The Case of Valeria: An Inheritance-Dispute in Roman Asia

Abstract

In a vigorously argued passage of the oration Pro L. Flacco, Cicero defends his client L. Valerius Flaccus against the charge that he had acted improperly during his governorship of Asia three years previously in claiming as heres legitimus the estate of one Valeria, wife of Sextilius Andro, who had died intestate in the province. This section of the speech involves Cicero in a brief display of his knowledge of the civil law concerning tutela, the forms of acquiring manus in marriage by usus and coemptio and inheritance ah intestate, and it is described by the scholiast as ‘negotialis quaestiuncula’. The passage is regularly cited in the handbooks to illustrate those features of the civil law which Cicero treats, but the Valeria in question is otherwise wholly obscure.

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