Browsing by Author "Attapattu, D."

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Examining the role of “jus gentium” (Law of the Nations) during Roman Empire
(Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2015) Amarasinghe, P.; Attapattu, D.
Roman law emerged as a private law, which mainly focused on contract, property and family relations. But many legal elements began to infiltrate into the body of law when Rome became a powerful empire. During Justinian’s period the “Corpus Juris” became the hand book of Roman legal affairs relating to international affairs and other public laws. The most important fact of the laws complied by Corpus Juris is it recognized non-citizens as a subject to the legal validity and this was uncommon to Greeks. Firstly Romans organized the legal system on foreign relations on the basis of certain customs introduced by a special group of priests in the republic era. This practice was known as “archaic jus fetiale”. Gradually this practice was turned into a broader understanding on international law which was known to Romans as “jus gentium”. Ulpian, a jurist who lived in 2nd century A.D further developed the concept of “jus gentium” into sub themes such as the state of law in the issues on slaves, marriages between Romans and non-citizens. Under the thread of jus jentium concept Romans made treaties with other foreign nations and it led them to uphold their “Pax Romana” in the frontiers of the empire. As an example the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and the German tribe Macromanni made a pact in 175A.D as palpable example for “jus gentium”. Apart from that Roman jurists in the empire widely wrote on how Rome should act during war with other nations. This principle was called “bellum justum” (the concept of just war). In later Roman history it had vanished but it was revived as a moral conception by St. Augustine (354-430). As a matter of the same right of bellum justum became the inspiration of Hugo Grotius who is considered as the father of modern international law to compose his advanced theory on law of war (jus ad bellum). This paper intends to trace how “jus gentium” worked out in the period of Roman Empire and also it further discusses the influences laid down by Roman law upon the foundation of modern international law. Reader will be able to understand the contribution made by Romans to shape the evolution of modern international law. In order to achieve the objective authors have adopted a methodology which is mainly based the works of Roman jurists and other historical sources. In addition to that juristic works of Hugo Grotius have taken into consideration to highlight the Roman influences on the evolution of international law.
Women's power over men through sexuality: Thoughts from Aristophanes' Lysistrata
(University of Kelaniya, 2015) Amarasinghe, B.P.A.; Attapattu, D.
It is true that women have undergone many obstacles and deprivations in their journey on earth, but notorious Athenian comedian Aristophanes has left us with a different perception on women's nature in classical antiquity. Aristophanes' Lysistrata shows how women attempted to end the world by capitalizing on their sexuality. For philistine eyes of modern world, Lysistrata becomes a mere play on sex, but it was also about gender, war and the construction of masculinity and femininity. Our main purposes in writing this paper are: (1) To evaluate Lysistrata as a political satire which shows sexuality as women's ultimate tool over men (2) To represent the comedic nature of Lysistrata in a modern context; namely, why women's choices constitute a comedy, and the implications of a modernized version being comedic Other questions we seek to answer are: why do women still lack agency? Why is the concept of women's autonomy comedic? In order to fulfill the above objectives of our research paper, we will use Aristophanes' play as a tool to reveal his intended humour and sarcasm directed at Greek male domination. Today Lysistrata is one of most popular of Aristophanes' plays, as people recognize the plot even if they are unfamiliar with the playwright. The play is set in Athens during the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta; it shows how Greek women deprived their men from having sex with them in order to end this war. The historical context of Athens was another pivotal fact which inspired Aristophanes, because Athenian glory was in turmoil at the time Lysistrata performed. People lost their faith in great Athenians such as Pericles due to the defeat by Sparta. However there are other aspects of the play, which have to be analyzed in order to grasp the meaning of Lysistrata during the time it was written, and also to consider what it means to translate the comedy into a modern day perspective. There are several steps to this analysis: first, unpacking the gender paradigms and exploring what Aristophanes intended by portraying the male and female characters the way he does; second, analyzing the text and the nature of the relationship between men and women classical Greek era. This play depicts how quickly men are enfeebled by their libido and how strongly women use sexuality as a tool. An outcome of the research paper reader will be an understanding of the unchanging value of women's sexuality as an icon in their power over men.