Cato the Elder on Women

During the Second Punic War, the Romans enacted the uncontrollable nature and to this untamed creature and Oppian law, which limited the amount of gold women expect that they will themselves set no bounds to their could possess and restricted their dress. In 195 B.C.E., an license. Unless you act, this is the least of the things attempt was made to repeal the law, and women demon- enjoined upon women by custom or law and to which strated in the streets on behalf of the effort. According to they submit with a feeling of injustice. It is complete the Roman historian Livy, the conservative Roman official liberty or rather, if we wish to speak the truth, complete Cato the Elder spoke against repeal and against the license that they desire. women favoring it. His words reflect a traditional male ‘‘If they win in this, what will they not attempt? Re- Roman attitude toward women. view all the laws with which your forefathers restrained their license and made them subject to their husbands; even with all these bonds you can scarcely control them. Livy, The History of Rome What of this? If you suffer them to seize these bonds ‘‘If each of us, citizens, had determined to assert his one by one and wrench themselves free and finally to be rights and dignity as a husband with respect to his own placed on a parity with their husbands, do you think spouse, we should have less trouble with the sex as a you will be able to endure them? The moment they whole; as it is, our liberty, destroyed at home by female begin to be your equals, they will be your superiors. ... violence, even here in the Forum is crushed and trodden ‘‘Now they publicly address other women’s husbands, underfoot, and because we have not kept them individu- and, what is more serious, they beg for a law and votes, ally under control, we dread them collectively. ... But and from various men they get what they ask. In mat- from no class is there not the greatest danger if you ters affecting yourself, your property, your children, you, permit them meetings and gatherings and secret Sir, can be importuned; once the law has ceased to set a consultations. ... limit to your wife’s expenditures you will never set it ‘‘Our ancestors permitted no woman to conduct even yourself. Do not think, citizens, that the situation which personal business without a guardian to intervene in her existed before the law was passed will ever return.’’ behalf; they wished them to be under the control of fathers, brothers, husbands; we (Heaven help us!) allow What particular actions of the women protesting them now even to interfere in public affairs, yes, and to Q this law have angered Cato? What more general visit the Forum and our informal and formal sessions. concerns does he have about Roman women? What else are they doing now on the streets and at the What was Cato’s attitude toward women? Compare corners except urging the bill of the tribunes and voting and contrast this selection with the one by Xeno- for the repeal of the law? Give loose rein to their phon in Chapter 3.

The Evolution of Roman Law In 242 B.C.E., the Romans appointed a second praetor who One of Rome’s chief gifts to the Mediterranean world of was responsible for examining suits between a Roman and a its day and to succeeding generations of Western civili- non-Roman as well as between two non-Romans. The Ro- zation was its development of law. After the Twelve Tables mans found that although some of their rules of law could be used in these cases, special rules were often needed. These of 450 B.C.E., there was no complete codification of Roman law until the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian in rulesgaverisetoabodyoflawknownastheius gentium (YOOSS GEN-tee-um)—the law of nations—defined by the the sixth century C.E. (see Chapter 7). The Twelve Tables, though inappropriate for later times, were never officially Romans as ‘‘that part of the law which we apply both to abrogated and were still memorized by schoolboys in the ourselves and to foreigners.’’ But the influence of Greek philosophy, primarily Stoicism, led Romans in the late Re- first century B.C.E. Civil law, or ius civile (YOOSS see-VEE- lay), derived from the Twelve Tables proved inadequate public to develop the idea of ius naturale (YOOSS nah-too- for later Roman needs, however, and gave way to correc- RAH-lay)—natural law—or universal divine law derived tions and additions by the praetors. On taking office, a from right reason. The Romans came to view their law of praetor issued an edict listing his guidelines for dealing nations as derived from or identical to this natural law, thus with different kinds of legal cases. The praetors were giving Roman jurists a philosophical justification for sys- knowledgeable in law, but they also relied on Roman tematizing Roman law according to basic principles. jurists—amateur law experts—for advice in preparing their edicts. The interpretations of the jurists, often em- The Development of Literature and Art bodied in the edicts of the praetors, created a body of legal The Romans produced little literature before the third principles. century B.C.E., and the Latin literature that emerged in

132 CHAPTER 5 The Roman Republic