Law & Order in Ancient Rome

1101 Milford St,Houston TX 77006

27 September, 2022

Description

Roman Law stands at the heart of the Civil Law traditions worldwide, as distinct from the Common Law we know in the United States. The Romans developed their systems of law over many centuries, as Rome grew from a city state to an imperial republic and then later an imperial monarchy ruled by dynasties of emperors. In this lecture, we will explore the differences between our ways of legal thinking on a variety of subjects like theft, family law, and torts, to see just how different our modern assumptions of law and order are from the ancient world. We will address questions like: If the Roman Senate was not a legislature, what did it do? Why did the Romans not consider theft a public crime, but a private matter? Why is “the welfare of the child” not a principle to be found in Roman family law? Is a runaway slave thereby guilty of theft? Why can a husband sue his wife if she makes a necklace of pearls he has given to her? Weird legal questions often lay bare major assumptions, as we shall see. About the presenter: Richard H Armstrong (BA University of Chicago, Masters in Phil and PhD Yale University) is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Houston. His research is on the reception of classical culture in later times with particular emphasis on translation studies and the history of psychoanalysis. - The ICCC is funded in part by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.