Landlords and tenants in imperial Rome

by Bruce W. Frier

By examining a portion of private law in imperial Rome as a functioning element of social life, this book constitutes an important contribution to the sociological understanding of law in premodern societies. Archaeological data, literary sources, and legal texts show that members of the upper class, including senatorial families, lived in rented apartments and that Roman Law of urban lease was designed mainly for them, not for the lower class. This book discusses the physical aspects of upper-class rental housing, the economic and social characteristics of the rental market, and the private law that came to regulate the market. It then assesses the major individual and social interests protected by Roman lease law and the law's probable social effects on the rental market. Concluding with a discussion of the methods and intentions of the Roman jurists in creating this body of law, it is demonstrated how legal rules and concepts were formed or changed by the Roman jurists in tacit resp