The Lex Ursonensis is the foundation charter of the Caesarean colonia Iulia Genetiva at Urso near Osuna (province of Seville, Andalusia) in southern Spain. A copy of its text was inscribed on bronze under the Flavians, portions of which were discovered in 1870/71. The original law spanned nine tablets with three or five columns of text each and comprised over 140 sections (rubricae). Of these four tablets survive, including sections 61-82, 91-106 and 123-134. Remains are kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, in Madrid. The charter was approved by the Roman assembly as a law proposed probably by Mark Antony after the assassination of Julius Caesar.

Historical context

After the battles between Caesar and Pompey during the Republican period, Caesar decided to establish in Osuna a colony of citizens named Genetiva Iulia in honor of the goddess Venus Genetrix, the protector of the gens Iulia, to which Caesar himself belonged.

Laws of colonies and municipalities

In Hispania, there were two fundamental laws: The laws that regulated colonies and municipalities were known as "leges datae," meaning they were given directly by a magistrate authorized by the assemblies based on a comitial law. Even though other laws from outside Hispania have been preserved, it can be asserted that the texts found in the Iberian Peninsula are a fundamental source for understanding the vast phenomenon of provincial legal Romanization.

Stages of drafting the Lex Ursonensis

The bronze tablets are a later reissue of the original text by Marcus Antonius, dating from the last third of the 1st century AD, with the peculiarity that the entire text is interpolated. While it's challenging to specify the origin and timing of the interpolations, it is believed that Marcus Antonius might have already modified Caesar's project; however, it's also possible that other interpolations were made later. Of the Law of Urso, a little over 50 chapters are currently preserved out of the 142 that it is believed to have contained.

Provisions

The law addresses a wide range of local governance issues: