Abstract: In ancient Rome, free women were citizens, but the notion of civic identity is more suitable than that of citizenship for the study of the Roman woman. Her position in the society differs from the position of the Greek woman: more relevant in religion and law and more present in social, civic and judicial spaces. It was an important position but always subordinate to that of the man. The birth and establishment of Christianity will not change the relationship between a man and a woman.
Women and Civic Identity in Roman Antiquity
Leo Peppe*)*)Leo Peppe is a retired full professor of Roman Law at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, before he was professor at the Universities of Pisa, Perugia and LUISS in Rome. This article is an extended version of the lecture held at the Institut für Rechtswissenschaftliche Grundlagen – Fachbereich Römisches Recht of the University of Graz on Nov. 9, 2016. Literature is quoted only when strictly necessary or just published. Up-to-date and extensive bibliography in Leo Peppe, Civis Romana. Forme giuridiche e modelli sociali dell‘appartenenza e dell‘identità femminili in Roma antica, 421 (2016). The author basically used for his translations The Digest of Justinian (Alan Watson ed., 1985); also useful have been Bruce W. Frier & Thomas A. J. McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law (2004); The Loeb Classical Library, https://www.loebclassics.com/ (last visited Mar. 27, 2017). The kind colleagues Irmtraud Fischer, Christoph Bezemek, Volker Grieb, and Evelyn Höbenreich have my gratitude for their questions and suggestions made after my lecture.ALJ 2017, 23 Heft 1 v. 10.4.2017
