Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250Freed from the familial and social obligations incumbent on the living, the Roman testator could craft his will to be a literal "last judgment" on family, friends, and society. The Romans were fascinated by the contents of wills, believing the will to be a mirror of the testator's true character and opinions. The wills offer us a unique view of the individual Roman testator's world. Just as classicists, ancient historians, and legal historians will find a mine of information here, the general reader will be fascinated by the book's lively recounting of last testaments. Who were the testators and what were their motives? Why do family, kin, servants, friends, and community all figure in the will, and how are they treated? What sort of afterlife did the Romans anticipate? By examining wills, the book sets several issues in a new light, offering new interpretations of, or new insights into, subjects as diverse as captatio (inheritance-seeking), the structure of the Roman family, the manumission of slaves, public philanthropy, the afterlife and the relation of subject to emperor. Champlin's principal argument is that a strongly felt "duty of testacy" informed and guided most Romans, a duty to reward or punish all who were important to them, a duty which led them to write their wills early in life and to revise them frequently. Freed from the familial and social obligations incumbent on the living, the Roman testator could craft his will to be a literal "last judgment" on family, friends, and society. The Romans were fascinated by the contents of wills, believing the will to be |
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Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250 Edward Champlin Limited preview - 2023 |
Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250, Part 250 Edward Champlin No preview available - 1991 |
Common terms and phrases
Amelotti ancient Apol Apuleius attested Atticus Augustales Augustus bequests brother captatio captation Cato century childless Chrest Cicero Cicero Cluent Claudius codicil coheir concern Constitutio Antoniniana Dasumius daughter dead death decurions Digest disinheritance document drachmae duty emperor evidence explicitly fideicommissum fiduciary heir FIRA foundations freed freedmen freedmen and freedwomen friends Fronto funeral Gaius gifts honor individual inheritance inscriptions interest intestacy Iulius jurists Laum leave legacies legatee liberti literature Longinus male manumission marriage Martial memory normally Papinian papyri parentalia percent Petronius Petronius Sat Plin Pliny Ep Plutarch posthumous Quintilian recorded relatives Responsa Roman citizen Roman law Roman testator Rome Saller scribes senators Seneca sesterces share slaves social society soldiers sons sportulae Suet Suetonius Suetonius Aug surviving Tacitus Tacitus Ann testament testamentary testamentum testator's tion tomb Ulpian Valerius Maximus wealth wife witnesses Woess women