Lex Oppia

The Lex Oppia is a Roman law that has been proposed during the second Punic War of C. Oppius and approved by Senate Resolution of people. The law of 215 BC curtailed freedoms of Roman women. The law was repealed 195 BC, six years after the end of the war against Hannibal and the Carthaginians (201 BC). The only source about this law and its consequences is the much later surviving Roman historian Livy (Ab urbe condita ).

Reasons for the adoption of laws

When Hannibal in 216 BC won the legendary battle of Cannae against the Roman legions, he added the Romans to the worst defeat in its history, with an estimated 50,000 soldiers lost their lives. This had to report a loss of almost every family in Rome. The scope of these losses shown by the fact that some family had lost the pater familias, who was the undisputed leader and owner of the authority over the family, including slaves and clients.

Notwithstanding this serious crisis apparently presented many women from the nobility and the equestrian order in ostentatious way their wealth in the form of purple robes and gold jewelry or pleasure trips with their horses and carts (see also conspicuous consumption ). C. Oppius felt this behavior after the defeat as inappropriate and tried to be prevented by this law. Women should practice again in the customs of the ancestors such as modesty, frugality and moderation. Thus he tried to blur the social differences between the ethnic groups, perhaps because of the plebeian families the loss of husbands and sons were even more devastating than for the upper classes; perhaps because an escalation of rivalries within the elite should be prevented.

Wearing jewelry

Livy writes: "... It was allowed to wear any woman more than half an ounce of gold or a colorful robe and drive away in Rome or a country town or less than a mile from there with a horsedrawn carriage, unless the occasion of a sacrifice on behalf of the State. " (Ab urbe condita 34.1 ). Against this law there were, according to Livy then 195 BC, a demonstration of women repealing Lex Oppia. At this time, there was peace and prosperity again, the richer women did not want to impose more of a martial law restrictions. It was actually canceled.