Mandate and the Management of Business in the Roman Empire

Abstract

This chapter examines the role that the contract of mandate (mandatum) and the related institution of “unauthorized administration” (negotia gesta) played in Roman economic life. Mandate represented a major form of agency in Roman society, but it presents problems of incentives because it was uncompensated: the agent might carry out significant tasks for the principal, or mandator; these tasks might involve considerable expense and even financial risk on the part of the agent, but the agent was not to profit from his service. On the basis of juridical evidence from the Digest and the Code of Justinian, I examine how mandate transformed a relationship that had its roots in upper-class Roman notions of friendship and reciprocity into a contractual form that remained useful as it provided property owners advantages with high-valued financial transactions, such as the purchase of property. In addition, it provided a useful way for Roman businesspeople to overcome problems of information in the credit market.