The storyworld of the Augustan Marriage Legislation

: a narratological study of the leges Iuliae

Abstract

This thesis sets out to provide an original study of the Augustan Marriage Legislation through the lens of modern legal-narratological theory, focusing on the narrative operations, features and phenomena of this two-thousand-year-old body of legislation, its attendant stories and the wider legal system framing it. It aims to interrogate the story of the leges Iuliae and ask how, in spite of a strong legal and narratological framework available to the legislation, its narrative dynamics ultimately resulted in a deep antipathy among the people it was intended to govern. Specifically, the thesis will address a set of interrelated questions: to what extent is Roman law, and particularly the leges Iuliae, ‘full of stories’? How can modern narrative theory help uncover and investigate these myriad stories, and how they interact and intersect with one another? To what extent, and in what manner, have cultural narratives on the origins of the Roman legal system helped shape the landscape and provided a framework for the Julian Marriage Laws? And why, despite the narratological and legal potestas and auctoritas offered by these cultural narratives, is the legislation met with such resistance? In what ways can examining the cast of characters invented and perpetuated by the legislation, and their existence within the possible domains of the ‘storyworld’ of the legislation, reveal the profoundly unpopular nature of these legislative provisions? Through this innovative examination of the narrative features of the leges Iuliae, this thesis will argue that, despite a framework that should ostensibly have served to establish and strengthen the legal authority of the laws, Augustus and his legislation actually engendered the very narrative conditions which led to its downfall. It is therefore by turning to narratological tools, as this thesis will demonstrate, that the unpopularity and futility of the leges Iuliae can be re-examined and understood.

Date of Award	27 Sept 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Rebecca Probert (Supervisor) & Genevieve Liveley (Supervisor)