Abstract
In this paper, I study the nature of asymmetric information on the real estate market in Roman Egypt, that is selling and mortgaging land and houses, the most significant element in the estates of almost individuals at the time. In order to do that, I examine two prefectoral edicts taken respectively by the prefect Marcus Mettius Rufus in 89, and by Servius Sulpicius Similis in 109. Those two edicts dealt with a general register of individuals’ property rights over real estate mostly and this register was called the bibliothêkê enktêseôn. One of the main issues on those two edicts was the rights that some wives could have on pieces of real estate owned by their husbands. As far as asymmetrical information is concerned, the prefects were very concerned by the legal capacity of the seller to alienate the piece of property sold, or the piece of property mortgaged, especially when a married man sold a piece of real estate or borrowed some money by giving real estate as security, something which should happen very often. One cannot know for sure whether his wife had or had not rights over the piece of real estate. This came from the fact that the society of Roman Egypt was deeply unequal, hierarchical and segregated from a legal point of view. The Roman obsession for clear-cut social and legal boundaries within the Empire went against legal unification of personal statuses and this was a potential obstacle to economic transactions. My paper shows that this state of fact created some asymmetric information on the real estate market of Roman Egypt.
My warmest thanks go to Cristina Rosillo-López and Marta García Morcillo for their comments.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
Ogilvie 2007 provides an interesting criticism of the economic approaches to historical institutions.
- 4.
See also Kehoe, Ratzan and Yiftach 2015.
- 5.
- 6.
- 7.
On Roman prefects of Egypt, see Jördens 2009.
- 8.
On Ser. Sulpicius Similis, see Christol and Demougin 1988 with bibliography.
- 9.
- 10.
P. Oxy. II 237, col. VIII, l. 27–43 = Sel. Pap. II 219.
- 11.
Trans. B. Grenfell and A. Hunt, slightly adapted.
- 12.
P. Mert. III 101.
- 13.
Trans. J. D. Thomas.
- 14.
On women in Roman Egypt, Rowlandson 1999.
- 15.
This problem of information asymmetry existed before the Roman period in Egypt.
- 16.
On the different kinds of contracts in relation to Egyptian marriage, see Pestman 1961: 6–52.
- 17.
Sel. Pap. II 271 (Tebtynis, the beginning of the second c. BC) (trans. A. Hunt and C. Edgar).
- 18.
See Cristina Rosillo-López’s contribution in this volume on asymmetric information in the real estate market, and Kehoe, Ratzan and Yiftach 2015: 7 on information costs.
- 19.
See Myles Lavan’s contribution in this volume.
- 20.
- 21.
See Pablo Revilla’s paper in this volume.
- 22.
Lerouxel 2016a: 112–120.
- 23.
- 24.
Gaius, Inst. 2.62–63: Accidit aliquando ut, qui dominus sit alienandae rei potestatem non habeat, et qui dominus non sit, alienare possit. Nam dotale praedium maritus inuita muliere per legem Iuliam prohibetur alienare, quamuis ipsius sit, uel mancipatum ei dotis causa uel in iure cessum uel usucaptum. Quod quidem ius utrum ad Italica tantum praedia an etiam ad prouincialia pertineat, dubitatur.
- 25.
Trans. Frier and Mc Ginn 2004: 153.
- 26.
Frier and Mc Ginn 2004: 153.
- 27.
It would be beyond my scope to study this issue here.
- 28.
In some cases, there was financial intermediation for the largest loans; see Lerouxel 2008.
- 29.
Lewis 1983: 18–35.
- 30.
Geraci 1983.
- 31.
Alston 1995.
- 32.
Delia 1991.
- 33.
Rowlandson 1996: 102–117.
- 34.
- 35.
- 36.
On the Gnomon of the Idios Logos, besides BGU V 1210 edited by W. Schubart, see Riccobono 1950 and the remarks made by J. Mélèze Modrejewski in Giuffrè 1977: 523–524. Riccobono 1950 contains a full translation of the Gnomon in Italian, Johnson 1936: 711–717, a full translation in English, Mélèze Modrejewski: 520–557 in French. On the office of the Idios Logos, see Swarney 1970.
- 37.
- 38.
This kind of problem also existed in Roman law and Roman legislators tried to deal with it; see Gaius, Inst. 1.67–97, for example paragraph 67: “Again, if a Roman citizen takes a Latin or a peregrine wife in a mistaken belief (per ignorantiam) that she is a Roman citizen and begets a son, that son is not in his potestas: for he is not even a citizen, but either a Latin or a peregrine according to his mother’s status, because, except if there be conubium between the father and the mother, a child does not take its father’s status. But by a senatusconsult the father is allowed to prove a case of mistake, and thereupon both the wife and the son attain to Roman citizenship, and thenceforth the son is subject to his father’s potestas. The law is the same if by mistake he marries a wife who is in the class of the dediticii, except that the wife does not become a Roman citizen”. (trans. F. De Zulueta). On these mistakes concerning personal statuses, see Moatti 2016.
- 39.
I leave aside the potential asymmetric information in credit transactions involving wives’ property in Roman law, which would deserve a more involved treatment.
- 40.
λθ Ῥωμαίου ἢ Ῥωμαίας κατʼ ἄγνοιαν συνελθόντων ἢ ἀστοῖς < ἢ > Αἰγυπτίοις τὰ τέκνα ἥγτονι γένει ἀκολουθεῖ. (trans. A. Johnson 1936).
- 41.
μζ ἀστὴ συνελθοῦσα Α̣ἰ̣[γ]υ[πτίῳ] κατʼ ἄγνοιαν ὡς ἀστῷ ἀνεύθυνός ἐστιν. Ἐὰν δὲ καὶ ὑπὸ ἀμφοτέρ̣[ων ἀπ]αρχὴ τέκνων τεθῇ, τηρεῖται τοῖς τέκνοις ἡ πολιτεία. (trans. A. Johnson 1936).
- 42.
- 43.
See also the subtle comments of E. Volterra, who insists on the fact that Ser. Sulpicius Similis acts according to the Roman legal mind (Volterra 1970).
- 44.
Pestman 1961: 115–142.
- 45.
On demotic documentation, Depauw 1997.
- 46.
Haensch 2016.
- 47.
Swarney 1970.
- 48.
- 49.
Christol and Demougin 1988.
- 50.
P. Oxy. XLII 3015, l. 8–12: Σουλ(πίκιος) Σίμιλις πυθόμενος Ἀρτεμιδώρου τοῦ ἐξηγουμένου το[ὺς] νόμους περὶ τοῦ πράγματος καὶ συνλαλήσας τοῖς συμ[β]ούλοις ἔφη· Αἰγύ[π]τιος εἶχεν ἐξουσίαν καθὼς βούλεται διαθέσθαι. (trans. P. J. Parsons).
- 51.
P. Oxy. XLII 3015, l. 3: τοὺς Αἰγυπτίων νόμους.
- 52.
- 53.
Lippert 2004: 147–178.
- 54.
- 55.
- 56.
Lepelley 2001, especially on the Tabula Banasitana.
- 57.
- 58.
Fournier 2010: 358–364 on enfranchisements in the Roman East even after 212 and the Constitutio Antoniniana.
- 59.
Kantor 2013: 166.
- 60.
Lo Cascio 2007: 626.
- 61.
Mouritsen 2011 concerning freedmen in the Roman world.
- 62.
- 63.
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Lerouxel, F. (2021). Marriage and Asymmetric Information on the Real Estate Market in Roman Egypt. In: Rosillo-López, C., García Morcillo, M. (eds) Managing Information in the Roman Economy. Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54100-2_7
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