This volume offers a long overdue appraisal of the dynamic interactions between Roman law and Latin literature. Despite there being periods of massive tectonic shifts in the legal and literary landscapes, the Republic and Empire of Rome have not until now been the focus of interdisciplinary study in this field. This volume brings vital new material to the attention of the law and literature movement.
An interdisciplinary approach is at the heart of this volume: specialists in Roman law rarely engage in constructive dialogue with specialists in Latin literature and vice versa but this volume bridges that divide. It shows how literary scholars are eager to examine the importance of law in literature or the juridical nature of Latin literature, while Romanists are ready to embrace the interactions between literary and legal discourse. This collection capitalizes on the opportunity to open a fruitful dialogue between scholars of Latin literature and Roman law and thus makes a major, much-needed contribution to the growing field of law and literature.
1. Introduction: Roman Law and Literature (Ioannis Ziogas Durham University, UK and Erica Bexley Durham University, UK) PART I: Literature as Law 2. The Force of Literature (Michèle Lowrie, University of Chicago, USA) 3. Saturnalian Lex: Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis (Erica Bexley, Durham University, UK) 4. Iustitium in Lucan’s Bellum Civile (Thomas Biggs, University of St Andrews, UK) PART II: Literature and Legal Tradition 5. Terence’s Phormio and the Legal Discourse and Legal Profession at Rome (Jan Felix Gaertner, University of Cologne, Germany) 6. Beachcombing at the Centumviral Court: Littoral Meaning in the Causa Curiana (John Dugan, University at Buffalo, USA) 7. Marcus Antistius Labeo and the Idea of Legal Literature (Matthijs Wibier, University of Kent, UK) Part III: Literature and Property Law 8. Poetry, Prosecution, and the Author Function (Nora Goldschmidt, Durham University, UK) 9. The Sea Common to All in Plautus, Rudens: Social Norms and Legal Rules (Thomas A. J. McGinn, Vanderbilt University, USA) 10. Intellectual 'Property': Ownership, Judgment, and Possession among Civic Artes (John Oksanish, Wake Forest University, USA) 11. Seneca’s Debt: Property, Self-Possession, and the Economy of Philosophical Exchange in the Epistulae Morales (Erik Gunderson, University of Toronto, Canada) Part IV: Literature and Justice 11. Law in Disguise in the Metamorphoses: The Ambiguous Ecphrasis of Minerva and Arachne (Stella Alekou, University of Cyprus, Cyprus) 12. What the Roman Constitution Means to Me: Staging Encounters between US and Roman Law on Equality and Proportionality (Nandini B. Pandey, University of Wisconsin, USA) Notes Bibliography Index
Ioannis Ziogas is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University, UK. He is the author of Law and Love in Ovid (2021). Erica Bexley is Associate Professor of Classics at Durham University, UK. She is the author of Seneca's Characters: Fictional Identities and Implied Human Selves (2022).
