Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
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.
I wish to thank Professor Greg Horsley, Dr Kathryn Welch and Mr Martin Stone for their assistance with this paper.
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4 Kübler, B., ‘Das Intestaterbrecht der Frauen im alten Rom’, ZSS 41 (1920) 15–43Google Scholar at 34.
5 Bailey, D.R. Shackleton, Valerius Maximus Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri IX (Massachusetts 2000) 179Google Scholar n. 1.
6 Mai, A., Epitome of Julius Paris (Paris 1828)Google Scholar ss.7.8.1. According to the critical apparatus of Perizonius. filiam had already been suggested by Pighius: see Kübler (n. 4) 34.
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8 Kempf (n. 7) 362 gives the text as filium but obelises it; see also Kübler (n. 4) 33-4.
9 Babcock (n. 7) 4-5.
10 Kempf (n. 7) 362; Kübler (n. 4) 34. However, note mat Babcock (n. 7) 4 cites Kempf's critical apparatus as giving fulviam proposed by Perizonius, and followed by Halm.
11 Kübler (n. 4) 33-5; Münzer, F., ‘Sempronii’, in RE 2A. 1439-40Google Scholar, 1439.
12 Every suggestion has met with some criticism or rejection. Perizonius and Babcock (n. 7) 4 reject Ofilium; Shackleton-Bailey (n. 5) 179 n. 1 prefers filiam over all other readings; Babcock (n. 7) 4-5 admits Fulvium is possible and logical, but favours Fulviam instead.
13 Inst. 2.12.1.
14 P.3.4a.5,11; Ulp.20.13; Inst. 2.12.1.
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17 Inst. 2.18.
18 Dig. 5.2.3.
19 Inst. 2.18; Dig. 5.2.2. In effect the testator was only declared color insaniae: that is, he was not actually declared insane but was said to have failed to keep his mind on his duty to his family.
20 Dig. 5.2.25, 5.2.24. Buckland and Stein (n. 16) 327.
21 Inst. 2.18.2.
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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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32 The tutor agnatus did not control the property or person of his female wards, his power was simply to withhold auctoritas. A woman required the auctoritas of her tutor only to undertake transactions dealing with res mancipi: G. 1.190; Ulp. 11.25. On the tutor agnatus' conflict of interest note Champlin, E., Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills 200 B.C.-A.D.250 (Berkeley 1991) 147Google Scholar; see also Buckland, and Stein, (n. 16) 167Google Scholar; Crook, (n. 31) 114-5Google Scholar; Gardner, (n. 32) 17–20Google Scholar.
33 Inst. 3.2.3. The gens name Sempronius is indicative of an agnatic (not cognatic) blood relationship: note Kübler, (n 4) 33-5Google Scholar; Champlin, (n. 32) 147Google Scholar.
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.
38 Kübler, (n. 4) 35Google Scholar.
39 Pliny Paneg. 42 does not identify at what point in the process die tex Voconia sent estates to the treasury.
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41 Csillag, P., The Augustan Laws on Family Relations (Budapest 1976) 86, 147-8Google Scholar; Weishaupt, A., Die lex Voconia (Wien 1999) 127-8Google Scholar.
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43 The lex Voconia prohibited women from being heirs to the first census class but it did not prevent them from obtaining significant wealth via (amongst other things) legacies, business and commercial activities.
44 Sons were always the individuals most likely to inherit an estate: Pliny Paneg. 37-40; Champlin, (n. 32) 103-30Google Scholar.
43 Val. Max. 7.S. 1: cum causas haberent propter quas rescindi possent. In order to explain why Fulvius was instituted as heir, Munzer (RE 2A.1439) tentatively suggested that Fulvius may have been adopted by Tuditanus. This is neither necessary nor acceptable since any such adoption would have contravened the laws of incest, which prohibited die marriage of a son (whether adopted or not) to a daughter (G. 1.59-61; Ulp. 5.6; Inst. 1.10.1–2Google Scholar). Moreover, Roman law made no distinction between sons by birth and sons by adoption, so Longus could not have challenged the institution of an adopted son-in-law as heir any more than he could have challenged the heirship of a son by birth. With Fulvius instituted as heir Tuditanus would have been free to leave Sempronia a substantial legacy or dowry, or even a fideicommissum to the value of the whole estate (Cic. de Fin. 2.55, 58Google Scholar). Prior to the introduction of the lex Falcidia in 40 BC there was nothing per se to limit the scale of fideicommissa or dowries; see Buckland, and Stein, (n. 16) 353-9Google Scholar, 107-12). Unfortunately Valerius, not being interested in either this matter or the lex Voconia, does not elaborate on the exact arrangements Tuditanus made.
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.
