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This paper analyzes the way in which landed estates in Roman Antiquity were consolidated for fiscal reasons on the basis of cadastral records. This linking technique was known as the estate’s contributio and was outlined in a passage of the De controversiis agrorum written by Hygin, a land surveyor. During the same period in which Hygin’s text was written, a remarkable illustration of this method is provided by the way in which alimentary tables from Italy consolidated estates under cadastral and fiscal call numbers so as to arrive at a list of leaseholds, called obligatio praediorum (or estate pledging). This cadastral and fiscal approach is analyzed in detail through the most explicit table available, that of Veleia in the Piacenza Apennines. Through the technical understanding of this leasing procedure, we come closer to grasping the true meaning of terms such as fundus and villa and thus arrive at a plurality of meanings.