THE HEARING BEFORE PLINY

The holding in the private family context of a formal judicial hearing is a well- attested feature of Roman social life from the Republic through to the early Empire. Pliny is not therefore acting unusually in summoning his friends Corellius and Favorinus to act with him.^[241] They sit formally, with Pliny in the middle, as would judges in a court.

The arguments which Curianus brought before Pliny's tribunal must have been designed to show that his mother had had no good reason to disinherit him and that therefore she had acted unjustly in making a will which failed to acknowledge her duties to him as her son. This was the gist of any querela inofficiosi testamenti, the claim of an unduteous will. Although, as we have seen, Curianus had no claim in civil law before the praetor's court in respect of his disinherison in his mother's will this course was still open to him. He had failed to convince Pliny and his fellow assessors but perhaps he might do better in the public arena where his arguments could be presented for him by an advocate and where perhaps the uncertainties incident to any public legal process might move in his favour.

G.