Legal History Commons^™

Law Reform In The Ancient World: Did The Emperor Augustus Succeed Or Fail In His Morals Legislation?, Charles J. Reid Jr.

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This is an Article with a dual purpose. First, it is concerned with the process of law reform: how do we judge a given reform’s success or failure? Do we adopt strictly linear metrics? Or do we look at nonlinear impacts? For example, in the campaign against tobacco, do we judge it a success because it has reduced cigarette smoking? Or because it reduced the political power of the tobacco companies?

Secondly, in this Article, I apply this complex means of analyzing law reform to the Emperor Augustus’s morals legislation. Legal historians have typically regarded Augustus’s morals legislation as having …