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A Legal Point about Mark Antony's Will

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

John Crook
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Extract

‘An opportune discovery–so opportune that forgery might be suspected, though the provisions of the will do not perhaps utterly pass belief.’ So Syme, judiciously; and the remarks that follow cannot be claimed to settle anything, but merely to draw attention to one feature of those provisions which seems to have escaped notice (or at any rate specific mention), and which may have a certain weight in the scales as between genuineness and forgery.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1-2 , November 1957 , pp. 36 - 38
Copyright
Copyright ©John Crook 1957. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 R. Syme, The Roman Revolution, 282.

2 The will of Caesar, Julius: Suet., Div. Iul. 83, 2Google Scholar; Dio XLIV, 35, 2–3; Nicolaus of Damascus, Jacoby, FGrHist IIA, 90Google Scholar, F.130, 68. The will of Augustus: Suet., Div. Aug. 101, 1–3Google Scholar; Tib. 23 and 50, 1; Div. Claud. 4, 7; Ner. 4.

3 Plutarch, Life of Antony, 58.

4 Dio L, 3, 3–4, 1.

5 Suet., Div. Aug. 17, 1Google Scholar.

6 Gai., Inst. I, 55–96Google Scholar.

7 ibid. II, 110.

8 Pausanias VIII, 43, 5.

9 Cod. Just. 6, 24, 1; and see W. W. Buckland, A Textbook of Roman Law, 319.

10 I am much indebted at this point to an after-dinner flash of illumination from Professor W. Beare.

11 For a criticism of the attempt by Schmitthenner to impugn Suetonius' account of the will of Julius, , see CR LXVIII (N.S. IV, 1954), 152–3Google Scholar.

12 Pliny, Epp. I, 18Google Scholar.

13 The view of some extreme sceptics, that there never existed any will at all, the whole episode being a pantomime staged by Octavian, was shown to be untenable by M. P. Charlesworth in a paper an abstract of which was published in Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society CLI–CLIII (1932), 6–7Google Scholar. He pointed out that any one of the Vestal Virgins could have given the game away. We do not know who they all were, but they are not likely to have been unanimously in collusion with Octavian.

14 o.c. 276–285. Charlesworth found it hard to believe that a forged will would not have contained some more startling items. But if there were forged provisions they had to be plausible forgeries—things that might conceivably come in a will.

15 Dio L, 4, 1. I am indebted to my colleague Dr. J. G. A. Pocock for a parallel, to be found in Wedgwood, C. V., The King's Peace, London, 1955, 376–7Google Scholar. The enemies of Strafford needed a document, and one was duly found on the desk of Secretary Vane by Vane's son—notes of a council meeting, referring to Strafford's suggestion for bringing over the Irish army to reduce ‘this Kingdom’. Not a forgery, but a convenient ambiguity: which kingdom? Scotland or England?

16 In his paper mentioned above; the point is not touched upon in the abstract that appears in Proceedings.

17 Suet., Div. Iul. 52, 2Google Scholar.

18 Cic., Phil. XIII, 11, 24Google Scholar.

19 It should be noticed that this was a purely political, not a legal, issue. Ptolemy Caesar, whether legitimate or not, was a peregrine, and could not therefore be suus heres of Julius. So in no way was the will of Julius Caesar incorrect or invalid because it left him out, and Octavian was not a fraudulent successor to Caesar from the legal point of view.

20 l.c.

21 The beloved teacher to honour whom I have hastily contributed these remarks laboured long to instil in me the importance of the law for an understanding of Roman history. He should not be held responsible for my errors.