The Censors as Guardians of Public and Family Life in the Roman Republic

This volume explores the effects of the Roman censorial mark (nota censoria) and the influence of censorial regulations on the development of written law in ancient Rome.

The censor was one of the most fascinating legal institutions of Republican Rome. One of the most colourful and anecdotal areas of censorial activities was in the upkeep of public morals (regimen morum) through which censors controlled private, even intimate, aspects of Roman life. Although the office of the censor has been studied by various scholars from prosopographical, historical, and social perspectives, there has been no comprehensive study of its impact on the development of written law. This book aims to full the gap by providing an overview of the applications of the nota censoria to demonstrate its impact on the development of numerous regulations in the field of private and public laws during the Republican and Imperial periods. This book explores the relationship between magistrate law (ius honorarium) and regimen morum, and how the activities of the censors in this area influenced the formation of praetorian edicts and later legislation during the Principate period, most notably the marriage laws of Augustus. By examining the influence of the censor and the censorial nota in these spheres, readers will gain a new understanding of the overall significance of the censor’s office in shaping the Roman legal order.

The Censors as Guardians of Public and Family Life in the Roman Republic will be of interest to students and scholars of Roman law in both the Republican and Imperial periods, as well as to those interested in Roman moral attitudes and society more broadly.

Anna Tarwacka is Professor of Social Sciences in the field of Law, classical philologist, and Head of the Roman Law Department at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. She is the author of four monographs and numerous articles, and co-author of the textbook ’Roman Public Law’. She specialises in Roman public and private law. Tarwacka conducts research on piracy in ancient Rome, the office of the censor and the legal aspects of the collection of ancient jokes called ’Philogelos’. She is a populariser of antiquity; she runs the blog ’Rzymianie i prawo’ (’Romans and the Law’) and a YouTube channel of the same name. She is also the author of a children’s book on Roman law.