Исторически преглед

Издание на Института за исторически изследвания при БАН

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И.Ист.И.

Iura Sepulchrorum and the Status of the Burial Plot in the Eastern Roman Provinces

IURA SEPULCHRORUM и положението на гробния парцел в източните римски провинции

Исторически преглед, 82 (2026) No. 3, pp. 07-23 (ISSN 0323-9748)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.71069/IPR3.26.LR01

Lyuba Radulova / Люба Радулова

Аsst. Рrof. Lyuba Radulova, PhD - Faculty of Classical and Мodern Philology, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”, Bulgaria; ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9902-5114; e-mail: lradulova@uni-sofia.bg

Abstract: This article examines the legal status of land on which burial could be performed. Given the complex multicultural environment of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, it analyses both Greek and Roman practices. The point of departure is recent scholarship suggesting that in Greece burials could take place primarily on private land, but also on public plots. This appears to diverge from Roman practice, since it seems to contradict the well-known passage in Gaius (2.6), according to which Roman civil law permitted burial only on private land. A closer reading of literary and epigraphic evidence, however, indicates that in certain cases Roman law did allow the use of public land for burials. Consequently, burials on public land were not impossible in the eastern provinces, whether Greek or Roman norms applied in a given instance.

Keywords: funerary law, grave plots, public land, public and private burials.