Joint Annual Meeting of the Society of Classical Studies and the Archaeological Institute of America
January 4-7, 2024 Chicago
Call for Papers for a Panel Sponsored by the American Society of Greek and Latin Epigraphy (ASGLE)
“Law and Epigraphy in the Greek and Roman World” Organized by James Sickinger (Florida State University)
This panel aims to explore various ways in which inscribed documents contribute to our understanding of Greek and Roman laws and legal institutions. Epigraphic texts form a fundamental source for the study of ancient law alongside literary sources, but they come from a wider geographical range and routinely shed light on aspects overlooked or ignored by the literary tradition. Stone inscriptions provide the earliest examples of written laws in ancient Greece, and nearly all surviving evidence for legislation and legal practice outside of Athens derives from inscribed documents. In the Roman world, inscriptions on a variety of writing materials preserve not only leges and senatus consulta but also edicts issued by Roman emperors, decisions of Roman governors, and records of private transactions.
This panel seeks to bring together papers illustrating how study of epigraphic material continues to add to and expand our knowledge of law and legal practice in the Greek and Roman worlds. Papers that examine recently-discovered documents, or offer new interpretations of older ones, are welcome, as are discussions of dossiers of inscriptions bearing on specific legal issues or questions. We also hope to include papers on texts written on different materials, and we encourage submissions that consider how the material, physical setting, or layout and lettering of a legal text impacted its original use and meaning.
Abstracts should be a maximum of 500 words (excluding bibliography) and suitable for a 20- minute presentation. Please follow the SCS “Guidelines for Authors of Abstracts” (https://classicalstudies.org/annual-meeting/guidelines-authors-abstracts). Please send your anonymous abstract, as a Word or PDF e-mail attachment, to James Sickinger at jsicking [at] fsu [dot] edu by March 1, 2023. Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously by two reviewers. Please note that authors submitting abstracts must be SCS members in good standing and will need to register for the 2023 meeting.