Il titolo 25.7 (de concubinis) dei Digesta giustinianei: luci e coni d'ombra nell'applicazione della legislazione matrimoniale augustea

A glance at titulus 25.7 of the Justinian Digesta (whose rubric reads de concubinis) is enough to immediately identify some data. Two of its five excerpts are taken from the commentaries of the prudentes ad legem Iuliam et Papiam, particularly the Ulpian and Pauline commentaries. In the whole, no less than three texts are then attributed to Paul (in addition to the work just mentioned, the responsa and sententiae appear), while one fragment can be traced to Marcianus. The authors, as is evident, all identify themselves with Severan jurists. The traces of the relationship that somehow exists between the important normative provision of the Augustan age, still commented on in the third century AD, and the regulation of concubinage in the Roman legal experience can, in my opinion, be followed and clarified precisely in the light of an overall examination of the passages into which the title in question is divided. Indeed, the matrimonial legislation traceable to the princeps, commented on by the prudentes and in force until late antiquity, could give rise to genuine cones of shadow in social practice.