Legitimacy law roman world

Elizabeth A. Meyer0521497019, 9780521497015, 9780511184468

The Romans wrote solemn religious, public, and legal documents on wooden tablets often coated with wax. This book investigates the historical significance of this resonant form of writing and its power to make documents efficacious. It traces its role in court, its spread to the provinces (an aspect of Romanization) and its influence on the evolution of Roman law. Elizabeth Meyer reveals how Roman legal documents on tablets are the ancestors of today’s dispositive legal documents — the document as the act itself. In a world where knowledge of Roman law was scarce (and enforcers scarcer), Roman law drew its authority from a wider world of belief.

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Table of contents :
Half-title……Page 2
Title……Page 4
Copyright……Page 5
Dedication……Page 6
Contents……Page 8
Illustrations……Page 9
Acknowledgments……Page 10
Abbreviations……Page 12
Introduction……Page 18
part one The world of belief……Page 26
classical athens……Page 29
the hellenistic greek world……Page 33
chapter 2 Roman perceptions of Roman tablets: aspects and associations……Page 38
tabulae in general……Page 41
legal tabulae of individuals……Page 53
chapter 3 The Roman tablet: style and language……Page 61
style and syntax……Page 62
archaic and archaizing language……Page 76
elements, abbreviation, and parody……Page 80
chapter 4 Recitation from tablets……Page 90
prayer……Page 91
curse-tablets……Page 94
legal procedure……Page 96
the power of recitation……Page 104
chapter 5 Tablets and effcacy……Page 108
“unitary” acts……Page 109
constitutive acts……Page 124
legal tabulae……Page 129
part two The evolution of practice……Page 138
chapter 6 Roman tablets in Italy ( ad15–79)……Page 142
the campanian tablets……Page 143
formal, procedural, tabul a-based acts: the “testationes” in the first century ad……Page 151
chirographs in the first century ad……Page 165
the evolution of roman documents: witnesses and sealers……Page 175
conclusion: the senatusconsultum neronianum of ad 61……Page 180
chapter 7 Roman tablets and related forms in the Roman provinces (30 bc– ad260)……Page 186
the roman way in the roman provinces……Page 187
romans and others in the provinces……Page 200
why does roman practice in provincial settings change?……Page 223
chapter 8 Tablets and other documents in court to ad400……Page 233
the republic……Page 235
the empire……Page 244
late antiquity……Page 258
chapter 9 Documents, jurists, the emperor, and the law ( ad200– ad535)……Page 267
stipulation……Page 270
mancipation and the roman will……Page 282
other, related acts……Page 293
emperors and sollemnitas……Page 304
Conclusion……Page 311
References……Page 316
Index……Page 358