Public and private in ancient Mediterranean law and religion

The public/private distinction is fundamental to modern theories of the family, religion and religious freedom, and state power, yet it has had different salience, and been understood differently, from place to place and time to time. The volume brings together essays from an international array of experts in law and religion, in order to examine the public/private distinction in comparative perspective. The essays focus on the cultures and religions of the ancient Mediterranean, in the formative periods of Greece and Rome and the religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Particular attention is given to the private exercise of religion, the relation between public norms and private life, and the division between public and private space and the place of religion therein.

Front matter --; Acknowledgments --; Table of Contents --; Introduction --; 1. The Family, the Community and Murder: The Role of Pollution in Athenian Homicide Law --; 2. Public and Private in Classical Athenian Legal Enforcement --; 3. φανερὰν ποιήσει τὴν αὑτοῦ διάνοιαν τοῖς θεοῖς: Some Ancient Greek Theories of (Divine and Mortal) Mind --; 4. Ista tua pulchra libertas: The Construction of a Private Cult of Liberty on the Palatine --; 5. “M. Tullius … aedem Fortunae August (ae) solo et peq(unia) sua” --; 6. Making the Private Public: Illegitimacy and Incest in Roman Law --; 7. Public and Private in Emergent Christian Discourse --; 8. Staging “private” religion in Roman “public” Palmyra. The role of the religious dining tickets (banqueting tesserae) --; 9. Can “Law” Be Private? The Mixed Message of Rabbinic Oral Law --; 10. Between Public and Private: The Significance of the Neutral Domain (Carmelit) in Late Antique Rabbinic Literature --; 11. Shame, Sin, and Virtue: Islamic Notions of Privacy --; Contributors --; Index