Cosima Möller  has been a member of Topoi and the project leader of group B-I-1 since 2007. She researches the connection between land surveying and law in the Roman empire. The registration of land was carried out by surveyors in an ideal form or in conformity to natural barriers (rivers, mountains) or pre-existing forms of usage. The division of land into a checkerboard pattern along north/south and east/west parallels also defined a network of roads. Private legal options added to this system, leading to changes. Research will be conducted into the role played by the land surveyor between ars mensoria and jurisprudence, with special emphasis on the Agrimensorum Romanorum.

Since 2008, Sebastian Frühinsfeld has researched Roman wayleave as a fellow at the Chair of Civil and Roman Law at the Freie Universität Berlin (Prof. Cosima Möller).

Ernst Baltrusch is a Professor of Ancient History at the Friedrich Meinecke Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin. Baltrusch’s work focuses on the history of Judaism in antiquity, ancient international law, the history of Sparta, especially regarding foreign policy, and the transition from the Roman Republic to the Principate. In Topoi, Ernst Baltrusch is involved in the area “Mechanisms of Control and Social Spaces (Area B “Historical Spaces”).