Conflicts in Roman Land Law in the Era of the Empire

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine agriculture of the Ancient Rome from the point of view of the development of judicial proceedings in this branch. During the period of transition from the Republic to the Empire several systems of land surveying were formed in Rome, which contributed to the improvement of land management. In the centuriation system the categories of land ownership and possession were most clearly defined. The task of this study is to show how in land disputes (controversies) there was a change of the archaic legal procedure to the formulary one, characteristic of the preclassical period. However, it is the analysis of controversies that reveals the peculiarity of Roman agriculture, in which the archaic features in legal proceedings not only persist for a long time but also linger until the classical period of Ius Civile. Such controversies as “de loco”, “de fine”, “de proprietate” were conducted using the archaic verb litigo (including the classical period). But at the same time, in the pre-classical legal proceedings the verb “ago” was introduced into the process. Though the combination of features of the archaic and formulary processes complicated the judicial process in land disputes, nevertheless, it retained all the characteristics of the ancient land law which was also important in the classical period of Ius Civile.

Keywords

• archaic process
• formulary process
• legal proceedings
• property
• possession
• centuriation
• cadastre