Shaw, R orcid.org/0000-0003-0151-0814 (2024) The Emperor Augustus and Narratives of Legal Origin. Law and Literature, 36 (1). pp. 31-47. ISSN 1535-685X
Abstract
Any legislation, whether ancient or modern, is contextualised by constitutional tradition, of which narratives of legal origins are a key part. These stories are an important source of the law’s authority and, as such, warrant particular attention. This paper re-examines the significance of the Emperor Augustus’ decision as legislator to overlook one of Rome’s key legal-aetiological narratives, the Twelve Tables, when introducing his radical package of social legislation, the leges Iuliae. As an expert statesman and an expert in legal storytelling, Augustus was acutely aware of the potency of stories. Yet stories of Rome’s first ever law code are conspicuous in their absence from narratives surrounding the leges Iuliae. Using Augustus and this controversial package of legislation as a case study, this article will evaluate the importance of origin narratives as a framework for legislation, and the significance of the stories legislators turn to in order to legitimise their laws.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
Keywords: | Roman Law, narrative, origin stories, Augustus, legislators |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Law (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 01 Dec 2022 13:02 |
Last Modified: | 29 Aug 2024 07:46 |
Published Version: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15356... |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/1535685x.2022.2143080 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:193506 |
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