Tilson, E.C.

English

The aim of this thesis is to establish the significance of
the Augustan period in the history of law-making and of various
important areas of Roman Law. Clearly, the demise of the Roman
Republic and the emergence of a princeps could not fail to be
reflected in a system which had evolved, along with the Republic
itself, over five centuries, and which was, therefore, closely
linked with Republican institutions and processes. The varied
Republican channels of law-making continued to be employed under
Augustus, but never before had one man enjoyed sufficient power
and auctoritas to enable him to oversee a large law-making
programme as Augustus did.

In chapter 1, i survey briefly the many enactments which are
attributed in the evidence to the Augustan period after about 19
B. C., particularly those which can confidently be categorised as
statutes, senatusconsulta or edicts, in order to see what happened
to the Republican sources of law under Augustus and to look at the
sorts of issues which were regulated by law during the Augustan
period. The remaining chapters are devoted to the most important
and best documented Augustan statutes, the lex Iulia de maritandis
ordinibus and the lex Papia Poppaea (chapters 2 and 3), the lex
Iulia de adulteriis coercendis (chapter 4) and the lex Aelia
Sentia and the lex Fufia Caninia (chapter 5). The purpose of
these chapters is to examine the individual statutes in detail and
to see what policies and aims may be detected in them in order to
assess their importance in the history of these areas of Roman Law
and as reflections of the aims and achievements of Augustus in
general. The most important observations ma

Augustus and law making.

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