Lex Julia (or:
Lex Iulia, plural:
Leges Juliae/
Leges Iuliae) are
ancient RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
laws, introduced by any member of the Julian family.
In the narrow sense (especially when used in the English plural form,
Julian laws) they refer to a series of laws relating to marriage and morals, introduced by
AugustusGaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.
[These are the contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC...]
in
18Year 18 BC was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.-Asia:* Onjo becomes the first ruler of the Korean kingdom of Baekje ....
-
17 BCYear 17 BC was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* Under the emperor Augustus, Rome celebrated the Secular games, for which Horace's hymn the Carmen Saeculare was commissioned.-Births:...
.
Apart from Augustus' laws on marriage, the 90 BC Lex Julia is probably the best known of the laws under this name.
Lex Julia (or:
Lex Iulia, plural:
Leges Juliae/
Leges Iuliae) are
ancient RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
laws, introduced by any member of the Julian family.
In the narrow sense (especially when used in the English plural form,
Julian laws) they refer to a series of laws relating to marriage and morals, introduced by
AugustusGaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.
[These are the contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC...]
in
18Year 18 BC was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.-Asia:* Onjo becomes the first ruler of the Korean kingdom of Baekje ....
-
17 BCYear 17 BC was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* Under the emperor Augustus, Rome celebrated the Secular games, for which Horace's hymn the Carmen Saeculare was commissioned.-Births:...
.
Lex Iulia de Civitate Latinis Danda (90 BC)
Apart from Augustus' laws on marriage, the 90 BC Lex Julia is probably the best known of the laws under this name. It was introduced by consul L. Julius Caesar, and offered
Roman citizenshipCitizenship in ancient Rome was a privileged social status afforded to certain individuals with respect to laws, property, and governance.It is hard to offer meaningful generalities across the entire Roman period, as the nature and availability of citizenship was affected by legislation, for...
to all citizens of Italian municipia who had not raised arms against Rome in the Italian War (Social War).
Lex Iulia de Repetundis (59 BC)
This Law restricted the number of 'gifts' that a
GovernorA governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...
could receive during his term in a province, and also ensured that Governors balanced their accounts before leaving a province.
Augustus' laws on marriage and other moral topics (18 - 17 BC)
Under Augustus, the
Leges Juliae (
Julian Laws) of 18 - 17 BC attempted to elevate both the morals and the numbers of the upper classes in Rome and to increase the population by encouraging marriage and having children (
lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus) and establishing
adulteryAdultery is referred to as extramarital sex, philandery, or infidelity, but does not include fornication. The term "adultery" for many people carries a moral or religious association, while the term "extramarital sex" is morally or judgmentally neutral....
as a private and public crime (
lex Julia de adulteriis).
To encourage population expansion, the Leges Juliae offered inducements to marriage and imposed disabilities upon the celibate. Augustus instituted the "Law of the three sons" which held those in high regard who produced three male offspring. Marrying-age celibates and young widows who wouldn't marry were debarred from receiving inheritances and from attending public games.
These are the most often referred to
Julian Laws, and comprise:
Lex Iulia de Ambitu (18 BC): Penalising bribery when acquiring political offices.
Lex Iulia de Maritandis Ordinibus (18 BC) : Limiting marriage across social class boundaries (and thus seen as an indirect foundation of
concubinageConcubinage is the state of a woman in an ongoing, usually matrimonially-oriented relationship with a man who cannot be married to her, often because of a difference in social status.-Concubinage:...
, later regulated by Justinian, see also below).
Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis (17 BC) : This law punished adultery with banishment. The two guilty parties were sent to different islands ("dummodo in
diversas insulas relegentur"), and part of their property was confiscated. Fathers were permitted to kill daughters and their partners in adultery. Husbands could kill the partners under certain circumstances and were required to divorce adulterous wives.
- Augustus himself was obliged to invoke the law against his own daughter, Julia
Julia the Elder , known to her contemporaries as Julia Caesaris filia or Julia Augusti filia was the daughter and only natural child of Augustus. Augustus subsequently adopted several male members of his close family as sons...
(relegated to the island of Pandateria) and against her eldest daughter (Julia the YoungerJulia the Younger or Julilla was a Roman noblewoman of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the second child of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Julia the Elder...
). TacitusPublius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
adds the reproach that Augustus was stricter for his own relatives than the law actually required (AnnalsThe Annals is a history book by Tacitus covering the reign of the four Roman Emperors succeeding to Caesar Augustus. The parts of the work that survived from antiquity cover most of the reigns of Tiberius and Nero....
III 24)
Another law that came into existence under Augustus' reign, actually in 9 CE, the
Lex Papia PoppaeaThe Lex Papia Poppaea was a Roman law introduced in AD 9 to encourage and strengthen marriage. It included provisions against adultery and celibacy and complemented and supplemented Augustus' Lex Julia de Maritandis Ordinibus of 18 BC and the Lex Iulia de Adulteriis Coercendis of 17 BC. The lex...
, (to encourage and strengthen marriage) is usually seen as an integral part of Augustus'
Julian Laws. The
Lex Papia Poppaea also explicitly promoted offspring (within lawful marriage), thus also discriminating against celibacy.
Later updates to the Julian laws
The extracts below are from later legal codes and textbooks, but are also valuable in the sense that they are based on, and frequently quote from, the actual text of Augustus' laws.
Ulpian (3rd century)
As written down by
UlpianDomitius Ulpianus , anglicized as Ulpian, was a Roman jurist of Tyrian ancestry. The time and place of his birth are unknown, but the period of his literary activity was between AD 211 and 222...
The Lex Julia relating to marriage : (
EpitomeAn epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment....
13-14) By the terms of the Lex Julia, senators and their descendants are forbidden to marry freedwomen, or women who have themselves followed the profession of the stage, or whose father or mother has done so; other freeborn persons are forbidden to marry a common prostitute, or a procuress, or a woman manumitted by a procurer or procuress, or a woman caught in adultery, or one condemned in a public lawsuit, or one who has followed the profession of the stage....
Justinian (6th century)
Under the rule of Emperor Justinian
The Lex Julia on adultery : (
Institutes 4, 18, 2-3) Public prosecutions are as follows....the Lex Julia for the suppression of adultery punishes with death not only those who dishonour the marriage bed of another but also those who indulge in unspeakable lust with males. The same Lex Julia also punishes the offence of seduction, when a person, without the use of force, deflowers a virgin or seduces a respectable widow. The penalty imposed by the statute on such offenders is the confiscation of half their estate if they are of respectable standing, corporal punishment and banishment in the case of people of the lower orders.
But as regards the provisions of the Lex Julia....a man who confesses that he has committed the offence [i.e. adultery] has no right to ask for a remission of the penalty on the ground that he was under age; nor, as I have said, will any remission be allowed if he commits any of those offences which the statute punishes in the same way as adultery; as, for example, if he marries a woman who is detected in adultery and he declines to divorce her, or where he makes a profit from her adultery, or accepts a bribe to conceal illicit intercourse which he detects, or lends his house for the commission of adultery or illicit intercourse within it; youth, as I said, is no excuse in the face of clear enactments, when a man who, though he appeals to the law, himself transgresses it.
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