Lex Oppia

The Lex Oppia was a law established in ancient Rome in 215 BC, at the height of the Second Punic War during the days of national catastrophe after the Battle of Cannae, and repealed in 195 BC.

Instituted by Marcus Oppius, a tribune of the plebs during the consulship of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus and Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the Lex Oppia was the first of a series of sumptuary laws, and it restricted not only a woman's wealth, but also her display of wealth. Specifically, it forbade any woman to possess more than half an ounce of gold, to wear a multi-colored garment (particularly those trimmed in purple), or to ride in an animal-drawn vehicle in the city or any town or within a mile thereof, except in the case of public religious festivals.

In his Ab urbe condita (From the founding of the city) book 34 Livy discusses the abolishment of the Lex Oppia from the perspective of Cato the Elder and Lucius Valerius.