A new hypothesis for the dispute over pubertas in Roman law – a discussion with the established opinion on the age limit of 14 years

Abstract

In one of the classic sources of Roman law – the Institutions of Gaius – there is a fragment known as Gai. 1, 196, which says that there was the dispute between two known law schools about the moment defying when the boy became formally mature (pubes). On the one hand, there was the view according to which that maturity came with the age of 14 years, and on the other, there were representatives of the view who wanted to combine maturity only with the physical characteristics of the body, omitting the number of years. The problem was significant from the legal point of view, because the full legal capacity of a young citizen depended on his maturity. According to late sources this conflict was concluded in the sixth century by emperor Justinian. In this article I present a completely new hypothesis by suggesting that this conflict could had been resolved much earlier, i.e. in the second century by the emperor Antoninus Pius. The article presents a number of arguments in favor of this hypothesis.