Definition
In Roman law, sectores were purchasers at public auction or public sales. More precisely, the term referred to buyers of confiscated or forfeited property sold by the state — goods seized from condemned criminals, enemies of Rome, or debtors whose assets were publicly liquidated. The word is Latin plural; the singular form is sector. In its most specific legal sense, sectores were the individuals who bid at and completed purchases during state-conducted sales, particularly those arising from confiscation proceedings.
Common Confusion
Modern readers encountering "sector" in legal or economic writing should not import that meaning here. The contemporary English word "sector" — meaning a division, area, or segment (as in "public sector" or "private sector") — shares a Latin root but has no connection to the Roman legal concept. A researcher who encounters sectores in a historical source is reading about auction buyers, not about economic or governmental divisions. The two meanings share etymology but diverged completely in legal usage.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in sources treating Roman law, Roman antiquities, or the history of auction and commercial law. It is not a term that migrated into common law tradition with any meaningful doctrinal weight, so researchers are unlikely to encounter it in English case law or statute. It surfaces primarily in:
— Treatises on Roman law and antiquities, particularly works discussing the aerarium (state treasury), confiscation proceedings, and the role of the quaestor in managing forfeited goods.
— Historical works on the law of auctions, where authors trace the auction mechanism back to Roman practice. Burrill's citation to Babington on Auctions places sectores in that lineage directly.
— Comparative law scholarship drawing lines between Roman commercial practice and later civil or common law auction procedures.
The key research trap is assuming the term carried the same weight as modern auction law concepts. Sectores were not simply any auction buyer — they occupied a specific procedural role in Roman state sales, particularly confiscation sales (venditio bonorum). The distinction between a general buyer at auction and a sector purchasing state-forfeited goods mattered in Roman law because the latter transaction had different legal incidents regarding title, warranty, and liability.
Researchers working in historical auction law or property law history should note that Burrill provides the more precise entry of the three sources, specifying confiscated property as the core context and citing Adam's Roman Antiquities. Black's (both editions) gives only the broader gloss. That difference is substantively meaningful: the narrower definition in Burrill is the more accurate one.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three sources agree on the basic definition: purchasers at auction or public sales in Roman law. Burrill's entry is the most useful because it adds the critical qualification — "properly, the purchasers of confiscated property" — and provides a source reference (Adam's Roman Antiquities, p. 49) that anchors the definition in classical scholarship rather than legal abstraction. Black's first and second editions track each other closely and offer no elaboration beyond the base definition; the second edition's entry appears to be a minor typographical variant of the first.
What the historical dictionaries collectively omit is any discussion of the procedural context in which sectores operated: the role of the praetor or quaestor in conducting state sales, the legal effect of purchase on title (a sector generally took clear title free of prior encumbrances in confiscation sales), or the distinction between bonorum emptores and sectores in different types of Roman insolvency and forfeiture proceedings. Researchers needing that depth should go to primary Roman law scholarship rather than relying on any of these dictionary entries.
Jurisdictional Note
Sectores is a Roman law term with no direct equivalent in English common law. It is not used as a technical term in any American, English, or Commonwealth jurisdiction in current practice. Its relevance is confined to Roman law study and legal history.