¹ It was read to the Classical Association at Manchester in April 1965.

² I am indebted to Dr. M. I. Finley and Mr. M. K. Hopkins for bibliographical help which has enabled me to do some (all too superficial) reading in sociological and andiropological works.

³ Gai, . Inst. i. 55.Google Scholar

⁴ Beauchet, L., Droit privé de la république athénienne, ii. 74 f.;Google ScholarErdmann, W., Die Ehe im alten Griechenland, 33 f.Google Scholar That in Republican Rome there were plenty of wives not in manu, whose property remained in the ownership of their own paterfamilias, and that in fourth-century Athens people seem to have done things with wills that did not square with the laws of Solon, only blurs the edges of die contrast a little.

⁵ Most elaborately worked out by C. W. Westrup in a very repetitive series of studies, Introduction to Early Roman Law, Comparative Sociological Studies, The Patriarchal Joint Family, vol. i, Community of Cult, 1944 (sic); vol. ii, Community of Property, 1934; vol. iii,Google Scholar Patria Potestas, 1939. See also Vinogradoff, P., Historical Jurisprudence i. 261 f.;Google ScholarGaudemet, J., Étude sur le régime de l'indivision en droit romain, ch. 1.Google Scholar

¹ In many known societies personal trinkets, clothing, and weapons (sometimes buried with their ‘owner’) are the only recognized individual property; or acquisitions by work or office may have this status, as against the family land. The distinction made in the Twelve Tables between familia and pecunia is probably of this kind, and is put into its anthropological setting by Goody, J., Death, Property and the Ancestors, 298 f.Google Scholar

² See, for example, Goody, , op. cit. 311,Google Scholar n. 9; Levy, M. J. Jr, The Family Revolution in Modem China, 52 f.Google Scholar

³ See Gernet, L., Droit et société dans la Grèce ancienne, 124 f. (arguing to the contrary).Google Scholar

⁴ See Sachers, E. in R.E. xxii. 1. 1059–61 (also arguing to the contrary).Google Scholar

⁵ With Sachers, loc. cit.

⁶ Schulz, F., Principles of Roman Law, ch. 3.Google Scholar

¹ See Homans, G. C., English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century, 119 f.Google Scholar

² Digest 28. 2. 11 pr.

³ Gai, . Inst. 3. 154a.Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid. 1. 155 and 164.

⁵ This is a deliberately rough and simplified account of cura prodigi, the details of which are not well attested. See De Visscher, F., ‘La curatelle et l'interdiction des prodigues’, Études de droit romain (1931), 23 f.Google Scholar (= Mél. Cornil, ii. 539f.);Google ScholarSchulz, F., Classical Roman Law, 200 f.;Google ScholarKaser, M., Das römische Privatrecht, i. 75 f. Valerius Maximus has a good anecdote, 8. 6. 1.Google Scholar

⁶ Sec Homans, op. cit., for the coexistence of different family and inheritance patterns in thirteenth-century England, Goody, op. cit., for a similar coexistence in adjacent West African tribes, and Vinogradoff, , op. cit. 195 on the two marriage and inheritance systems in the same people in Ceylon.Google Scholar

⁷ Lang, Olga, Chinese Family and Society, 14–16, 135–7, and 140.Google Scholar

¹ The Institutes of Gaius, ed. de Zulueta, F., ii. 177.Google Scholar On fratriarchy in the ancient Near East see Koschaker, P. in zeitschr. für Assyriologie xli (N.F. vii) (1933), 1 f.Google Scholar

² It is touched on also by Kaser, , Das. r. Privatrecht, i. 83 and n. 11.Google Scholar

³ Cf. Campbell, J. K., Honour, Family and Patronage, on the Sarakatsani of modern Epirus.Google Scholar

⁴ Cf., for old Japan, Longrais, F. Joüon des, L'Est et l'Ouest 431,Google Scholar and for old China, Levy, , op. cit. 52.Google Scholar

⁵ Lévy-Bruhl, H., Nouvelles études sur le très ancien droit romain, 33 f.,Google Scholar and articles ‘Heres’ in Revue internat. des droits de l'antiquité, iiiGoogle Scholar (Mél. De Visscher, ii) (1949), 137 f.Google Scholar and ‘Intestatus’ in Studi Albertario, i. 545 f.Google Scholar

⁶ To explain substitutio pupillaris: Buckland, W. W., The Main Institutions of Roman Private Law, 73–74.Google Scholar

⁷ If pater dies intestate his sons can succeed him as nearest agnates, says Lévy-Bruhl, relying on a passage of Pomponius (Digest, 38. 16. 12) the context of which is quite unknown. But even then none of them can be heres, for we know that the nearest agnate only familiam habet. So where is the head of the family?

¹ Digest 10. 2. 39. 3; 17. 2. 52. 6–8; 26. 7. 47. 6; 27. 1. 31. 4; 29. 2. 78; 31. 89. 1.

² Inst. 3. 154b.Google Scholar

³ Arangio-Ruiz, V., La società in diritto romano, 7.Google Scholar

⁴ Val. Max. 4. 4. 8; Plutarch, , Aem. Paull., 5. 6 and 28. 9.Google Scholar

⁵ Plutarch, , M. Crassus, 1.Google Scholar

⁶ Livy 41. 27. 2; Veil. Pat. 1. 10. 6; Val. Max. 2. 7. 5. There are problems of identity; see Scullard, H. H., Roman Politics 220–150 B.C., 192 and 286;Google ScholarBroughton, T. R. S., Mags. of the Roman Republic, i. 391, n. 3;Google ScholarSuolahti, J., The Roman Censors, 369.Google Scholar

⁷ Varro, , res rust., 3. 16. 2. There were three sisters really.Google Scholar

⁸ According to Lang, Olga, op. cit. 138–40 and 146,Google Scholar in old China it was the upper class who tended to live in joint families; the poor split up. In nineteenth-century Russia, on the other hand, the nobles lived in conjugal families and the peasants remained undivided.

¹ Plutarch, , M. Crassus, 1.Google Scholar

² e.g. Zulueta, , op. cit. 87;Google ScholarNicholas, B., An Introduction to Roman Law, 260.Google Scholar

³ On legal dodges see the summary, in Proceedings of the Classical Association lxi (1964), 28 f., of an analysis by D. Daube.Google Scholar

¹ For the relation between law, religion, and social custom in Rome see Kaser, , ‘Der Inhalt der patria potestas’, zeitschr. der Savigny-Stiftung, röm. Abt. lviii (1938), 62 f.Google Scholar For very early Rome see Bras, G. le in Droits de l'antiquité et sociologie juridique, Mélanges Henri Léy-Bruhl, 420.Google Scholar

² A casuistry ‘de gradu atque ordine oificiorum’ is revealed in an interesting passage of Gellius, , Noct. Att. 5. 13.Google Scholar

³ Greenidge, A. H. J., Infamia in Roman Law (1894).Google Scholar

⁴ Even bad farming could attract this stigma, Gellius, , Noct. Att. 4. 12.Google Scholar On the censorial role see Kaser, , ‘Der Inhalt der patria potestas’, 74 f.Google Scholar

⁵ Note also the marriage oath before the censors, ‘se uxorem liberum quaerundum gratia habiturum’, quoted by Gellius, , Noct. Att. 4. 3. 1–2Google Scholar and 4. 20, in the context of the first recorded divorce.

⁶ Gellius, , Noct. Att. 2. 2;Google Scholar but note the stories in Val. Max. 5. 4. 3 (with 6. 9. 1) and 5. 4. 5.

⁷ See Costa, E., Il diritto privato romano nelle comedie di Plauto, 193 f.Google Scholar The cases boil down to: (a) references in the Captivi to servus peculiaris given to a son when a little boy, to grow up with him, and (b) references in the Mercator (95–97 and 972–3) to aestitnatae merces given to a son trading as his father's agent to enable him to trade also on his own account.

⁸ Pernice, A., Marcus Antistius Labeo, i. 121–2,Google Scholar followed by Mandry, G., Das genuine Familiengiiterrecht, ii. 28–29.Google Scholar

¹ Pro Rosc. Am. 15. 44. Perhaps there is an axe being ground here.Google Scholar

² Pro Cael. 7. 17–18.Google Scholar

³ De clem. 1. 15. 2–7.Google Scholar See also Digest 33. 8. 6. 4 for an annual allowance which forms part of a daughter's peculium only if said to.

⁴ The probable meaning of Val. Max. 8. 6. 3.

⁵ Suet, . Tib. 15. 2.Google Scholar

⁶ Gai, . Inst. 2. 136;Google Scholar cf. Crook, J. A. in Class. Review lxviii (N.S. iv) (1954), 154.Google Scholar

⁷ On ius honorarium in general see Nicholas, , op. cit. 19 f.,Google Scholar and on bonorum possessio ab intestate see Schulz, , Classical R. Law, 227 f.Google Scholar

⁸ As Lévy-Bruhl, sadly admits, Nouvelles études, 80.Google Scholar

⁹ e.g. Nicholas, , op. cit. 252 and 260.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Val. Max. 7. 7 and 8.

¹¹ There is an excellent discussion of this evidence in Renier, E., Étude sur l'histoire de la ‘querela inqfficiosi’ en droit romain, 82 f.Google Scholar

¹² Gellius, , Noct. Att. i. 6. 8;Google Scholar Val. Max. 9. 1. 2; Cic, . pro Rosc. Am. 19. 53.Google Scholar

¹³ Val. Max. 7. 8. 2. Indeed, the normal expectation was that one would remember in one's will a wide range of collateral and cognatic relations as well; see Renier, loc. cit.

¹⁴ As did Murdia: Laudatio Murdiae, Bruns, Fontes, ed. 7 no. 127 (= Fontes iuris Rom. anteiust. iii, no. 70).Google Scholar

¹ See the rules of bonorum possessio, especially contra tabulas, in Schulz, , Classical R. Law, 227–37 and 266–73.Google Scholar

² Val. Max. 7. 7. 6; 7. 7. 7; and 3. 5. 2, respectively.

³ Hence the ‘praetorian will’, iure honorario, Schulz, , Classical R. Law, 245.Google Scholar

⁴ Val. Max. 7. 7. 2.

⁵ Id. 8. 2. 2, expensilatio as a legal dodge to leave money to a mistress.

⁶ On these cases see Renier, , op. cit. 86–87.Google Scholar

⁷ By Kaser, M. in the important paper ‘Prätor und Iudex’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis xxxii (1964), 340–4,Google Scholar following Kunkel, W., Unters. zur Entwicklung des röm. Kriminalverfahrens in vorsullanischer Zeit, 115–19.Google Scholar

⁸ See Renier, op. cit.; Schulz, , Classical R. Law, 275 f.;Google ScholarKaser, , Das röm. Privatrecht, i. 591 f.Google Scholar

⁹ Noct. Att. 2. 24.Google Scholar

¹⁰ It did not touch their intestate rights. You would have to omit your daughter, in which case by right of civil (not praetorian) law she would automatically come in to a fraction, provided she was in your potestas, Gai. Inst. 2. 124.Google Scholar See Steinwenter, A. in R.E. xii. 2418.Google Scholar

¹ Implied by the tale in Cic. de fin. 2. 17.55.

² Cic, . II in Verr. i. 104–10.Google Scholar

³ Cic. de fin., loc. cit.