CLST 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Potestas, Pater Familias, Political Alliance

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: CLST 103
• Professor: Christina Zaccagnino

Document Summary

Patria potesta: power of life and death over all the members of the family. Legal meaning: included everyone in household (wife, sons, daughters, slaves. With marriage, they go from manus (control) of father to control of husband. Sometimes was used as a political move. Tiberius divorced his wife, who he loved, to marry julia, for the dynasty. 230 bce: carvilius ruga was the first man to divorce o. Freedman , introduced the letter g to the latin alphabet. The letter c was used as both prior to this. Until the 1 c. ad, u went from semi-vowel to a semi-consonant that sounds like v The dowry passed to the husband and was returnable in case of divorce. After divorce, the children were always under the potestas of the father, no custody battles. Most records that referenced divorce were from upper classes, since lower classes didn"t really have a voice or a means to tell their stories.