Ward Strengers of the University of Münster will speak on 'Lease Contracts and Tax Farming under Nero' on 21 November 2025, at 3.00 pm, at 10 The Square, room 207, at the University of Glasgow School of Law. All are welcome. 

Abstract:

In 58 AD, the emperor Nero famously ordered the tax regulations to be displayed for everyone to see. The significance of that measure can only be understood by one familiar with the concept of tax farming, which was central to the Roman system of taxation. The right to levy taxes in a certain area was conceded by the Roman state, by way of a public auction to the highest bidder. This took the form of locatio conductio, a lease contract.

Tax farming sparks all kinds of questions of private law, for example pertaining to the nature of the individual tax claim, powers of exaction and the practice of subletting of the tax lease. Although a lot has been written on the cooperations in which the tax farmers operated, remarkably less research concentrates on the tax leases themselves. That is all the more necessary now that thanks to Nero’s measure, a number of those tax leases have survived antiquity. Only a few of them have been extensively studied.

This paper aims to incorporate these new sources from Roman practice in the traditional Roman legal framework, mainly consisting of the Digest and the Code of Justinian, thereby furthering our insight in Roman taxation in general and the legal consequences of the tax leases (leges locationes) especially, all to the background of the fascinating twilight zone between public and private law.

First published: 12 November 2025

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