¹ The following abbreviations have been used:

CTh = Codex Theodosianus ed. Mommsen, Th. and Meyer, P. (1903)Google Scholar.

Campbell = Campbell, J. K., Honour, Family and Patronage (1964)Google Scholar

Desanti = L. Desanti, ‘Costantino, il ratto e il matrimonio riparatore’, SDHI 1986, 195–217.

Grodzynski = D. Grodzynski, ‘Ravies et coupables: un essai d'interpretation de la loi IX. 24. 1 du Code Théodosien’, MEFRA 96 (1984), 697–726.

Herzfeld = Herzfeld, M., ‘Gender Pragmatics: Agency, Speech, and Bride-Theft in a Cretan Mountain Village’, Anthropology 9 (1985), 25–44Google Scholar.

Magnarella = Magnarella, P. J., Tradition and Change in a Turkish Town (1964)Google Scholar.

Bates = Bates, D. G., ‘Normative and Alternative Systems of Marriage among the Yoruk of southeastern Turkey’, Anthropological Quarterly 47 (1974), 270–87Google Scholar.

Kudat = A. Kudat, ‘Institutional Rigidity and Individual Initiative in Marriages of Turkish Peasants’, ibid., 288–303.

Lockwood = W. G. Lockwood, ‘Bride Theft and Social Maneuverability in Western Bosnia’, ibid., 253–69.

Stross = B. Stross, ‘Tzeltal Marriage by Capture’, ibid., 328–45.

² All translations are my own, unless otherwise noted. My translation of CTh IX. 24. 1 differs in some important respects from that given by Clyde Pharr, , The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions (1952)Google Scholar.

³ Seeck, O., Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste für die Jahre 311 bis 476 n. Chr. (1919), 61, 63Google Scholar; followed by Jones, A. H. M., Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (1948), 199Google Scholar; T. D. Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius (1981), 220 and The New Empire of Diocletian and Constantine (1982), 77; and Desanti. Other scholars, however, including Grodzynski and Mommsen, retain the 320 date.

⁴ Another law of Constantine, CTh IX. 5. 1, declares that a slave or freedman who dares to inform on his master or patron is to be denied a hearing and crucified. But cf. CTh IX. 9. 1 (326 or 329), which also encourages delation by slaves. On use of a slave informant in CTh IX. 24. i, see Grodzynski, 702.

⁵ cf. Bates, 276; Campbell, 124.

⁶ Campbell, 127–8, cf. 201; du Boulay, J., Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village (1974), 98Google Scholar.

⁷ Campbell, 124–32 indicates clearly the relationship between betrothal and abduction. Cf. Herzfeld, 28: sometimes refusal by the girl's father may be an ‘intentional challenge’ to the suitor to abduct her.

⁸ Bates, 276–7; Kudat, 291. Cf. Herzfeld, 30–8 (a first-person narrative by the abductor).

⁹ Bates, 275; Campbell, 129; Herzfeld, 37–8; Lockwood, 253–4, cf. 259; Magnarella, 116.

¹⁰ Raped: Bates, 275; Kudat, 291; Stross, 340; cf. du Boulay, 93 (op. cit., n. 6). But rape is not necessary to effect the purpose of abduction: cf. Campbell, 130; Herzfeld, 29.

¹¹ Bates, 275; Campbell, 130; Lockwood, 254; Stross, 340–8; Herzfeld, 39–41, another first-hand account: the girl refused to marry her abductor, only to be abducted by him again.

¹² cf. Lockwood, 266–7, on the frequency of bride theft in a Moslem area of Yugoslavia, where the possibility of divorce for either party is an important factor in ‘reducing the hazards of marriage by theft’. Divorce would be much less easy in Catholic or Greek Orthodox communities.

¹³ Bates, 272, claims that among the Yoruk of Turkey twenty per cent of all marriages take place by means of bride theft (or elopement, which cannot always be distinguished from abduction). Cf. Magnarella, 113; Campbell, 130; Stross, 340; 342 (Mayan community in Mexico).

¹⁴ Kudat, 292; cf. Lockwood, 254, 260; Campbell, 308; Stross, 339.

¹⁵ cf. Herzfeld, 30–8, whose narrator was virtually railroaded into abducting his bride by his own relatives and her father.

¹⁶ I have found two references to such staged abductions: S. Silverman, Three Bells of Civilization (1975), 201–2 (Umbrian hill-town); and Mair, L., Marriage (1971), 97Google Scholar (African tribes). Unlike ‘real’ abduction marriages, the other financial components of a marriage agreement (dowry in Italy; bridewealth in Africa) have been arranged in advance and it is only the absence of a proper wedding ceremony that makes this ‘irregular’.

¹⁷ Campbell, 131. But cf. Handman, M.-E., La violence et la ruse: Hommes et femmes dans un village grec (19831), 85Google Scholar; three of the five cases of abduction/elopement in the Thessalian community she studies ended not only in reconciliation but with a full wedding ceremony and the handing over by the bride's parents of her dowry and trousseau.

¹⁸ Handman (n. 17) claims that some families actually do this in Greece and south Italy, in contrast to the village she studied where this does not happen. She cites no evidence for this claim and I have come across no cases where a girl's parents are said to have contrived an abduction in order to avoid a dowry, nor any where the abductor and the girl's parents act in collusion for this purpose.

¹⁹ Bates, 276–7 (among lower classes; abductors' families who are better off tend to pay bride price); cf. Kudat, 291–2 (bride price much less in cases of abduction); Stross, 343.

²⁰ Herzfeld, 29–30.

²¹ Despite the imposition in Yugoslavia in the nineteenth century of the death penalty for the groom, corporal punishment for members of the wedding party, and defrocking of the priest who officiated at the wedding, abduction marriages continued to take place well into the twentieth century (Lockwood, 254).

²² cf. CTh IX. 1. 3 (322); CJ 11. 12. 21 (315), for disapproval of women's involvement in legal affairs; and CJ V. 37. 22. 5 (326) and CTh III. 16. 1 (331) for a poor opinion of women's behaviour and motives. Cf. Dixon, S., ‘Infirmitas Sexus: Womanly Weakness in Roman Law’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 52 (1984), 343–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ In fact Constantine himself knew better: cf. CTh IX. 1. 3 (322).

²⁴ e.g., the nurse in Euripides' Hippolytus, or the slave girl in Lysias' On the Murder of Eratosthenes; also Theocritus 6; Ovid, Remedia Amoris 638; also cf. Juvenal VI. 352. Cf. Bates, 275 on female accomplices in the household.

²⁵ On deprivation of inheritance rights as the penalty for a girl marrying without her parents' permission, see P. Merêa, ‘Le mariage sine consensu parentum dans le droit romain vulgaire occidental’, RIDA 5 (1950), 203–17, esp. 208. Generally a girl's dowry was considered part, or even all, of her patrimony; it is not clear whether CTh IX. 24. 1 intends to prevent parents from providing a previously abducted daughter with a dowry, which, although not actually a legal requirement for marriage under Roman law, was generally considered an essential part of a marriage settlement.

²⁶ D. XXIII. 1. 12 (Ulpian); cf. S. Treggiari, ‘Consent to Roman Marriage: Some Aspects of Law and Reality’ in EMC/CV 26 (1982), 34–44.

²⁷ Lockwood, 260; du Boulay (op. cit., n. 6), 92–4; Magnarella, 13; cf. Bates, 275. Elsewhere in Turkey, however, a verbal distinction is made between kidnapping and elopement: Kudat, 290–5.

²⁸ On the Lex Julia de adulteriis see Gardner, J., Women in Roman Law and Society (1986), 127–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ CTh IX. 7. 2, dated 25 April 326.

³⁰ CTh IX. 24. 2. But slaves involved in cases of raptus are still to be burnt.

³¹ Plagiarii (defined in law as those who kidnap others' children): CTh IX 18. 1 (315). Haruspices: CTh IX. 16. 1 (319). Parricides: CTh IX. 15. 1 (318).

³² CTh IX. 8. i, issued 4 April 326. It is difficult to know exactly what capitalis poena meant in the fourth century: CTh IX. 10. 1 (317?) explicitly contrasts supplicium capitate with relegatio aut deportatio insulae, implying that exile was no longer considered a capital penalty. But capitalis poena may still have meant exile with confiscation of property (deportatio), at least for honestiores, in which case CTh IX. 24. 2 envisaged a substitute of exile for execution. Cf. P. Garnsey, Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire (1970), 103–52; and Grodzynski, D., ‘Tortures mortelles et catégories sociales’ in Du châtiment dans la cité (Collection de l'École Française de Rome 79, 1984), 361–403Google Scholar, who assumes that capitalis poena is beheading and thus distinguished from summa supplicia (cf. Garnsey, 104–5).

³³ Dupont, C., Le droit criminel dans les constitutions de Constantin. I Les infractions (1953)Google Scholar, assumes (p. 48) that the penalty omitted in the Theodosian Code was burning, as do Barnes (op. cit., n. 3), 220; and Grodzynski, 712.

³⁴ CTh IX. 24. 3, addressed to Maximinus, then praetorian prefect of Gaul.

³⁵ See Sowa, C. A., Traditional Themes and the Homeric Hymns (1984), 121–44Google Scholar. The words used to describe seizure for sexual purposes in the Hymns are harpazo, haireō, and ago (Sowa, 124).

³⁶ Theseus 2. 2; cf. 31–2; Romulus 9. For representations on Attic vases of Theseus in pursuit of a girl, see Sourvinou-Inwood, C., ‘A Series of Erotic Pursuits: Images and Meanings’, JHS 107 (1987), 131–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁷ Herod. 1. 4. 2. Cf. also the Phoenicians' explanation of the harpagē of Io: she ran away with the Phoenician sailors willingly after discovering that she was pregnant by one of them (1. 5. 2).

³⁸ Quotation from the introduction to AQ 47, ‘Kidnapping and Elopement as Alternative Systems of Marriage’, by D. G. Bates, F. Conant, and A. Kudat, 233–7, at 236; cf. Magnarella, 16.

³⁹ See Richardson, N. J., The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (1974), esp. 3–30 and 74 ff.Google Scholar On the motif of abduction while picking flowers: Sowa (op. cit., n. 35) 135 ff.

⁴⁰ Suggested by Mylonas, G. E., Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (1961), 261–4Google Scholar, but questioned by Richardson.

⁴¹ C. Sourvinou-Inwood, ‘The Young Abductor of the Locrian Pinakes’, BICS 20 (1973), 12–21; and Ian Jenkins, ‘Is there Life after Marriage? A Study of the Abduction Motif in Vase Paintings of the Athenian Wedding Ceremony’, BICS 30 (1983), 137–45. I am grateful to J. J. Winkler for bringing these articles to my attention.

⁴² Sourvinou-Inwood 1973, 17–89; and Jenkins.

⁴³ Sourvinou-Inwood 1987 (op. cit., n. 36), esp. 139–41.

⁴⁴ Lycurgus 15.3; the word used is again harpagē. On marriage by capture at Sparta, see Lacey, W. K., The Family in Classical Greece (1968), 197–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Herodotus VI. 65. 2: Demaratus stole the bride intended for Leotychides by carrying her off (harpazō is the verb used).

⁴⁶ See Torelli, M., Lavinio e Roma: Riti Iniziatici e Matrimonio tra Archeologia e Storia (1984), 75–7Google Scholar; but cf. R. Kostler, ‘Raub- und Kaufehe bei den Römern’, ZSS.RA 65, (1947), 43–68, at 53–4.

⁴⁷ Citations are from M. Winterbottom's Loeb edition (1974) of the Elder Seneca and id., The Minor Declamations Ascribed to Quintilian (1984). The relevant texts are: Contr. l. 5; 11. 3; III. 5; IV. 3; VII. 8; cf. VIII. 6; ‘Quintilian’, Decl. 247; 251; 252; 259; 262; 270; 276; 280; 286; 301; 309; 343; 349; 368; 370 and 383.

⁴⁸ ‘Effregit fores’: Contr. 11. 3. Sodales: Contr. 11 3; cf. IV. 3: ‘Collegit ingentem numerum perditorum, expugnavit domum, vexavit puellam’. Drunk: Contr. VII. 8; Decl. 309. See Winterbottom's (1984) note on such excuses, p. 453.

⁴⁹ An exception is Contr 1. 5, where the same man ‘rapuit’ two girls successively in one night; here the crime would appear to be simple rape without any intention of marriage on the raptor's part.

⁵⁰ Contr. III. 5. The girl's father, in whose hands lies the choice between marriage and death for the raptor, is still refusing to make up his mind.

⁵¹ In three cases the raptor was put up to it by a third party: Decl, 252 and 270 (same situation); and, apparently, 343.

⁵² Decl. 259.

⁵³ Rapta in collusion with raptor: Contr. 1. 5; Decl. 259, 262. Her father in collusion with raptor: Contr. 11.3; Decl. 349. On ‘connivance and collusion’ as rhetorical colours, see Winterbottom (op. cit., n. 47, 1984), 325.

⁵⁴ See Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire (1969), esp. 84–132Google Scholar; Kennedy, G., The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (1972), 312–37.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ D. XLVIII. 5. 30. 9 (Ulpian), 6. 3. 4 and 5. 2 (Marcian). See also D. XLVII. 10. 1 and 2, 10. 9. 4, 10. 10, and Sententiae Pauli V. 4. 4; Gardner (op. cit., n. 28), 118–21. Abduction or sexual abuse of unwilling freeborn boys was also a crime: D. XLVII. II pr. = Sententiae Pauli V. 4. 14; Sent. Pauli 11 26. 12; cf. 13; see also D. XLVIII. 48. 6. 6. Cf. also Grodzynski, 719–21. Rapere in third-century legal text: n. 61 below.

⁵⁶ Phaedrus, Fabulae, Perotti's Appendix 16. Text in B. E. Perry's Loeb edition (1965). I am grateful to J. J. Winkler for the references to abduction marriage in Phaedrus, Achilles Tatius, Plutarch and Polemo.

⁵⁷ Tatius, Achilles, Clitophon and Leucippe 11. 13–18Google Scholar and VIII. 17–19 (Loeb edition). Most scholars now date Achilles Tatius to the second century A.D.

⁵⁸ Plutarch. Amatorius 11 (Moralia), 754 E-755 D (Loeb edition).

⁵⁹ Polemo, , de physiognomia liber in Scriptores Physiognomici Graeci et Latini, ed. Foerster, R. (1893), 286–90Google Scholar. The original Greek does not survive, but the text was preserved in an Arabic translation (I am relying on the Latin translation of the Arabic in Foerster's edition.) For my knowledge of Polemo and his work I am indebted to Maud Gleason.

⁶⁰ cf. Magnarella, 115.

⁶¹ D. XLVIII. 6. 52. Marcian is referring to the possibility of an extraneus bringing a charge of stuprum per vim according to the Augustan law on public violence. Note that whereas the third-century jurist denies the possibility of a five-year statute of limitations (on the analogy of adultery accusations) in cases of raptus, CTh IX. 24. 3 of 374 established just such a limit because of the possibility of long-lasting marriages being disrupted (see n. 34).

⁶² Contr. II. 3; Decl. 349; cf. Quintilian, Inst. IX. 2. 90. 1. Both Grodzynski, 703–4 and Desanti, 210–11 have suggested that the statement in CTh IX. 24. 1 denying that the responsio of the rapta will be of use to the raptor refers to her choosing the option of marriage. Desanti thinks that until CTh IX. 24. 1, Roman law had allowed, sometimes even encouraged, such a ‘matrimonio riparatore’. Cf. Bonner (op. cit., n. 54), 90. See below for Justinian's law.

⁶³ This is how I interpreted CJ V. 1. 1 and IX. 12. 3, both addressed to Bianor (dated 293) and joined by Krueger.

⁶⁴ For this interpretation, see Desanti, 209, whose article I did not see until after I had written this.

⁶⁵ CTh IX. 1. 1, issued December 316 and received in Corduba March 317.

⁶⁶ P. Oxy. L. 3581 (fourth or fifth century); translation is that of the editor. On this papyrus, see Bagnall, Roger, ‘Church, State and Divorce in Late Roman Egypt’ in Florilegium Columbianum: Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller. ed. Somerville, R. E. and Selig, K.-L. (1987), 41–61Google Scholar.

Other possible cases of raptus in the papyri: PSI 893 (dated 315) apparently concerns a case of ‘reverse abduction’ of a girl by her father, who took her away from her husband after two days of marriage (as interpreted by Taubenschlag, R., The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri (2nd ed. 1955), 142 n. 41.)Google Scholar. P. Oxy. 1837 (sixth century) concerns the apparently illegal detainment of a certain Macaria by a man, but is is unclear whether this is a case of abduction for the purpose of marriage: see Baldwin, B., ‘Crime and Criminals in Greco-Roman Egypt’, Aegyptus 43 (1963), 256–63Google Scholar. BGU 871 (second century) concerns a case of hybris and bia (= vis) and harpagē, but the victim appears to be a male pais.

⁶⁷ Translated by Callahan, V. W. in Saint Gregory of Nyssa: Ascetical Works (1967) 164Google Scholar. For the Greek text see P. Maraval's edition (Sources Chrétiennes, 1971), at 144–4, with his note.

⁶⁸ For the canons of Council of Ancyra, see Histoire des Conciles d'après les documents originaux, by Hefele, C. J., revised Leclerq, H. (1909), 1. 1, 313.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Canon 25 of the same council was clearly prompted by a specific incident, also involving premartial sex and betrothal.

⁷⁰ The translation given here is that of Roy J. Deferrari in his Loeb edition, m, 113–37 passim. An introduction to and explanation of the ‘canonical epistles’ is given by Deferrari, x–xvi. All canons mentioned here are from Ep. 199. On Basil's penitential system, Deferrari, xii–xv.

⁷¹ E.g. canon 14 of Council of Elvira (Baetica, early fourth century); cf. also Basil's canons 25 and 26.⁷²Both the Council of Elvira (canon 13) and Basil (canon 18) have a quite different policy when the girl is a consecrated virgin; there adultery (to Christ) is at issue, and the penalty is much harsher. Imperial law also considers the case of consecrated virgins separately: see below.

⁷³ Campbell, 130.

⁷⁴ On the disguising of elopement as abduction, see n. 14. Sexual autonomy of widows: cf. Basil's canons 41 and 42.

⁷⁵ Epistle 270, trans. Deferrari, IV. 140–3 (with my correction of his mistranslation of harpagē as ‘rape’).

⁷⁶ Family feuds and vengeance killing: Herzfeld, 29; Campbell, 200–3. See Lockwood, 259–60 for a case with the same elements.

⁷⁷ According to a law of Theodosius 1 (CTh XI. 39. 8, 381), bishops could not be forced to testify in court, so (assuming that Epistle 270 post-dates 381, which is not certain) Basil would not have put himself in legal jeopardy by avoiding the imperial courts. For the same reluctance to bring before secular law Christians who have committed sex crimes, cf. canon 34 (adulteresses).

⁷⁸ This interpretation goes back to Godefroy (Gothofredus), and is adopted by Desanti (217); T. D, Barnes (op. cit., n. 3), 220; and B. Biondi, Il diritto romanocristiano (1952–4), III, 484. Dupont (op. cit., n. 33) says it is possible that the Church's concern with raptus (as seen in canon 11 of Ancyra) drew Constantine's attention to the problem, but that the Emperor's treatment of raptus is totally different from that of the Church council. Grodzynski, 710–11, leaves the question of Christian influence open.

⁷⁹ Part 11 above. The title is that of the fifth-century compilers of the CTh.

⁸⁰ Grodzynski, 709–10; cf. MacMullen, R., ‘Judicial Savagery in the Roman Empire’, Chiron 16 (1986), 147–66Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Eusebius, . VC IV. 31Google Scholar.

⁸² Amm. Marc. XVI. 5. 12. Grodzynski, 713 points out that here the rapta's family clearly did press charges, and there is no mention of any penalty for the girl. Presumbably Julian declined to punish her at all.

⁸³ CTh XI. 36. 7 (344): ‘quorum appellationes non recipiantur’, CTh IX. 38. 3 (369); ix. 38. 4 (368); IX. 38. 6 (381); IX 38. 7 (384); IX. 38. 8 (385): ‘de indulgentiis criminum’; cf. CTh IX. 2. 5 (409).

In Constantine's decree of amnesty (CTh IX. 38. 1, 322), there is no mention of raptus; likewise in XI. 36. 1 (314), nothing is said regarding raptores—but CTh IX. 24. 1 explicitly denies them the right of appeal.

⁸⁴ CTh IX. 25. 1 (354), addressed to the urban prefect Orfitus.

⁸⁵ CTh IX. 25. 2 (364); Sozomen, HE VI. 3.

⁸⁶ Sirmondian Constitution 10 (420), of which CTh IX. 25. 3 is an excerpt; Novels of Majorian 6. 4 (458)

⁸⁷ According to canon 27 of the Council of Chalcedon, laymen who abduct women are to be anathematized; clerics are to be deposed.

⁸⁸ Justinian's law is found at CJ 1. 3. 53 (raptus of consecrated women) and CJ IX. 13. 1 (raptus of all other women). CJ V. 17. II, and perhaps also CJ VII. 24. 1 and XI. 48. 2 are from the same law, though they do not directly concern raptus.

⁸⁹ CJ IX. 13. 1. 1. The law's wording suggests that lynching of the raptor by the woman's family or protectors was allowed, if they caught him in the act. So Grodzynski, 725 also understands it.

⁹⁰ CJ IX. 13. 1. 2.

⁹¹ CJ IX. 13. 1. 3b.

⁹² The locus classicus is Lysias I (On the Murder of Eratosthenes).

⁹³ Grodzynski, 724. It may be that raptae were rarely punished, even under Constantine's law. Merêa (art. cit., n. 25) thinks that judges always preferred the less severe penalty of disinheritance, even for willing raptae. The nurse's gruesome punishment is also absent from Justinian's law.

⁹⁴ Abduction marriage was also a Germanic custom in early medieval Europe: Herlihy, D., Medieval Households (1985), 29–55Google Scholarpassim; Duby, G., The Knight, the Lady and the Priest (1981, Eng. 1983), esp. 32–53Google Scholar. See also Brundage, J., ‘Rape and Seduction in the Medieval Canon Law’ in Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church, ed. Bullough, V. L. and Brundage, J. (1982), 141–8Google Scholar. For Byzantine law: Beaucamp, J., ‘La situation juridique de la femme à Byzance’ in Cahiers de civilisation mediévale 20 (1977), 145–76Google Scholar, at 168–9. For Digenes Akritas, see the text and trans, of J. Mavrogordato (1956), esp. books 1 and 4.

⁹⁵ At least in the case of first marriage, when daughters and often sons would be under twenty-five and therefore, in the eyes of late Roman law, still minors.

⁹⁶ Merêa (op. cit., n. 25), 205, believes that the alleged weakening of patria potestas in late antiquity had led to children arranging their own marriages, thereby precipitating new legal restrictions. Cf. Dupont (op. cit., n. 33), 47. In fact, there are several later laws which do reassert the authority of the family elders over the marriages of women under twenty-five: CTh III. 7. 1 (371); CJ V. 4. 20 (409); CTh in. 5. 12 (422).

⁹⁷ CTh III. 5. 2 (319), addressed to the urban prefect of Rome. If one of the couples dies before the marriage, any gifts exchanged reverted to the giver or his/her immediate heirs (this was modified by CTh in. 5. 6).

⁹⁸ CTh III. 5. 6 (336), addressed to the Vicar of Spain.

⁹⁹ CTh III. 5. 4 and III. 5. 5, addressed to Pacatianus, praetorian prefect, in 332.

¹⁰⁰ cf. Corbett, P. E. C., The Roman Law of Marriage (1930), 8–16Google Scholar; Watson, A., The Law of Persons in the Later Roman Republic (1967), 11–18Google Scholar.

¹⁰¹ Text in Hefele-Leclerq (op. cit., n. 68), 251. Canons 11 and 25 of the Council of Ancyra also involve betrothal: see above, n. 68–9.

¹⁰² For betrothal in late antique Christian society, see Shaw, B., ‘The Family in Late Antiquity: the Experience of Augustine’, Past and Present 115 (1987), 3–51Google Scholar, esp. 34–9; Anné, L., Les rites des fiançailles et la donation pour cause de mariage sous le Bas-Empire (1941)Google Scholar.

¹⁰³ Sym. Ep. 9. 43 (I am grateful to John Matthews for this reference). On betrothal among the Roman upper classes before Constantine: Treggiari, S., ‘Digna Condicio’, Échos du Monde classique 28 (1984), 419–51Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ See Part 1. In classical Athens, betrothal (engyē) was a prerequisite for legitimate marriage (except in the case of epiklēroi), and was customary in other Greek states: Lacey (op. cit., n. 44), 105–6 and 225. It has often been suggested that late Roman betrothal laws were strongly influenced by Greek and Near Eastern customs, but this is disputed by Anné (n. 102).

¹⁰⁵ See n. 22 above.

¹⁰⁶ cf. CTh IX. 1. 1 (n. 65 above); also CTh IX. 10. 1 (317?) and 2 (318). See Coroï, J., La violence en droit criminel romain (1915), 304–33Google Scholar, esp. 308–21. There is plenty of evidence in the papyri for such local violence: cf. Baldwin (art. cit. n. 66), 262.

¹⁰⁷ e.g., CTh IX. 9. 1 (326 or 329); CTh IV. 6. 2 and 3 (336); cf. CTh XII. 1. 6.

¹⁰⁸ On the compilation of the CTh, see, most recently, Honoré, Tony. ‘The Making of the Theodosian Code’, ZSS.RA 103 (1986), 133–222Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁹ e.g., Sirmondian Const. 10 (420), prompted by a priest's suggestio: 9 November of Majorian (459), prompted by a report of the governor of Suburbicarian Tuscany; 1 November of Anthemius (468), prompted by the petition of a private citizen named Julia; many other examples in the post-CTh imperial novellae.

¹¹⁰ See nn. 63–4 above.

¹¹¹ Quaestor: see Honoré (op. cit. n. 108), 139–41; and Harries, J., ‘The Roman Imperial Quaestor from Constantine to Theodosius II’, JRS 78 (1988), 148–72Google Scholar. I am indebted to Dr Harries for allowing me to see her article before publication and for her advice concerning this section.

¹¹² This is the thesis of Honoré, T., Emperors and Lawyers (1981)Google Scholar.

¹¹³ As do Dupont (op. cit., n. 33), 49; and Desanti, 204.

¹¹⁴ Of course the rescripts of third-century emperors were also concerned with acquainting provincials and common people with Roman law, but they were issued as responses to private individuals, not as general edicts. See Millar, F., The Emperor in the Roman World (1977), 242–72 and 537–49.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ Preserved in full in the Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum Collatio IV. 1, FIRA ² 11, pp. 558–60; given at Damascus in 295.

¹¹⁶ Men like Ablabius, Constantine's praetorian prefect and right-hand man (cf. Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers 463); and Optatus, cos. 334, who married a tavern-keeper's daughter (Libanius, Or. 42. 26).

¹¹⁷ This would also help to explain laws like CTh IV. 6. 2 and 3 (336), which ban and penalize the marriages of senators and provincial and local officials with women of low social status.

¹¹⁸ e.g., two fourth-century laws concern ungrateful children, whose fathers may revoke their emancipation: Frag. Vat. 248 (A.D. 330); CTh VIII. 14. 1; cf. Bonner (op. cit., n. 54), 87–8 on the largely fictitious ‘Ingrati sit actio’. A number of declamations involve exposed children and their natural parents: cf. CTh V. 10. 1 and CJ IV. 43. 2 (329); CTh V. 9. 1 (331); CJ VIII. 51. 2 (374); Sirm. Const. 5 (412); see Bonner, 125–7. Note also Constantine's highly rhetorical law against the marriage of a woman to her own slave (CTh IX. 9. 1; cf. also CTh IV. 12. 1) and Contr VII. 6: ‘Demens qui servo filiam iunxit’.