From Bedroom to Courtroom argues that the fictional trial scenes in the Greek ideal romances reflect Roman legal institutions and ideas, particularly relating to family and sexuality. Given the genre’s emphasis on love and chastity, the specter of adultery looms over most of the scenarios that develop into elaborate trials. Such scenes shed light on the Greek reception of the criminalization of adultery promulgated by the moral legislation during the reign of Augustus. This book focuses on three major novels whose composition coincided with the extension of Roman citizenship when access to Roman courts was granted to increasing numbers of inhabitants of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Chariton’s Callirhoe is interpreted as an artifact of the generation after the implementation of the Augustan moral legislation, particularly its criminalization of adultery. Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon was created in a legally pluralistic milieu where shrewd sophists learned to navigate and exploit the interstices between the overlapping jurisdictions of imperial and local law. Finally, Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, widely regarded as the masterpiece of the genre, adapts the type-scene of the trial to present a series of case studies of different types of government, culminating in the utopian kingdom of Meroe. Through the novels’ melodramatic trial scenes, we can begin to see how the opening of Roman courtroom to Greek-speaking citizens of the Roman Empire stimulated dreams of a world in which universal justice under Rome was wed to Hellenism.
Reviews
“All in all, this a fascinating study, which Schwartz executes with skill. The book constitutes a welcome addition to the growing number of studies on the legal consciousness of the inhabitants of the Roman empire.” Kimberley Czajkowski in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017.10.41
Patrick Robiano in L’Antiquité Classique 87 (2018), 341-343
List of Tables IX
Preface XI
A Note about Transliteration XIII
INTRODUCTION 1
Rhetoric and Realia 12
Roman Law in the Greek World 18
The Form of the Trial Scene 26
I. CHARITON, CALLIRHOE 33
In the Shadow of the Lex Julia de adulteriis coercendis? 35
Trial 1. A Crime of Passion: Uxoricide 41
Trial 2. Pirates of the Mediterranean: Tomb Robbery and Kidnapping 51
Trial 3. A Hellene in the King’s Court: Malfeasance 61
Trial 4. Trial by Battle: Bigamy 83
Conclusion 89
II. ACHILLES TATIUS, LEUCIPPE AND CLITOPHON 93
Legal Pluralism in Roman Alexandria 95
Trial 5. Facts Not in Evidence: Murder 99
Trial 6. Iudicium Deorum: Sacrilege 117
Conclusion 143
III. HELIODORUS, AETHIOPICA 147
Patria Potestas after the Antonine Constitution 149
Trial 7. In the Name of the Father: Patricide 157
Trial 8. The Fury’s Whip: Entrapment 177
Trial 9. Innocents Abroad: Poisoning 187
Trial 10. A Royal Paternity Suit: Infanticide 201
Trial 11. Lost and Found: Abduction 215
Conclusion 227
GENERAL CONCLUSION 229
BIBLIOGRAPHY 241
Texts, Translations, and Commentaries 241
Works Cited 242
INDICES 263
Index Locorum 263
General Index 264
