Inquilinus

Abstract

The social and legal position that the inquilinus had in Rome is described here through the analysis of literary sources, and of classical Roman law, mainly in contrast to the notion of the colonus. The economic use of an urban property was very different from that of a rural property and justifies the differentiation that the classical Roman jurists established between both notions. An explanation is also proposed here, based on the analysis of postclassical sources, of the radical degradation that the condition of the inquilinus experienced in the 4th century.