Rural and Urban Tenancy

In many parts of the Roman empire the economy changed in an unprece­dented way in the last two centuries of the Republic, from an economy driven by small-scale agriculture to an economy in which small farms were gradually replaced by larger agricultural estates devoted to commercial production and owned by absentee elite ‘investment farmers’?^{[359] [360] This may have differed from region to region: archaeological surveys show that smaller farms continued to exist and that larger agricultural estates were concentrated on the prime coastal and river valley areasThi The process of change would have been a gradual one, rather than a ‘single dramatic displacement of the small farmer by elite landowners’.i52 In any case, in the late Republic and during the whole of the Principate, members of the Roman elite were the empire’s largest land­owners.}

Rural real estate

Given the immense importance of agriculture for the Roman economy it is not surprising that we are reasonably well informed about objects that would serve as collateral for contracts connected with the exploitation and finance of farms and other agricultural enterprises. In c.

There are not many details in the jurists' writings on the objects covered by tenant's pledges of invecta et illata. The classical sources on tenant's pledges of farms usually suffice with using the generic term invecta et illata (or variations thereof), without providing much detail on the specific types of objects covered by this concept.^{[363] [364] [365] In many cases the landlord would provide not only the land and its buildings but also heavy equipment such as olive presses, wine presses, and storage devices (e.g., dolia). The jurists mention as invecta et illata: slaves permanently working on the farm (e.g., Jul. D. 43.33.1), products of the pledged farmland (Pomp. D. 20.2.7 pr.), and animals born at the farm (Scaev. D. 20.1.32).i57 In the jurists' writings there is much more detailed casuistry on the question of whether or not certain assets are subject to a legacy of the instrumentum of a fundus. The notion of instrumentum denoted the range of movable assets which were permanently connected with the operation of a fundus as an economic unit?58 Many of the objects that were part of the instrumentum are likely also to have been invecta et illata.[366] [367] [368] There is, however, not a complete coincidence between the two concepts. Thus in his commentary on the praetor's edict, Ulpian examines ‘what the lessor of a farm (fundus) customarily provides to his tenant-farmer under the heading of “instrumentum”I16" Ulpian refers to a letter from Neratius to Aristo from which it appears that the tenant must be provided with storage jars, a press and grinder fitted with ropes, cauldrons for washing olives, and storage jars for wine.}

Urban real estate

One would normally expect relatively poor Romans to live in rented city dwell­ings. In that case, their furniture, household equipment and other objects situ­ated in the rented premises would be pledged as invecta et illata to their landlords, from the end of the first century ad even in the absence of an express pledge agreement by way of tacit pledged^[369] But also Romans of the wealthier classes would often live in rented accommodation.¹'^[370] The great length of Roman urban leases, which would normally extend to multiple years,^[371]'"¹ meant that the aggregate of rentals payable to the landlord could amount to large sums. In this case, the invecta et illata could consist of valuable objects (expensive fur­niture, statues, paintings, books) and even slaves (e.g., Paul. D. 20.2.9), so that the collateral would have a considerable commercial worth?'^[372]

According to Frier, the considerable development of the law on tenant's pledges shows that landlords must have relied almost exclusively on taking preferential recourse against invecta et illata.^[373] In Landlords and Tenants in Imperial Rome, Frier's conclusion (for urban tenancies) is:

The evenness and clarity of it, its responsiveness to the varied claims of the parties to the pledge, above all its drive toward legal control of the situation, all of these characteristics display the consequence of deep and sustained thought by the jurists. Indeed, in perhaps no other area of Roman lease law are the principal interests of Roman landlords and tenants so precisely articulated over so long a period of time.^{[374] [375] [376] [377] [378] [379]}

The economic significance of tenant's pledges concerning urban tenancies also lies in the exploitation of commercial real estate by members of the elite.

The capital needed to construct, fit out, and maintain large-scale produc­tion facilities would be substantial, which makes it likely that they would mostly be owned by towns or the Roman state, or have been part of commer­cial real estate investment portfolios of the wealthy elite.