‘Erus … quod est dominus’. Le nuove prospettive di indagine terminologica. Un primo bilancio

The application to ancient sources of modern Information Retrieval techniques has allowed us to acquire useful new data for the study of the ownership structure in archaic Rome. In particular, the analysis of recurring contexts of the terms herus/erus, hera/era, and especially of the adjective herilis/erilis, has allowed us to prove that erus/era, since its earliest evidences, has several meanings such as “sir”, “master of the slave” and “owner of any property other than the slave”, and that this expression has been used until Late Antiquity in literary language, as well as in common language.