Localized Law: The Babatha and Salome Komaise ArchivesIn the early second century CE, two Jewish women, Babatha and Salome Komaise, lived in the village of Maoza on the southern coast of the Dead Sea. This was first part of the Nabataean Kingdom, but came under direct Roman rule in 106 CE as part of the province of Roman Arabia. The archives these two women left behind not only provide a tantalizing glimpse into their legal lives and those of their families, but also offer a vivid window onto the ways in which the inhabitants of this region interacted with their new rulers and how this affected the practice of law in this part of the Roman Empire. The papers in these archives are remarkable in their legal diversity, detailing Babatha and Salome Komaise's property and marriages, as well as their disputes. Nabataean, Roman, Greek, and Jewish legal elements are all in evidence, and are often combined within a single papyrus. As such, identifying the supposed 'operative law' of the documents has proven a highly contentious task: scholarly advocates of each of these traditions have failed to reach any true consensus and there remains division particularly between those who argue for a 'Roman' versus a 'Jewish' framework. Taking its lead from recent advances in the scholarship of Roman law, this volume proposes a change in focus: instead of attempting to identify the 'legal system' behind the documents, it seeks instead to understand the 'legal culture' of the community that produced them. Through a series of case studies of the people involved in the creation of the papyri - the scribes, legal advisors, local arbitrators, Roman judges, and the litigants themselves - we can build up a picture of the ways in which they variously perceived and approached the legal transactions, and thus of legal practice itself as being heavily influenced by the particular agents involved. This study therefore moves away from a systematic approach towards an historical study of ideas, attitudes, and perceptions of law, arguing that concentration on different agents' understandings will ultimately help scholars to better understand the actual functioning of law and justice in this particular localized legal culture and in other similar small communities in the Roman Empire. |
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Contents
Provincialization and Roman | |
Beginning to Reinterpret the Archives | |
The Scribes | |
Legal Advisors | |
The Parties | |
The Alternatives to the Assizes? | |
The Roman Officials | |
Conclusion | |
Bibliography | |
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Common terms and phrases
actio advisors antiquity arbitration attest authority Babatha and Salome Babatha archive Bar Kokhba revolt Besas Bryen Cave of Letters Chapter Chiusi claims copy Cotton and Yardeni decisions denarii Dionysia discussion dispute dowry Egypt Egyptian empire evidence example further governor governor’s court Greek documents Greek language guardians Hever 65 Humfress involved Jewish Aramaic Jews Josephus Judaean Desert Judah judges Julia Crispina Kantor Katzoff ketubbah kind language legal culture legal pluralism legal system Lewis litigants Maoza marriage marriage contract Nabataean Nabataean Aramaic one’s Oudshoorn Oudshoorn 2007 Oxford papyri Papyrology particular parties perhaps petition Petra Pliny possible probably provincials rabbinic reference Roman administration Roman Arabia Roman court Roman Egypt Roman law Roman legal Roman officials Salome Komaise archives scribes seems Shelamzion situation specific stipulatio Strabo Studies suggested summons Trajan transactions translation tribunals University Press village writing written in Greek Yadin 18 Yadin 21 βουλή καὶ λιβλάριος νομικοί
Bibliographic information
| Title | Localized Law: The Babatha and Salome Komaise Archives Oxford Studies in Roman Society & Law |
| Author | Kimberley Czajkowski |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, 2016 |
| ISBN | 0191083100, 9780191083105 |
| Length | 288 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / Ancient / General History / Ancient / Rome Law / Legal History |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |