Spalatum – ager Salonitanus? Prilog tumačenju pravnoposjedovnoga položaja priobalja Splitskoga poluotoka u preddioklecijanskome razdoblju
Spalatum – ager Salonitanus? Understanding of the property law status of the coastal region of Split peninsula in pre-Diocletian period

Summary/Abstract: While in the past historians paid attention to the configuration and naming of settlement points on Split peninsula in Antiquity and early Middle Ages, the emergence of the toponym and oikonym Spalatum in south-western peninsula has not been well explained. The emergence of this pre-Diocletian toponym was not associated with naming activities of the imperial palace. Etymologically, it was related to the time of the first allocation of the peninsula to colonists from Salona, when the peninsula was surveyed and divided into centuriae. As a consequence, the praedium palatum was created and its name then substantivated into palatum > Palatum > Spalatum. Yet because the entire peninsula was distributed into a uniform network of centuriae, each and every of these land sections could have been, in principle, named Palatum or Spalatum. Also, and following a model set by the rest of the Salona ager on the peninsula, we might expect that other centuriae too would have been named predial place names. Yet this was not the case for land sections around the palace so their case merits a separate explanation. The exclusive use of the toponym (S)Palatum for this area is explained by the consistent application of the rules of the Roman agrimensor practice. The study is based on the collection of handwritten treatises on land surveying, known as Corpus agrimensorum Romanorum. I pay close attention to the regulation of limitations in those cases where local topography caused a conflict between the characteristics of the terrain and the rules of land surveying, and possibly instigated controversy between ager publicus and ager privatus. For technical reasons, two land categories were excluded from regular limitation and land allocation: those sections of land the topography of which prevented the formation of a regular centuria, and sections of poor quality. Both categories fell under ius subsecivorum. Thus the centuriae upon which Diocletian’s palace was erected fit nicely with what Frontin describes as first class subsecivum: quod in extremis adsignatorum agrorum finibus centuria expleri non potuit. Land sections of this sort stricte iure remained permanently in state ownership,while the holders of the usufruct were, in most cases, owners of neighbouring estates to whom subseciva were given at disposal, depending on the status and specific legal regulations. By deciding to build an imperial palace and choosing a land section that fell under ius subsecivorum, the process of the acquisition of necessary land was simplified because, rather than having to expropriate ager privatus, the only action required was to reclaim the peripheral centuriae, so that the owners of neighbouring centuriae no longer enjoyed subseciva agri that arose from the institution occupatio.

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