Law, Empire, and Identity between West and East
The Danubian Provinces
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23403980 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Benedikt Eckhardt (0000-0003-2710-9746, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Pages | 417-435 |
| Publication date | 2020-06-11 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Law in the Roman Provinces (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/oso/9780198844082.003.0020 |
| OpenAlex | W3044281761 |
| ISBN | 9780198844082 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Compared to the rich material from Egypt, evidence for law and legal practice in the Danubian provinces is rather slim. Still, inscriptions offer some insights into how Roman law was received, applied, and transformed in the second and early third centuries CE. Moving from West to East, the article will discuss three case studies and their wider implications. The rescript of Septimius Severus regarding membership in a collegium centonariorum at Solva in Noricum not only shows the emperor directly involved in a legal dispute, but also testifies to the application of the rules on collegia vel corpora known from the Digest. The wax tablets from Alburnus Maior in Dacia show how private legal practice could be shaped by Roman models, but diverge from them as people saw fit, leading to legal forms that have been frowned upon as ‘invalid’ by scholars of Roman law, but must have been useful to people at that time and place. Finally, the new municipal law from Troesmis in Moesia Inferior can be understood as a symbolic assertion of Roman identity in a region bordering on the barbaricum . From a range of rather different epigraphical sources, the multiple uses of Roman law can be deduced, leading to an overall impression that is not entirely different from what is found in the East.
Ancient history · Art · Assertion · Emperor · Empire · Identity (music) · Political science · Roman Empire · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Studies and Legal History · Classics · History · Law
| Citations per year | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |