Samuel Azzopardi will be delivering an online lecture entitled ‘The emergence of dower in Late Antique Roman law’ on Friday, as part of a series of lectures organised by the Malta Classics Association.

The emergence of dower in Roman law challenges general notions of what marriage and the gender dynamics that regulated its negotiation looked like in Ancient Rome, and it suggests a regenerative and innovative spirit that contrasts the usual narrative of stagnation and unstoppable imperial decline associated with the third to fifth centuries AD.

Using a critical evaluation of the surviving literature and the archaeological record

The lecture will explore the following questions: What did Roman dower look like? How do we trace its development in extant Roman law sources? Why did it develop at all and what does it tell us about late antique society?

Azzopardi, an MSc graduate in Late Antique, Byzantine and Early Islamic Studies and currently working as an assistant to the Diocesan Archive at the Curia, will seek to find answers using a critical evaluation of the surviving literature in conjunction with secondary sources and the archaeological record.

The lecture will be held on Friday at 7pm. Those interested may log on to the following Zoom link: https://universityofmalta.zoom.us/s/98454537804. Meeting ID: 984 5453 7804; passcode: 409101.

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