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4 Roman Legal Trad. 1 (2008)

handle is hein.journals/rltrad4 and id is 1 raw text is: Inheritance Rights of Nonmarital Children in Late Roman Law Joshua C. Tate* Abstract - Late Roman legislation regarding the inheritance rights of nonmarital children is a tangled web of seemingly con- flicting constitutions. Focusing on the period 371-428 AD, this Article argues that, when two particular Western laws from that era are considered alongside others issued at the same time, it is possible to discern some wider legislative trends that may help to contextualize the different attitudes shown toward nonmarital children. C.Th. 4.6.4 (371), a Western law beneficial to nonmari- tal children, can arguably be linked with another Western law issued shortly afterward granting a privilege to the daughters of actresses, another disfavored class in the late empire. On the other hand, the later Western constitution C.Th. 4.6.7 (426-427), the exact content of which is uncertain and disputed, appears to have been issued at a time when the Western consistory was es- pecially concerned with promoting the interests of legitimate heirs. This lends support to the theory that the Western C.Th. 4.6.7 (and not a subsequent Eastern constitution hypothesized by Antti Arjava) was the law referred to in C.Th. 4.6.8 (428) as adopting a harsh position with regard to nonmarital children. FROM 439, WHEN the Codex Theodosianus became the sole source throughout the Roman Empire for imperial law issued during the period it covered,' anyone interested in the history of legislation . Assistant Professor of Law, Southern Methodist University. I would like to thank Antti Arjava, Edward Champlin, Charles Donahue, Judith Evans Grubbs, Peter Garnsey, Jill Harries, Lisa Hasday, Keith Hopkins, David Johnston, Christopher Kelly, Ernest Metzger, and Bou- dewijn Sirks for their help with this project. My gratitude should not be taken to imply that they necessarily share the views I express herein. The research for this article was funded in part by a generous grant from the Emily Parker Endowed Faculty Research Fund at SMU Dedman School of Law. , N.Th. 1.3 (438). Roman Legal Tradition, 4 (2008), 1-36. ISSN 1943-6483. Published by the Ames Foundation and the University of Glasgow School of Law. This work may be reproduced and distributed for all non-commercial purposes. Copyright @ 2008 by Joshua C. Tate. All rights reserved apart from those granted above. ROMANLEGALTRADITION.ORG

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