Some personal news:
I am thrilled to announced that I have refreshed the reed diffuser in my office, and changed the scent from PF Candle Co. (Spruce) to PF Candle Co. (Wild Herb Tonic)!
As always, thank you to @cuboulderclassics.bsky.social for giving me this platform, and to my loving husband.
Be engaged!!!!
A question that came up in my Roman law lecture: who is the American equivalent of Rita Ora? I think it’s Deion Sanders but need to run it by the scholarly community
Can’t say Anabasis without 🍑
#TheVerveYouDeserve
Me on Monday:
‘Good afternoon! My name is Zach Herz, I’m your Roman Civilization professor this fall, and Ethel Cain hated my Instagram post’
#RomanLaw
Thank you Mitra! I’ll be drinking to it in Detroit…
Check’s in the mail 🫡
Listen to the man!!
#RomanLaw
Reading Roman law in this way doesn’t just make sense of its nonsensical features, but also reveals the humanity and affective texture of, let’s be honest, some of the most boring texts in the Latin corpus. I hope you enjoy the book, and let me know if you have questions about it! (fin)
Later Roman rulers looked to Classical law to understand how the state should be run, and post-imperial Europe took ‘Roman law’ as an inspiration for their own legalizing projects. We can understand Roman legal writing, then, as a dream of order that eventually came true. (6/)
Different actors told different stories for different reasons, but all of them were trying to stay alive and get what they wanted in a world that made those things hard. What is special about legal stories, though, is what later readers did with them. (5/)
We can see petitioners, bureaucrats, scholars, and emperors as misdescribing their world, but I think it’s more useful to imagine them as telling stories about their world: imagining their state as something more predictable, rational, and fair. (4/)
I argue that Roman law functions more like a sophisticated ideal theory than a set of rules—our archives record different subjects, with different relationships to Roman power, using ‘law talk’ to try and imagine that power in terms they found simpatico. (3/)
Basically, the book is trying to figure out why Roman law looks so little like Roman life. Most imperial historians know that ‘law on the ground’ has an awkward relationship to codified law in the period—the question is, if Roman law isn’t governing outcomes what is it doing instead? (2/)
Fun fact—the formal pub date is 7/31, but apparently CUP is now live with my book, if you’re logging in thru an institution: accordingly, book 🧵 incoming. (1/)
www.cambridge.org/core/books/g...
Moose.
2013-2025
Moose died this morning. He declined quickly, but with enough warning for me to come home, and we were able to give him a sendoff that was painless and dignified.
He got very old, very fast, and decided he was done. It was a good death. I just thought we would have so much more time.
Quote from a final (posted with permission):
“Without a doubt, Rome fell when Broadway began.”
Call for papers is out from the American Society for Legal History! This is my favorite conference to present at, by far: wonderful audiences, who engage closely without tearing anybody down, and they love ancient law! Hit me up with questions and then SUBMIT.
aslh.confex.com/aslh/2025/cf...
Quiz time: in order to get Moose to pose like this, you have to hold up
A) a treat
B) page proofs for Cambridge’s forthcoming translation of the Theodosian code; or
C) all of the above
#romanlaw #boyaremyarmstired
(Also, hi to all of my new followers! I know you think this is an ancient legal history account, and you’re not wrong, but seriously I am worried for our divas.)
Finally heard a Tate MacRae song, and I no longer understand gay men. Why do we stan this woman
After si, nisi, num, and ne
Psycho killer, qu’est-ce que c’est
Moose, under a contract.
Legal historiography pupdate:
Moose is under contract with Cambridge University Press Studies in Legal History! The God and the Bureaucrat: Roman Law, Imperial Sovereignty, and Other Stories should be coming out in ‘25.
Hopefully they get his name right.
#romanlaw #undercontract #getit
I really want someone to photoshop a yarmulke onto Farfetch’d
You’re welcome, Schmaltzy
High Holeekdays
