D Women as defendants or witnesses
Though their right to initiate legal action was restricted, women could certainly be made defendants in civil or criminal cases, and many examples are known from legal and literary sources [see Marshall 1990b].
In such cases also, it was considered more fitting for a woman to be represented by a male, but it was possible for a woman to defend herself in court. Valerius Maximus cites the example of Maesia of Sentinum [see Part V.A above for another example from Valerius Maximus]. The date and circumstances of Maesia's trial are not known, but it appears to have been a criminal trial, perhaps in the aftermath of the Social War of the early first century B.C.E. [Marshall 1990b].Valerius Maximus VIII.1 (written c.30 C.E.)
Maesia of Sentinum, a defendant, pled her own case with the Praetor Lucius Titius convening the court and a very great gathering of the people being present. She pursued all the manners and points of her defense not only diligently but also bravely, and she was acquitted on the first actio and by almost all votes.137 They called her Androgyne, because she bore a manly spirit under the appearance of a woman.
An exception to the general rule that women could be made defendants in court involved very young girls under paternal power, whose paterfamilias would have represented them:
D.2.4.22 (Gaius): Nor has it been permitted to call into court prepubescent girls, who have been placed under someone else’s legal power.
Women could also be witnesses in cases initiated by others.138 Ulpian and Paul both infer that in general women could give evidence in court from the fact that in particular cases they could not:
D.22.5.18 (Paulus): From the fact that the Julian law on adulteries139 prohibits a woman condemned (for adultery) from giving testimony, it is also deduced that (all other) women have the right of giving testimony in court.
D.28.1.20.6 (Ulpian): Indeed, a woman will not be able to witness a will,140 but as an argument that in other cases a woman can be a witness, there is the Julian law on adulteries, which forbids a woman convicted of adultery from being produced as a witness or giving testimony.
VI
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