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emancipation is at the very least one of the sources of the malevolent behavior that Romans sometimes attributed to their ancestors. The jurist Gaius observed that "the children whom we beget in civil marriage are also in our authority (potestas). This right is peculiar to Roman citizens; for scarcely any other men have over their sons a power such as we have” (Inst. 1.55). It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent of this paternal authority, the notorious patria potestas. In theory, at least, the head of the Roman family enjoyed absolute control of its property, and possessed the power of life and death over all of his unemancipated children (who were said to be in potestate). He could at his discretion order the exposure of a new-born child, sell his children into slavery, transfer the labour of a son now fully grown to a third party in payment of a debt, or compel his son to divorce his wife, even after children had been born to the union. Until the father was dead, a mature Roman citizen still in potestate did not have a legal personality, and could neither establish an independent household nor accumulate property in his own name, unless his father agreed to emancipate him through a cumbersome procedure of fictive sale." Roman literature is replete with morally uplifting stories of fathers who put their sons to death for breaches of discipline (cf., inter alia, Livy 8.7), but there is nothing imaginary about Aulus Fulvius, a senator executed out of hand by his father in 63 B.C. (Sall. Cat. 39.5; Dio Cass. 37.36.4). Under such circumstances, it would be surprising indeed if the Romans did not harbour ambivalent feelings when their fathers died.*
During the middle and late Republic, however, this authoritarian family structure began to dissolve, and in the first and second centuries A.D. it came under systematic legal assault. During the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138-161), for example, fathers were stripped of their authority to compel their children to divorce against their will (Paulus, Sent. 5.16.5). We have already seen that in this period the bond between kinship and property was also slowly breaking down. The latter had a significant impact on the cult of the dead we have noted the shift from personal to corporate worship exempli gratia. Hence it might be expected that a son who was emancipated from his father's jural authority and who could not realistically expect to
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emancipation is at the very least one of the sources of the malevolent behavior that Romans sometimes attributed to their ancestors. The jurist Gaius observed that "the children whom we beget in civil marriage are also in our authority (potestas). This right is peculiar to Roman citizens; for scarcely any other men have over their sons a power such as we have” (Inst. 1.55). It would be difficult to exaggerate the extent of this paternal authority, the notorious patria potestas. In theory, at least, the head of the Roman family enjoyed absolute control of its property, and possessed the power of life and death over all of his unemancipated children (who were said to be in potestate). He could at his discretion order the exposure of a new-born child, sell his children into slavery, transfer the labour of a son now fully grown to a third party in payment of a debt, or compel his son to divorce his wife, even after children had been born to the union. Until the father was dead, a mature Roman citizen still in potestate did not have a legal personality, and could neither establish an independent household nor accumulate property in his own name, unless his father agreed to emancipate him through a cumbersome procedure of fictive sale." Roman literature is replete with morally uplifting stories of fathers who put their sons to death for breaches of discipline (cf., inter alia, Livy 8.7), but there is nothing imaginary about Aulus Fulvius, a senator executed out of hand by his father in 63 B.C. (Sall. Cat. 39.5; Dio Cass. 37.36.4). Under such circumstances, it would be surprising indeed if the Romans did not harbour ambivalent feelings when their fathers died.*
During the middle and late Republic, however, this authori- tarian family structure began to dissolve, and in the first and second centuries A.D. it came under systematic legal assault. During the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138 161), for example, fathers were stripped of their authority to compel their children to divorce against their will (Paulus, Sent. 5.16.5). We have already seen that in this period the bond between kinship and property was also slowly breaking down. The latter had a significant impact on the cult of the dead we have noted the shift from personal to corporate worship exempli gratia. Hence it might be expected that a son who was emancipated from his father's jural authority and who could not realistically expect to
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