Above the Law? Crimes and Punishments of Imperial Women

Domitia Longina is notorious as sexually unfaithful and complicit in the assassination of her husband and emperor Domitian in AD 96 (Suet. Dom. 3.1, 14; Dio 67.15.2), yet inscriptions reveal her wealth and influence through 126 (CIL IX 3432, XIV 2795). The data raise numerous questions about imperial women’s standing in Roman law. Did proximity to the emperor liberate these elite wives and others from at least some of the Roman laws incapacitating women? The Digest notes the princeps could grant an Augusta the impunity he enjoyed himself (Dig.1.3.31). But propinquity had disadvantages: adultery with an imperial woman was considered treason (Plin. NH 7.149-50), and often wives were murdered alongside their imperial husbands (as Caesonia and Caligula). My paper explores the alleged crimes and punishments of imperial women, to illuminate Roman women, law, and power in the principate.