingo on the Roman Law of Succession @EmoryLaw

Rafael Domingo, Emory University School of Law; University of Navarra, has published The Roman Law of Succession. An Overview. Here is the abstract.
The law of succession addresses the legal destiny of a person’s rights and duties after his death. Closely tied to the fundamental and peculiar features of Roman family and society, the law of succession presents vast difficulties for Roman lawyers because of its highly sophisticated nature and lack of systematic coherence. It is no coincidence that eleven out of fifty books in the Digest address the law of succession. The development of the law of succession reflects important social changes in Roman economic structures and value systems. It echoes the progression from an old Roman agrarian society to a new commercial one. From a technical legal perspective, the law of succession reveals the tension between civil law and praetorian law. Without formally altering the civil law, the praetor introduced fundamental adjustments to protect emancipated persons, blood relatives in the female line, and surviving spouses, among others.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

May 2, 2017

Domingo on The Family in Ancient Roman Law

Rafael Domingo, Emory School of Law and University of Navarra, has published The Family in Ancient Roman Law. Here is the abstract.
The family constituted the basic structural framework of Roman society. The Latin term familia means, essentially, household. It can refer to both persons and things It encompasses all persons who are under the power of a single head (the paterfamilias), and, in a broader sense, all relatives connected by blood or marriage. In a still broader sense, the Roman family encompassed all personal property, including slaves and physical objects. Social stratification, sexual inequality, and legal subordination were defining features of the Roman family.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

March 14, 2016

Coulson on Legal Oratory in the Processus Sathanae

Doug Coulson, Department of English, Carnegie Mellon University, has published The Devil's Advocate and Legal Oratory in the Processus Sathanae at 33 Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric 409 (2015). Here is the abstract.

Modern readers have been baffled by the combination of legal, dramatic, and theological elements in the 14th century Processus Sathanae, a mock trial drama in which the devil’s advocate and the Virgin Mary employ various Roman law concepts in a courtroom debate regarding the devil’s claim that he was wrongfully dispossessed of humanity. This article examines the Processus Sathanae along with an early source of the drama in a Marcionite creation dialogue and argues that by foregrounding equitable and emotional appeals the drama taught late medieval law students important lessons regarding legal oratory during a crucial period in the development of European jurisprudence. 

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

March 8, 2016

Kearley on Roman Law in Twentieth Century America

Timothy G. Kearley, University of Wyoming College of Law, is publishing From Rome to the Restatement: S.P. Scott, Fred Blume, Clyde Pharr, and Roman Law in Early Twentieth-Century America in volume 108 of the Law Library Journal (2016). Here is the abstract.
This article describes how the classical past, including Roman law and a classics-based education, influenced elite legal culture in the United States and university-educated Americans into the twentieth century and helped to encourage Scott, Blume, and Pharr to labor for many years on their English translations of ancient Roman law.
Download the article from SSRN at the link.

May 13, 2015

Business Models, Law, and the Classical Roman Market

Benito Arruñada, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, has published The Institutions of Roman Markets as Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Economics and Business Working Paper Series 1471. Here is the abstract.
I analyze the basis of the market economy in classical Rome, from the perspective of personal-versus-impersonal exchange and focusing on the role of the state in providing market-enabling institutions. I start by reviewing the central conflict in all exchanges between those holding and those acquiring property rights, and how solving it requires reducing information asymmetry without endangering the security of property. Relying on a model of the social choice of institutions, I identify the demand and supply factors driving the institutional choices made by the Romans, and examine the economic circumstances that influenced these factors in the classical period of Roman law. Comparing the predictions of the model with the main solutions used by Roman law in the areas of property, business exchange and the enforcement of personal obligations allows me to propose alternative interpretations for some salient institutions that have been subject to controversy in the literature, and to conclude with an overall positive assessment of the market-enabling role of the Roman state.
Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

May 6, 2015

Cry, "Havoc"' and Let Slip the Dogs of War

Roger Kimball reviewing Barry Strauss's new book The Death of Caesar and unintended consequences here, for the New Criterion.



April 19, 2015

Cicero in the Law Courts

Jon Hall, University of Otago, New Zealand,  has published Cicero's Use of Judicial Theater with the University of Michigan Press. It is available in both hardcover and paperback. Here is a description of the contents from the publisher's website.

In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.
While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

 Book cover for 'Cicero's Use of Judicial Theater'
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater/?s=description#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
Jon Hall is Associate
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf
In Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater, Jon Hall examines Cicero's use of showmanship in the Roman courts, looking in particular at the nonverbal devices that he employs during his speeches as he attempts to manipulate opinion. Cicero's speeches in the law-courts often incorporate theatrical devices including the use of family relatives as props during emotional appeals, exploitation of tears and supplication, and the wearing of specially dirtied attire by defendants during a trial, all of which contrast strikingly with the practices of the modem advocate. Hall investigates how Cicero successfully deployed these techniques and why they played such a prominent part in the Roman courts. These "judicial theatrics" are rarely discussed by the ancient rhetorical handbooks, and Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater argues that their successful use by Roman orators derives largely from the inherent theatricality of aristocratic life in ancient Rome—most of the devices deployed in the courts appear elsewhere in the social and political activities of the elite.

While Cicero’s Use of Judicial Theater will be of interest primarily to professional scholars and students studying the speeches of Cicero, its wider analyses, both of Roman cultural customs and the idiosyncratic practices of the courts, will prove relevant also to social historians, as well as historians of legal procedure.

Illustration: Statue of Cicero, Arpino, Italy.
Jon Hall is Associate
- See more at: http://www.press.umich.edu/1879571/ciceros_use_of_judicial_theater#sthash.y3JSHOZS.dpuf

March 9, 2015

The Emperor Augustus and Law Reform

Charles J. Reid, Jr., University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota), has published Law Reform in the Ancient World: Did the Emperor Augustus Succeed or Fail in His Morals Legislation? as University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) Legal Studies Research Paper No. 15-06. Here is the abstract.

This is an Article with a dual purpose. First, it is concerned with the process of law reform: How do we judge a given reform's success or failure? Do we adopt strictly linear metrics? Or do we look at non-linear impacts? Thus: In the campaign against tobacco, do we judge it a success because it has reduced cigarette smoking? Or because it reduced the political power of the tobacco companies?
In this Article, I apply this complex means of analyzing law reform to the Emperor Augustus' morals legislation. Legal historians have typically regarded Augustus' morals legislation as having achieved, at best, mixed results. These historians, however, have tended to perform a linear assessment of the legislation. Did Augustus achieve the results he professed to want: that is, were cases of adultery prosecuted more frequently? Was elite childbirth encouraged? I argue, in contrast, that the legislation must be seen against Augustus' larger political agenda, which was the subjection of elite families to the laws of the emerging Roman Empire. Seen in these political terms, I argue that the legislation can be judged in substantial measure as successful.
Download the paper from SSRN at the link.