Page 147 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

A Roman Woman. Roman women, especially those of the upper class, had comparatively more freedom than women in classical Athens, despite the persistent male belief that women required guardianship. This portrait of a Roman woman serving food is from a Roman fresco dating from the first century B.C.E.
the first codification of Roman law (see the box on p. 110), and although inappropriate for later times, they were never officially abrogated and were still memorized by schoolboys in the first century B.C.E. Civil law derived from the Twelve Tables proved inad- equate for later Roman needs, however, and gave way to corrections and additions by the praetors. On taking office, a praetor issued an edict listing his guidelines for dealing with different kinds of legal cases. Although the praetors were knowledgeable in law, they also relied on Roman jurists—amateur law experts—for advice in preparing their edicts. The interpretations of the jurists, often embodied in the edicts of the prae- tors, created a body of legal principles.
In 242 B.C.E., the Romans appointed a second prae- tor who was responsible for examining suits between a Roman and a non-Roman as well as between two non- Romans. The Romans found that although some of their rules of 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, defined by the
Romans as “that part of the law which we apply both to ourselves and to foreigners.” But the influence of Greek philosophy, primarily Stoicism, led Romans in the late republic to develop the idea of the law of na- ture—or universal divine law derived from right rea- son. The Romans came to view their law of nations as derived from or identical to this law of nature, thus giving Roman jurists a philosophical justification for systematizing Roman law according to basic principles.
The Development of Literature
The Romans produced little literature before the third century B.C.E., and the Latin literature that emerged in that century was strongly influenced by Greek models. The demand for plays at public festivals eventually led to a growing number of native playwrights. One of the best known was Plautus (PLAW-tuss) (ca. 254–184 B.C.E.), who used plots from Greek New Comedy (see Chapter 4) for his own plays. The actors wore Greek costumes and Greek masks and portrayed the same basic stock characters: lecherous old men, skillful slaves, prostitutes, and young men in love. Plautus wrote for the masses and became a very popular play- wright in Rome.
In the last century of the republic, the Romans began to produce a new poetry, less dependent on epic themes and more inclined to personal expression. Latin poets were now able to use various Greek forms to express their own feelings about people, social and po- litical life, and love. The finest example of this can be seen in the work of Catullus (kuh-TULL-uss) (ca. 87–54 B.C.E.), Rome’s “best lyric poet” and one of the greatest in world literature.
Catullus wrote a variety of poems on, among other things, political figures, social customs, the use of lan- guage, the death of his brother, and the travails of love. He became infatuated with Clodia, the wife of a provin- cial governor, and addressed a number of poems to her (he called her Lesbia), describing his passionate love and hatred for her (Clodia had many other lovers besides Catullus):
You used to say that you wished to know only Catullus, Lesbia, and wouldn’t take even Jove before me!
I didn’t regard you just as my mistress then: I cherished you as a father does his sons or his daughters’ husbands. Now that I know you, I burn for you even more fiercely,
though I regard you as almost utterly worthless.
How can that be, you ask? It’s because such cruelty forces
lust to assume the shrunken place of affection.2
Society and Culture in the Roman World 109
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