Lex Julia

Lex Julia (or: Lex Iulia, plural: Leges Juliae/Leges Iuliae) are ancient Roman 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 Augustus in 18-17 BC.

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. Caesar, and offered Roman citizenship 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 Governor could receive during his term in a province, and also ensured that Governors balanced their accounts before leaving a province.

Lex Iulia Municipalis (45 BC)

Sets regulations for the Italian municipalities.

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 adultery 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 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 (relegated to the island of Pandateria) and against her eldest daughter (Julia the Younger). Tacitus adds the reproach that Augustus was stricter for his own relatives than the law actually required ("Annals" III 24)

Another law that came into existence under Augustus' reign, actually in 9 CE, the "Lex Papia Poppaea", 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 Ulpian;The Lex Julia relating to marriage : ("Epitome" 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.

:("Digest" 4, 4, 37) 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.

See also

* Roman law
* List of Roman laws

External links

* [http://web.upmf-grenoble.fr/Haiti/Cours/Ak The Roman Law Library, incl. "Leges"]