Seite - 25 - in Austrian Law Journal, Band 1/2017

ALJ 1/2017 Women and Civic Identity in Roman Antiquity 25 II. Why identity? I have chosen to speak of civic identity rather than citizenship. In the legal terminology, the con- cept of citizenship is in fact a simple one, if we limit ourselves to describing the prerequisites for holding it. Far more complex is the examination of the infinity of legal situations and social rela- tionships that may result from being a citizen: the combination in any given individual of these situations and relationships determines the civic identity of that individual. In Latin, the word identitas has a very different and more restricted meaning than our identity that has no direct equivalent in Latin. Another reason for choosing the term identity is its current relevance at a time when genuine, presumed or invented individual and national identities are being evoked, not just in Europe, but also all over the world, in order to legitimize political proposals. I prefer to start by following a different path to those usually taken: differences often serve as indicators of interesting situations and I will therefore begin by highlighting some texts in which the Roman author himself compares the situation of Roman women to that of non-Roman women. We could describe this as a comparative approach ante litteram. 1. First right: the right of women to the instruments of elegance, private and public The historian Livy relates that 195 BCE saw the abrogation of a lex Oppia, approved in 215, the year after Hannibal defeated the Romans at Cannae. This law had forbidden women to own more than 14 grams of gold, wearing multi-coloured garments and travelling in a carriage unless they were attending a public ceremony. Livy first tells us that a multitude of women crowded into the forum to support the abrogation of this law. This is not a unique event: when their interests as women were at stake, the sources testify to the existence of a female public opinion. Women, who never had a role in the legislative process, were nonetheless able to make their voices heard and thus to obtain what they sought. Livy provides a reliable account of the speeches for and against the law in question. These include various “Leitmotive”. In particular, it was argued, women have a right to their so-called feminine world of objects, to their adornments, because: “Neither offices of state, nor of the priesthood, nor triumphs, nor badges of distinction, nor mili- tary presents, nor spoils, can fall to their share. Elegance of appearance, and ornaments, and dress, these are the women’s badges of distinction; in these they delight and glory; these our ancestors called the women's world.”8 These are salient rights of Roman women that must be restored in part: “But, in truth, it will be a source of grief and indignation to all, when they see those ornaments allowed to the wives of the Latin confederates of which they themselves have been deprived; when they see those riding through the city in their carriages, and decorated with gold and purple, while 8 LIV. 34.7.9: “Non magistratus nec sacerdotia nec triumphi nec insignia nec dona aut spolia bellica iis contingere possunt: munditiae et ornatus et cultus, haec feminarum insignia sunt, his gaudent et gloriantur, hunc mundum muli- ebrem appellarunt maiores nostri.”