Rome-146-150 Flashcards
What was one of Rome’s gifts to the mediterranean world of its day and to later generations?
its system of law
What were the twelve tables?
Rome’s first code of laws
it was a product of a simple farming society and proved inadequate for later Roman needs.
From the twelve tables the Romans developed a system of civil law that applied only to Roman citizens.
What happened as Rome expanded?
Romans became involved in problems between Romans and non-Romans as well as between two non-Romans.
The Romans found that although some of their rules of civil law could be used in these cases, special rules were often needed.
These rules gave rise to a body of law known as the law of nations.
Under the influence of Stoicism the Romans came to identify their law of nations with natural law, or universal law based on reason.
This enabled them to establish standards of justice that applied to all people.
These standards of justice included principles that we would immediately recognize.
A person was regarded as innocent until proven otherwise.
People accused of wrong doing were allowed to defend themselves before a judge.
A judge, in turn, was expected to weigh evidence carefully before arriving at a decision.
These principles lived on long after the fall of the Roman Empire.
What was at the heart of the Roman social structure?
the family
What was the family headed by?
paterfamilias
What were paterfamilias?
the dominant male
What else did the household include?
wife
sons with their wives and children
unmarried daughters
slaves
What was a family?
a small state within the state and the power of the paterfamilias was parallel to that of state magistrates over the citizens.
Like the Greeks, Roman males believed that the weakness of the female sex necessitated male guardians.
The paterfamilies exercised that authority; upon its death, sons or nearest male relatives assumed the role of guardians.
By the late Republic, although the rights of male guardians remained legally in effect, upper-class women found numerous ways to circumvent the power of their guardians.
Who arranged the marriages of the daughters?
Fathers, although there are instances of mothers and daughters having influence on the choice.
In the Republic, women married “with legal control” passing from father to husband.
What happened by the mid first century B.C.E?
the dominant practice had changed to “without legal control” which meant that married daughters officially remained within the fathers legal power.
Since the fathers of most married women were dead, not being in “legal control” of a husband entailed independent property rights that forceful women could translate into considerable power within the household and outside it.
Roman marriages were intended to be for life, but divorce was introduced in the third century B.C.E. and became relatively easy to obtain since either party could initiate it and no one needed to prove the breakdown of the marriage.
Divorce became especially prevalent in the first century B.C.E, a period of political turmoil, when marriages were used to cement political alliances.
What did some parents in upper-class families provide for their daughters?
education.
Some girls had private tutors and others may have gone to primary schools.
But, at the age when boys were entering secondary schools, girls were pushed into marriage.
The legal minimum age for marriage was twelve, although fourteen was a more common age in practice.
Although some Roman doctors warned that pregnancy could be dangerous for young girls, early marriages persisted due to the desire to benefit from the dowries as soon as possible and the reality of early mortality.
Who was Tullia?
Cicero’s beloved daughter.
She was married at sixteen, widowed at twenty-two, remarried one year later, divorced at twenty-eight, remarried at twenty-nine, and divorced at thrity-three. She died at thirty-four, not unusual for females in Roman society.
What happened by the second century C.E?
signifiant changes were occurring in the Roman family.
The foundations of the authority of the paterfamilias over his family, which had already begun to weaken in the late Republic, were further undermined.
The paterfamilias no longer had absolute authority over his children; he could no longer sell them into slavery or have them put to death.
The husband’s authority over his wife also disappeared, a trend that had begun in the late Republic.
In the Early Empire, the idea of male guardianship continued to weaken significantly and by the late second century, though guardianships had not been abolished, they had become a formality.
What did upper-class Roman women in the Early Empire have?
considerable freedom and independence
What had they acquired?
the right to own, inherit, and dispose of property
