Bruce W. Frier

Law and Economic Institutions

The landscape of the Greek and Roman economies is invariably configured of individuals, and also of institutions, the organized activity of production and commerce. This chapter explores, within the ancient world, to what extent was economic growth fostered or impeded by the institutional and legal framework within which the Greek and Roman economies operated. The question may be at least formally addressed through modern scholarly methods associated especially with Law and Economics and with the New Institutional Economics. The chapter provides an overview of the methods themselves, and then suggests several ways in which these methods can be applied to come to a deeper understanding of economic organization and the possibilities for economic growth in the Greek and Roman worlds. Adverse selection is an example of how asymmetrical information can affect entry into a market. A cardinal implication of the Coase theorem is that markets cannot and do not exist in isolation from their institutional context.

Natural fertility and family limitation in Roman marriage.

Family limitation is a form of birth control in which married couples stop procreating after they reach what they perceive to be a sufficient number of children. Family limitation is therefore a parity-related form of fertility control. In developed nations of the modern world family limitation is most commonly achieved through contraception and to a lesser extent abortion and it is often accompanied by deliberate birth spacing and other efforts at planned parenthood. Some scholars posit that ordinary couples in the ancient Roman world anticipated such modern behavior. All reliable comparative evidence however indicates that no general population practiced family limitation before the modern fertility transition. Ancient Rome was no exception. He discusses the fertility transition from natural fertility to family limitation marital fertility in Roman Egypt and John Riddles hypothesis that chemical birth control agents were readily available in the ancient world and that family limitation was practiced by the lower classes.

The Rental Market in Early Imperial Rome

In Rome of the early empire, most of the residential population lived in rented apartments ( cenacula ). Only the privileged few could afford single-family dwellings; the character of this minority is vividly illustrated in Juvenals famous line on Neros persecutions: ‘rarus venit in cenacula miles’ (10. 18). Almost all of the non-privileged many, if they could afford accommodation, were obliged to dwell in buildings that they did not own, in exchange for rent that our sources agree was exorbitantly high. However, not everyone in the tenant class was on equal footing, despite recent suggestions to the contrary. The range of accommodation regularly available to the urban masses was, as will be shown below, quite varied, though this range was often effectively limited by the wealth and other social characteristics of the prospective tenant. The rental market of Rome can be reconstructed from three kinds of sources: literary references to rental; the types of rental situations described in legal texts; and the archaeological remains of apartment houses, particularly those in Ostia. These sources converge to suggest a model of the urban rental market that is rather more complex than the one which has appeared in recent scholarship. It must be stressed, however, that the new model suggested below is still just a model, and that variations from it must have been numerous. For instance, no ancient authority conclusively demonstrates that a lease like the typical modern American lease (an apartment taken on a year term for exclusive occupancy of the tenant and his dependants, with monthly payment in advance and many services supplied by the landlord) was legally impossible in antiquity, or was not in fact developed; but the Roman leases actually described in the extant sources are markedly different, and the ruins of Ostian apartment houses seem to accord well with the leases to which these sources refer.

Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society

Notes on contributors List of abbreviations Preface 1. Law, society and Athens Stephen Todd and Paul Millett 2. The purpose of evidence in Athenian courts Stephen Todd 3. Fowl play: a curious lawsuit in classical Athens Paul Cartledge 4. Plato and the Athenian law of theft Trevor Saunders 5a. Vexatious litigation in classical Athens: sykophancy and sykophant Robin Osborne 5b. The sykophant and sykophancy: vexatious redefinitions? David Harvey 6a. The law of hubris in Athens Nick Fisher 6b. The Solonian law of Hubris Oswyn Murray 7. The social context of adultery at Athens David Cohen 8. Sale, credit and exchange in Athenian law and society Paul Millett References Glossary Index.