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The Testament of Sempronius Tuditanus*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
Extract
Sempronius Tuditanus, son of the consul of 129 BC and a nobilis of some wealth, achieved notoriety on account of his eccentric behaviour. The ancient authors who mention him attribute this to insanity. Cicero alludes to Tuditanus early in the first century BC (Phil. 3.16; Acad. 2.89) and Valerius Maximus (7.8.1) comments on his will. Valerius' text, which has attracted its share of debate, is of particular interest to scholars working on the lex Voconia (not mentioned by Valerius Maximus) and the handling of wills drawn up by a furiosus. It occurs in a section of Valerius' work discussing instances of wills that were upheld, but which might have been set aside as void. Tuditanus' will provides Valerius' first example:
His rescissorum testamentorum exemplis contenti, attingamus ea quae rata manserunt, cum causas haberent propter quas rescindi possent Quam certae, quam etiam notae insaniae Tuditanus! Utpote qui populo nummos sparserit, togamque velut tragicam vestem in foro trahens maximo cum hominum risu conspectus fuerit, ac multa his consentanea fecerit. Testamento <filium> instituit heredem, quod Ti. Longus sanguine ei proximus hastae iudicio subvertere frustra conatus est: magis enim centumviri quid scriptum esset in tabulis quam quis eas scripsisset considerandum existimaverunt.
- Type
- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2007
Footnotes
*
I wish to thank Professor Greg Horsley, Dr Kathryn Welch and Mr Martin Stone for their assistance with this paper.
References
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13 Inst. 2.12.1.
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29 Cic. Phil. 3.16Google Scholar wishes Tuditanus had bequeathed to Fulvia a contempt of wealth rather than its substance: vellem hanc contemptionem pecuniae suis reliquisset!
30 Inst. 1.13-15.
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34 Inst. 2.18
35 Cic. Phil. 3.16Google Scholar. Tuditanus’ father was consul in 129 BC.
36 The chances that Tuditanus was sui iuris and registered in the census of 86 BC are very good. Registration in the census was expected, and his father would have been at least sixty-eight at the time of the census in 97 BC, and seventy-nine in 86 BC.
37 Cic. de Fin. 2.55Google Scholar: This case occurred in Cicero's youth (aderamus nos quidem adulescentes . . .); Cic. in Verr. 2.41.104–111Google Scholar: Verres made the claim in 74 BC and was prosecuted by Cicero in 70 BC; Cic. de Fin. 2.58Google Scholar: this case arose in the previous generation. Cicero wrote the de Finibus in 54 BC.
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46 Cic. Phil. 3.16Google Scholar.
47 Seen. 31.
48 The lex Voconia was one of several notable laws dealing with property and inheritance in ancient Rome (e.g. lex Furia, 204 BC; lex Voconia, 169 BC; lex Falcidia, 40 BC; leges Iulia et Papia Poppaea, 18 BC - AD 9). Of its extensive provisions only two can be identified with any certainty: that no-one registered in the first census class after the censorship of Aulus Postumius and Quintus Fulvrus was permitted to institute a female heres; and that no legatee was to take from a testator registered in the first census class more than was received by that testator's heres or heredes. Inst. 2.22; Cic. in. Verr. 2.41.104-114; G. 2.226,274.
49 A similar scheme can be seen in the Laudatio Turiae: see ILS 8393 (CIL. VI. 1527, 31670, 870S3) in which the father instituted as his heirs Cluvius and the Laudator, the husbands of his two daughters. For a contextual discussion of the procedure of the Centumviral Court under the Principate see Sherwin-White, A.N., The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford 1966) 181-3Google Scholar, 314-5, 336. On the entrenched suspicions concerning a husband's access to the property of his sui huis wife see Crook, (n. 32) 98–107Google Scholar; Pearce, T.E.V., ‘The Role of the Wife as Custos in Ancient Rome’, Eranos 72 (1974) 17–33Google Scholar; Dixon, , AJPh 106 (1985) 147-70Google Scholar; Gardner, (n. 32) 67–80Google Scholar; Treggiari, S., Roman Marriage: lusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (New York 1991) 365-96Google Scholar.