Agricola: Agriculture and Rustic Life in the Greco-Roman World

Commodus to Diocletian

XLVI. General Introduction

The death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD brings us to the beginning of a long period of troubles, in which the growing weakness of the empire was exposed, the principate-system of Augustus finally failed under the predominance of military power, and the imperial government was left to be reorganized by Diocletian on a more Oriental model. There is no doubt that during some hundred years the internal wellbeing of the Roman empire was being lowered, and that the parts most open to barbarian invasion suffered terribly. But the pressure of taxation to supply military needs bore heavily on all parts and impaired the vitality of the whole. Reactions there were now and then, when a strong man, or even a well-meaning one, became emperor and had a few years in which to combat present evils and for the moment check them. But the average duration of reigns was very brief; emperors were generally murdered or slain in battle; from 249 to 283 the chief function of an emperor was to lead his army against barbarian invaders. It is a remarkable fact that the first half of this unhappy century was the classical period of Roman jurisprudence. The important post of Praetorian Prefect, which began with a dignified military command and was more and more becoming the chief ministry of the Empire, was again and again held by eminent jurists. But in the long run the civil power could not stand against the jealousy of the military, and the murder of Ulpian in 228 practically ends the series of great lawyer-ministers, leaving the sword in undisputed control. The authorities for this century of troubles are meagre and unsatisfactory. With the help of contemporary inscriptions, modern writers are able to compose some sort of a history of the times, so far as public events and governmental activities are concerned. But the literature of private life, the source of our best evidence on agricultural labour, is for the time at an end, and the facts of farm life were not of the kind thought worthy of record in inscriptions.

There is therefore nothing to be done but to glean the few scraps of information that in any way bear upon the condition of tillers of the soil in this period. They are as a rule of little value, and they come from writers of little authority. But it is something if they are of a piece with the general record of these unhappy times. Even the imperial biographies of Marius Maximus survive only in the meagre abstracts of later writers, and modern historians are quite unable to reconstruct any clear picture of the inner life of the period 180-284 AD owing to the lack of materials.

The most significant piece of information relates to Pertinax. We are told1363 that one of the useful reforms contemplated by him was the reclamation of waste lands throughout the empire. He ordained that any one might occupy derelict lands, even on the imperial estates: on careful cultivation thereof, the farmer was to become owner1364. For a space of ten years he was to be exempt from all taxation, and his ownership was to be guaranteed against future disturbance. This passage is good evidence of the decay of agriculture, agreeing with what we have learnt from other sources. But we cannot gather from it that the well-meant design had any practical effect. Pertinax was only emperor for the inside of three months, and could not realize his virtuous aspirations. About 80 years later we find Aurelian1365 planning the development of waste lands in Etruria, and Probus1366 giving allotments in the wilds of Isauria to his veterans as settlers with obligation of military service. There can be little doubt that the depopulation and decline of cultivation, made sadly manifest in the calamitous times of Marcus Aurelius, had never ceased to undermine the vital forces of the empire. How to fill up deserted lands, and make them productive of food and revenue, was the problem that every serious ruler had to face. And there was in fact only one resource available to meet the need. The native population of the empire, stationary at best, had been further reduced by pestilence and famine, and was not able to fill up the spaces laid waste by frontier wars. Hence the policy of bringing in masses of barbarians, adopted by Marcus, had to be repeated again and again.

We must not confuse these settlements with the immigrations of conquering tribes that occurred later. Rome was still superior to her adversaries in military organization and skill, and under fairly equal conditions able to defeat them in pitched battles. Thus Claudius II gained great victories over the Goths, and the biographer1367 tells us of the sequel. ‘The Roman provinces were filled with barbarian slaves and Scythian tillers of the soil. The Goth was turned into a settler on the barbarian frontier. There was not a single district but had some Gothic slave whose bondage attested the triumph.’ Here we seem to have the echo of a somewhat boastful contemporary version. The mention of both slaves and frontier colonists is to be noted. We have no statistics to guide us in an attempt to estimate the relative numbers of the two classes. But the settlement of defeated barbarians on the frontier as Roman subjects is clearly regarded as a worthy achievement. So indeed it might have been, had it been possible to civilize them as Romans, only profiting by the introduction of new blood. But this process was no longer possible: its opposite, the barbarizing of Roman lands, steadily went on. Claudius only reigned about two years. The great soldier who followed him in 270-5, Aurelian, had a plan for employing prisoners of war1368 on the cultivation of waste lands in Italy itself, but we have no reason to think that much came of it. And the true state of things was confessed in his abandonment of Trajan’s great Province of Dacia. Aurelian withdrew1369 the army and the provincials, whom he settled south of the Danube in Moesia; putting the best face he could on this retirement by giving Moesia the name of Dacia.

These phenomena attest an obvious truth, sometimes ignored, that territorial expansion needs something more than military conquest to give it lasting effect. In order to hold conquered lands the conquerors must either occupy them or thoroughly assimilate the native population. Emperors in this period became aware that they could do neither. Alexander Severus (222-35) gained a great victory1370 over the Persians and took a number of prisoners. It was a tradition of Persian kings not to let their subjects pass into foreign slavery, and Alexander allowed them to redeem these captives by a money payment. This he used partly in compensating the masters of those who had already passed into private ownership, and the rest he paid into the treasury. This conciliatory policy may have been wise. In any case the treasury was in this age chronically in need of ready money. But dealing with the great oriental monarchy was a simpler undertaking than that of dealing with the rude peoples of the North, who pressed on in tribal units, offering no central power with which to negotiate. Probus (276-82) seems to have been sorely troubled by their variety and independence of action. We hear that when operating in Thrace he settled 100,000 Bastarnae1371 on Roman soil, and that all these kept faith with him. But he went on to transplant large bodies of Gepidae Gruthungi and Vandals. These all broke their faith. While Probus was busy putting down pretenders in other parts of the empire, they went on raiding expeditions at large by land and sea, defying and damaging the power of Rome. True, the emperor broke them by force of arms, and drove the remnant back to their wilds: but we can see what the biographer ignores, that such raids did mischief which the empire was in no condition to repair. What were the terms made with these barbarians, to which the Bastarnae faithfully adhered, we are not told. Probably the grant of lands carried with it the duty of furnishing recruits to Roman armies and accepting the command of Roman officers.

In connexion with agricultural conditions we must not omit to notice the change that was passing over Roman armies. The straits to which Marcus had been reduced by the years of plague and losses in the field had compelled him to raise fresh troops by any means, enrolling slaves, hiring barbarian mercenaries, and so forth. With this miscellaneous force he just managed to hold his ground in the North. But the army never recovered its old tone. The period 180-284 shews it going from bad to worse. It is full of sectional jealousy and losing all sense of common imperial duty; only effective when some one strong man destroys his rivals and is for the moment supreme. The rise and fall of pretenders1372 is a main topic of the imperial history. As from the foundation of the Empire, the numbers of the army were inadequate for defence against simultaneous attacks on several frontiers. The lack of cooperation among their enemies, and the mobility of Roman frontier armies, had sufficed to keep invaders at bay. But as pressure became more continuous it was more difficult to meet the needs of the moment by moving armies to and fro. More and more they took on the character of garrisons, their chief camps grew into towns, local recruits filled up their ranks, and they were less and less available for service as field-armies. But it was obviously necessary that the country round about their quarters should be under cultivation, in order to supply them with at least part of their food. It may safely be assumed that this department was carefully attended to in the formation of all these military stations. And it seems that under the new conditions one of the evils that had hitherto embarrassed the empire was gradually brought to an end. For the fact remains that, after all the wholesale waste of lives in the bloody wars of the third century, it was still possible to raise great and efficient armies. Reorganized by Diocletian and Constantine, the empire proved able to defend itself for many years yet, even in the West. The new system may have been oppressive to the civil population, but it certainly revived military strength. This could not have been achieved without an improvement in the supply of man-power. It has been maintained1373 that this improvement was due to the permanent settlements of barbarians, mostly of German race, within the territories of the empire during the third century. Whether planted on the vacant lands as alien settlers (inquilini)1374 on easy terms, but bound to provide recruits for the army, or enlisted from the first and settled in permanent stations, they were year by year raising large families and turning deserted border-lands into nurseries of imperial soldiers. This picture may be somewhat overdrawn, but it has the merit of accounting for the phenomena. Without some explanation of the kind it is very hard to understand how the empire came to survive at all. With it, the sequel appears natural and intelligible. These barbarians were so far Romanized as to be proud of becoming Romans: the empire was barbarized so far as to lend itself to institutions of a more and more un-Roman character, and to lose the remaining traditions of literature and art: and when ruder barbarians in the fifth century assailed the empire in the West they found the control of government already in the hands of kinsmen of their own.

If we are to take the very meagre gleanings from the general records of this period and combine them with the information gathered from the African inscriptions referred to below, we can provisionally form some sort of notion of the various classes of labour employed on the land. First, there were coloni, freemen1375 in the eye of the law, however much local conditions, or the terms of their tenancies and the tendency for tenancies to become hereditary, may have limited the practical use of their legal freedom. Secondly, there were, at least in some parts, protected occupants encouraged to turn to account parcels of land that had for some reason or other lain idle. Thirdly, there were also rustic slaves who did most of the work on large farms. The stipulated services of tenants1376 at certain seasons to some extent supplemented their labour, at least in some parts: and the falling supply of slaves tended to make such auxiliary services more important. For the value of agricultural land depends mainly on the available supply of labour. Fourthly, chiefly if not entirely in the northern Provinces, a number of barbarians had been planted upon Roman soil. Some entered peacefully and settled down as willing subjects of the empire on vacant lands assigned to them. Some had surrendered after defeat in battle, and came in as prisoners. But, instead of making them rustic slaves on the old model, Marcus had found a new and better use for them. A new status, that of inquilini1377 or ‘alien denizens’ was created, inferior to that of free coloni but above that of slaves. They seem to have been generally left to cultivate plots of land, paying a share of the produce, and to have been attached to the soil, grouped under Roman landlords or chief-tenants. They had their wives and families, and their sons recruited Roman armies. Lastly, we have no right to assume that small cultivating owners1378 were wholly extinct, though there can hardly have been many of them.

We have an account1379 of the rising in Africa (238 AD) which, so far as it goes, gives us a little light on the agricultural situation there in the middle of this period. The barbarian emperor Maximin was represented in the Province by a procurator fisci whose oppressions provoked a conspiracy against him. Some young men of good and wealthy families drew together a number of persons who had suffered wrong. They ordered their slaves1380 from the farms to assemble with clubs and axes. In obedience1381 to their masters’ orders they gathered in the town before daybreak, and formed a great mob. For Africa is naturally a populous1382 country; so the tillers of the soil were numerous. After dawn the young leaders told the mass of the slaves to follow them as being a section of the general throng: they were to conceal their weapons for the present, but valiantly to resist any attack on their masters. The latter then met the procurator and assassinated him. Hereupon his guards drew their swords meaning to avenge the murder, but the countrymen in support of their masters1383 fell upon them with their rustic weapons and easily routed them. After this the young leaders, having gone too far to draw back, openly rebelled against Maximin and proclaimed the proconsul Gordian Roman emperor. In this passage we have before us young men of landlord families, apparently holding large estates and working them with slave labour. They are evidently on good terms with their slaves. Of tenant farmers there is no mention: but there is a general reference to support given by other persons, already wronged or afraid of suffering wrong. The Latin biographer1384, who drew from Herodian, speaks of the murder as the work of ‘the rustic common folk1385 and certain soldiers.’ Now Frontinus1386, writing in the latter part of the first century AD, tells us that in Africa on their great estates individuals had ‘a considerable population1387 of common folk.’ The language can hardly refer to slaves: and a reference to levying recruits1388 for the army plainly forbids such an interpretation. But it does not imply that there were no slaves employed on those great estates; the writer is not thinking of the free-or-slave labour question. In regard to the writers who record this particular episode, are we to suppose that by ‘slaves’ Herodian loosely means coloni? Surely not. Then does Capitolinus by ‘rustic common folk’ mean slaves? I cannot believe it. More probably the writer, contemporary with Diocletian and Constantine, uses a loose expression without any precise meaning. If we are to attempt any inference from the language of Herodian, we must accept him as a witness that in Africa, or at least in parts of Africa, agriculture was still being carried on by slave labour. This does not exclude the existence of a small-tenancy system side by side with it. And the state of things disclosed1389 in the African inscriptions referred to above is consistent with both systems: for that the manor-farm on a great estate employed a slave staff for its regular operations, and drew from tenants’ services only the help needed at certain seasons, seems the only possible conclusion from the evidence. Therefore, while agreeing with Heisterbergk1390 that the narrative of Herodian shews the populousness of Africa, we need not go so far as to ignore the fact of a considerable farm-slave element in the Province.

Meanwhile there are signs that rural Italy was suffering from the disorders and insecurity that had so often hindered the prosperity of agriculture. Even under the strong reign of Severus, with a larger standing army in Italy than ever before, a daring brigand1391 remained at large for two years and was only captured by treachery. Though we do not hear of his attacking farmers directly, such a disturbance must have been bad for all country folk. That he black-mailed them is probable: that they were plundered and maltreated by the licentious soldiery employed against him, is as nearly certain as can be from what we know of the soldiery of this time.

XLVII. The African Inscriptions

Certain inscriptions1392 from the Roman Province of Africa, dating from the second and third centuries AD or at least referring to matters of that period, throw some light upon the management of great imperial domains in that part of the world. To discuss these in full one by one would be beyond the scope of this work, and would require several chapters of intolerable length. I shall content myself with giving a short account of each case, confined to those details which have direct bearing on my subject and which can be gathered with reasonable certainty from the often mutilated texts. French and German savants have contributed freely to the deciphering and interpretation, with happy results: but some of the proposed ‘restorations’ are much too bold to serve as a basis for further argument. After the details, I purpose to consider the points common to these interesting cases, and their place in the history of agriculture and agricultural labour under the earlier Roman Empire, say from Trajan to Severus.

(1) The inscription of Henschir Mettich1393 belongs to the year 116-7 AD, at the end of Trajan’s reign. It deals with a domain called fundus villae magnae Variani, and does not refer to it by the term saltus at all. There is no reference to arrears of rent, the reliqua colonorum of which we often hear in the jurists and other writers. Indeed there is no mention of money-rents, unless we reckon as such the little dues (4 as per head) payable for grazing stock on the common pasture. The coloni are partiarii, paying certain shares (generally ⅓) of their yearly produce as rent. These are paid, not to an imperial official but to the lords or head-tenants of the estate (dominis aut conductoribus eius fundi) or to their stewards (vilicis). It seems certain therefore that it was the chief tenants who were responsible to the imperial treasury for the amounts annually due, and that upon them rested the troublesome duty of collection. That this charge was a new one, laid upon them by Trajan, is perhaps possible, but hardly probable. For this statute regulating the domain (a lex data) is expressly declared to be modelled on a lex Manciana1394, which can hardly be other than a set of regulations issued by a former owner of the estate, and adopted with modifications by the imperial agents (procuratores) specially appointed to organize it as an imperial domain. In Roman practice it was usual to follow convenient precedents. How long the estate had become Crown-property, and by what process, inheritance purchase confiscation etc, we do not know. Nor is it certain whether the new statute was prepared as a matter of course on the cessation of private ownership, or whether it was issued in response to an appeal to the emperor complaining of oppressive exactions on the part of the head-tenants. But of the latter situation there is no sign, and I am inclined to accept the former alternative. In that case it appears necessary to suppose that the system of letting a great estate to one or a few great lessees, who might and did sublet parcels to small tenant farmers, was not unknown in the practice of great private landlords. This may well have been the case in Africa, still populous and prosperous, though such a system never took root in depopulated and failing Italy. It required willingness on the part of men of substance to risk their capital in a speculation that could only succeed if good sub-tenants were to be found. This condition could not be fulfilled in Italy, but in Africa things were very different.

It is however easier to note this difference by unmistakeable signs than to ascertain it in detail. One point is clear. The coloni on this domain were bound to render fixed services to the head-tenants at certain seasons of the year. These services consisted of two days’ work (operas binas) at the times of ploughing hoeing and harvest, six in all. The falling-off in the supply of slaves, despite occasional captures of prisoners in war, was a consequence of the pax Romana, and how to provide sufficient labour was a standing problem of agriculture. The guarantee of extra labour at seasons of pressure was doubtless a main consideration with speculators in inducing them to venture their substance by becoming lessees of large tracts of land. Of hired labour available for the purpose the statute gives no hint, nor is it likely that such labourers were to be found in Africa. Thus the colonus, and perhaps his whole household, were bound to certain compulsory services, and thereby made part of an organization strictly regulated and liable to further regulation. Further regulation was not likely to give the peasant farmer more freedom of movement, since the leading motive of the system was to secure continuous cultivation, and this could best be secured by long tenancies, tending to become hereditary. Therefore this statute offers various inducements to keep the peasant contentedly engaged in bettering his own position by developing the estate. The head-tenants are strictly forbidden to oppress him by exacting larger shares of produce or more operae than are allowed by the regulations. He is encouraged to cultivate parcels of waste land, not included in his farm, by various privileges: in particular, a term of rent-free years is guaranteed to him in case he plants the land with fruit trees. This term, varying from five to ten years according to species of trees, is meant to give him time to get a taste of profit before he becomes liable to rent: its effect in making him loth to move is obvious.

The statute tells us nothing on another important point. From the jurists and other sources1395 we know that in Italy it was normally the custom for the stock of a farm let to a colonus to be found for the most part by the landlord. It was held1396 that in taking over this instrumentum at a valuation the tenant virtually purchased it, of course not paying for it in ready money, but standing bound to account for the amount on quitting the tenancy. Thus a small man was left free to employ his own little capital in the actual working of the farm. He could add to the stock, and his additions gave to the landlord a further security for his rent, over and above that given by the sureties usually required. What stock was found by landlords, and what by tenant, was a matter for agreement generally following local convention. But on this African domain we are not told how the question of instrumentum was settled. Probably there was a traditional rule so well established that no reference to the point in the statute seemed necessary. The sole landlord was now the emperor. Without some direct evidence to that effect, I can hardly suppose that the provision of farm stock was entrusted to his procuratores. On the other hand, if the chief tenants, the conductores, were expected to undertake this business, as if they had been landlords, this too seems to call for direct evidence. Possibly the need of finding stock for an African peasant farmer was not so pressing as in Italy: still some equipment was surely required. How it was provided, seems to me a question for answering which we have not as yet sufficient materials. But it may be that on these domains the practical necessity for dealing with it seldom occurred. If, when the formal term of a tenancy expired, the same tenant stayed on either by tacit renewal (reconductio) or by grant of a new lease, the stock originally supplied would surely remain for use on the farm, upkeep and renewals of particular articles being of course allowed for. If a farmer’s son succeeded him as tenant, the situation would be the same, or very nearly so. Therefore the manifest desire of emperors to keep tenants in permanence probably operated to minimize questions of instrumentum to the point of practical insignificance.

That the coloni on this estate were themselves handworkers can hardly be doubted. The operae required of them suggest this on any natural interpretation. But there is nothing to shew that they did not employ1397 slave labour—if and when they could get it. We are not to assume that they were all on one dead level of poverty. That the head-tenants kept slaves to work those parts of the domain that they farmed for their own account, is indicated by the mention of their vilici, and made certain by the small amount of supplementary labour guaranteed them in the form of tenants’ operae. Only one direct mention of slaves (servis dominicis) occurs in the inscription, and the text is in that place badly mutilated. Partly for the same defect, it seems necessary to avoid discussing certain other details, such as the position of the stipendiarii of whom we hear in a broken passage. Nor do I venture to draw confident inferences from the references to inquilini or coloni inquilini, or to discover an important distinction between the tenants who actually resided on the estate and those who did not. It may be right to infer a class of small proprietors dwelling around on the skirts of the great domain and hiring parcels of land within it. It may be right to regard the inquilini as coloni transplanted from abroad and made residents on the estate. But until such conclusions are more surely established it is safer to refrain from building upon them. The general effect of this document is to give us outlines of a system of imperial ‘peculiars,’ that is of domains on which order and security, necessary for the successful working and continuous cultivation, were not left to the operation of the ordinary law, but guaranteed in each case by what we may call an imperial by-law.

(2) The inscription of Souk el Khmis1398 deals with circumstances between 180 and 183 AD. The rescript of Commodus, and the appeal to which it was the answer, are recorded in it. The imperial estate to which it refers is called saltus Burunitanus. A single conductor appears to have been the lessee of the whole estate, and it was against his unlawful exactions that the coloni appealed. Through the connivance of the responsible procurator (corruptly obtained, the coloni hint,) this tyrant had compelled them to pay larger shares of produce than were rightly due, and also to render services of men and beasts beyond the amount fixed by statute. This abuse had existed on the estate for some time, but the proceedings of the present conductor had made it past all bearing. Evidently there had been some resistance, but official favour had enabled him to employ military force in suppressing it. Violence had been freely used: some persons had been arrested and imprisoned or otherwise maltreated; others had been severely beaten, among them even Roman citizens. Hence the appeal. It is to be noted that the appellants in no way dispute their liability to pay shares of produce (partes agrarias) or to render labour-services at the usual seasons of pressure (operarum praebitionem iugorumve). They refer to a clause in a lex Hadriana, regulating these dues. It is against the exaction of more than this statute allows that they venture to protest. They judiciously point out to the emperor that such doings are injurious to the financial interest1399 of his treasury (in perniciem rationum tuarum), that is, they will end by ruining the estate as a source of steady revenue. The officials of the central department in Rome were evidently of the same opinion, for the rescript of Commodus1400 plainly ordered his procuratores to follow closely the rules and policy applicable to the domains, permitting no exactions in transgression of the standing regulations (contra perpetuam formam). In short, he reaffirmed the statute of Hadrian.

In this document also we hear nothing of tenants’ arrears or of money-rents. Naturally enough, for the coloni are partiarii whose rent is a share of produce. In connexion with such tenants the difficulty1401 of reliqua does not easily arise. They are labouring peasants, who describe themselves as homines rustici tenues manuum nostrarum operis victum tolerantes. Of course they are posing as injured innocents. Perhaps they were: at any rate the great officials in Rome would look kindly on humble peasants who only asked protection in order to go on unmolested, producing the food which it was their duty to produce,—food, by the by, of the need of which the Roman mob was a standing reminder. Of vilici or ordinary slaves this document says nothing, for it had no need to do so; but the right to operae at certain seasons implies slave labour on the head-tenant’s own farm, probably attached to the chief villa or palatium. In a notable phrase at the end of their appeal the coloni speak of themselves1402 as ‘your peasants, home-bred slaves and foster-children of your domains’ (rustici tui vernulae et alumni saltuum tuorum). Surely this implies, not only that they are coloni Caesaris, standing in a direct relation to the emperor whose protection1403 they implore against the conductores agrorum fiscalium; but also that their connexion with the estate is an old-established one, passing from fathers to sons, a hereditary tie which they have at present no wish to see broken.

In this case the circumstances that led to the setting-up of the inscription are clear enough. Evidently the appeal represented a great effort, both in the way of organizing concerted action on the part of the peasant farmers, and in overcoming the hindrances to its presentation which would be created by the interested ingenuity of those whose acts were thereby called in question. The imperial officials in the Provinces were often secretly in league with those in authority at Rome, and to have procured an imperial rescript in favour of the appellants was a great triumph, perhaps a rare one. The forma perpetua containing the regulations governing the estate was, we learn, already posted up on a bronze tablet. It had been disregarded: and now it was an obvious precaution to record that the emperor had ordered those regulations to be observed in future. How long the effect of this rescript lasted we are left to guess. Officials changed, and reaffirmation of principles could not guarantee permanent reform of practice. Still, the policy of the central bureau, when not warped by corrupt influence, was consistent and clear. To keep these imperial ‘peculiars’ on such a footing as to insure steady returns was an undoubted need: and, after the extreme strain on the resources of the empire imposed by the calamitous times of Marcus, it was in the reign of Commodus a greater need than ever.

(3) The Gazr Mezuâr inscription1404, very fragmentary and in some points variously interpreted, belongs to the same period (181 AD). A few details seem sufficiently certain to be of use here. The estate in question is imperial property, apparently one of the domanial units revealed to us by these African documents. It seems to record another case of appeal against unlawful exaction of operae, probably by a conductor or conductores. It also was successful. But it is notable that the lawful amount of operae to be rendered by coloni on this estate was just double of that fixed in the other cases—four at each of the seasons of pressure, twelve in all. We can only infer that the task-scale varied on various estates for reasons unknown to us. One fragment, if a probable restoration1405 is to be accepted, conveys the impression of a despairing threat on the part of the appellants. It suggests that on failure of redress they may be driven to return to their homes where they can make their abode in freedom. On the face of it, this is an assertion of freedom of movement, a valuable piece of evidence, if it can be trusted. We may safely go so far as to note that it is at least not inconsistent with other indications pointing to the same conclusion. We may even remark that the suggestion of going home in search of freedom agrees better with the notion that these coloni were African natives than with the supposition of their Italian origin. The Roman citizens on the Burunitan estate will not support the latter view, for they are mentioned as exceptional. Seeck (rightly, I think,) urges that Italy was in sore need of men and had none to spare for populous Africa. I would add that the emigration of Italians to the Provinces as working farmers seems to require more proof than has yet been produced. As officials, as traders, as financiers and petty usurers, as exploiters of other men’s labour, they abounded in the subject countries; but, so far as I can learn, not as labourers. Many of them no doubt held landed estates, for instance in the southern parts of Spain and Gaul. But when we meet with loose general expressions1406 such as ‘The Roman is dwelling in every land that he has conquered,’ we must not let them tempt us into overestimating the number of Italian settlers taking an active part in the operations of provincial agriculture.

(4) The inscription of Ain Ouassel1407 belongs to the end of the reign of Severus. The text is much broken, but information of no small importance can be gathered from what remains. Severus was himself a native of Africa, and may have taken a personal interest in the subject of this ordinance. In point of form the document chiefly consists of a quoted communication (sermo) from the emperor’s procuratores1408, one of whom, a freedman, saw to its publication in an inscription on an ara legis divi Hadriani. A copy of the lex Hadriana, or at least the relevant clauses thereof, was included. The matter on which the emperor’s decision is announced was the question of the right to occupy and cultivate rough lands (rudes agri)1409, which are defined as lands either simply waste or such as the conductores have neglected to cultivate for at least ten years preceding. These lands are included in no less than five different saltus mentioned by proper names, and the scope of the ordinance is wider than in the cases referred to above. It appears that, while it may have contained some modifications or extensions of the provisions of the lex Hadriana, its main bearing was to reaffirm and apply the privileges granted by that statute. It is not rash to infer that we have here evidence of a set of regulations for all or many of the African domains, forming a part of Hadrian’s great work of reorganization.

If the remaining words of this inscription are rightly interpreted, as I think they are, it seems that the policy of encouraging the cultivation of waste and derelict lands was at this time being revived by the government. We have seen it at work in Trajan’s time, promoted by guarantee of privileges and temporary exemption from burdens. But the persons then encouraged to undertake the work of reclamation were to all appearance only the coloni at the time resident on the estate. In the case of these five saltus, the offer seems to be made more widely, at least so far as the remaining text may justify such conclusions. It reads like an attempt to attract enterprising squatters of any kind from any quarter. They are offered not merely undisturbed occupation and a heritable tenure of some sort, but actual possessio. Now this right, which fills a whole important chapter in Roman law, was one protected by special legal remedies, and even on an imperial domain can hardly have been a matter of indifference. It was quite distinct from mere possessio naturalis1410, which was all that the ordinary colonus enjoyed on his own behalf. This new-type squatter is allowed the same privilege of so many years of grace, free of rent, at the outset of his enterprise, that we have noted above. The details are somewhat different. For olives the free term is ten years: for fruit trees (poma, here mentioned without reference to vines) it is seven years. It is expressly provided that the divisio, which implies the partiary system of tenancy, shall apply only to such poma as are actually brought1411 to market. This suggests that in the past attempts to levy the quota as a proportional share of the gross crop, without regard to the needs of the grower’s own household, had been found to discourage reclamation. It has been pointed out that the effect of the new policy would be to create a sort of perpetual leasehold, similar to that known by the Greek term emphyteusis, which is found fully established in the later empire. But the land was not all under fruit-crops. The disposal of corn crops is regulated in a singular clause thus. ‘Any shares of dry1412 crops that shall be due are, during the first five years of occupation, to be delivered to the head-tenant within whose holding1413 the land occupied is situate. After the lapse of that time they are to go to the account (of the Treasury1414).’ Why is the conductor to receive these partes aridae? It is reasonably suggested that the intention was to obviate initial obstruction on the part of the big lessee, and thus to give the reclamation-project a fair start.

For we have no right to assume that the parcels of land thrown open to occupation had hitherto been included1415 in no tenancy. The whole import of the document shews that they often belonged to this or that area held by one or other of the big lessees. That there was at least one conductor to each of the five saltus seems certain. That there was only one to each, is perhaps probable, but hardly to be gathered from the text. Now, so long as the conductor regularly paid his fixed rent (canon) and accounted for the taxes (tributa) due from the estate, why should the imperial authority step in to take pieces of land (and that the poorest land) out of his direct control? The answer to this is that the Roman law1416 recognized the right of a private landlord to require of his tenants that they should not ‘let down’ the land leased to them: and proof of neglected cultivation might operate to bar a tenant’s claim for abatement of rent. What was the right of an ordinary landlord was not likely to be waived by an emperor: though his domains might be administered in fact by a special set of fiscal regulations, he claimed a right analogous to that recognized by the ordinary law, and none could challenge its exercise. A big lessee might often find that parts of his holding could not be cultivated at a profit under existing conditions. Slave labour was careless and inefficient; it was in these times also costly, so costly that it only paid to employ it on generous soils. The task-work of coloni did not amount to much, and it was no doubt rendered grudgingly. He was tempted to economize in slaves1417 and to employ his reduced staff on the best land only. We need not suppose that he got an abatement of his fixed rent from the fiscal authorities: he was most unlikely to attract their attention by making such a claim. He had made his bargain with eyes presumably open. That he had agreed to the canon assures us that it must have been low enough to leave him a comfortable margin for profit. We may be fairly sure that he sat quiet and did what seemed to pay him best.

In the remaining text of this statute there is no reference to operae due from the new squatters, and nothing is said of coloni. This does not seem to be due to injury of the stone. The persons for whose benefit the statute is enacted are apparently a new or newly recognized element1418 in the population of these domains, not coloni. But the rights offered to them are expressly referred to as rights granted by the statute of Hadrian. If so, then the lex Hadriana contemplated the establishment of a new peasant class, not coloni, and the present statute was merely a revival of Hadrian’s scheme. The men are eventually to pay shares of crops, and Schulten’s1419 view, that they are on the way to become coloni, is possible, if not probable. When he remarks that they might find the position of coloni a doubtful boon, we need not challenge his opinion.

(5) The inscription of Ain el Djemala1420, a later discovery (1906) is of special importance as belonging to the same neighbourhood as the preceding one. It is a document of Hadrian’s time. It refers to the same group of estates as the above, and deals with the same matter, the right to cultivate waste or derelict parcels of land. Indeed the connexion of the two inscriptions is so close that the parts preserved of each can be safely used to fill gaps in the text of the other. In a few points this inscription, the earlier in date, supplies further detail. The most notable is that another estate, a saltus or fundus Neronianus, is mentioned in it, and not in the later one. Thus it would seem that it referred to six estates, a curious coincidence, when we recall the six great African landlords made away with by Nero. Another little addition is that waste lands are defined as marshy or wooded. Also that the land is spoken of as fit for growing olives vines and corn-crops, which supplements a mutilated portion of the Ain Ouassel stone. But in one point the difference between the two is on the face of it difficult to reconcile. In addressing the imperial procuratores the applicants base their request on the lex Manciana, the benefit of which they seek to enjoy1421 as used on the neighbouring saltus Neronianus. Here the broken text is thought to have contained a reference to the enhanced prosperity of that estate owing to the concession. In any case we may fairly conclude that the lex Manciana was well known in the district, and its regulations regarded by the farmers as favourable to their interests. But the reply to their petition does not refer to it as the immediate basis of the decision given. The communication (sermo) of Hadrian’s procurators is cited as the ground of the leave granted for cultivation of waste lands. Yet the broken sentence at the end of the inscription seems at least to shew that the rules of the lex Manciana were still recognized as a standard, confirmed and perhaps incorporated, or referred to by name, in the lex Hadriana itself. It is ingeniously suggested that the farmers rest their case on the Manciana because the Hadriana was as yet unknown to them; while the reply refers to Hadrian’s statute as authority. Whether the saltus or fundus Neronianus, on which the Mancian regulations were in force, is another estate-unit similar to the five named both here and in the later inscription, is a point on which I have some doubts, too little connected with my subject for discussion here. The general scope of the concession granted by Hadrian is the same as the later one of Severus.

If Hadrian issued a statute or statutes regulating the terms of occupancy on the African domains, and some attempts to evade it were met by its reaffirmation under Commodus, it is quite natural that neglect or evasion of it in some other respects should be met by reaffirmation under Severus. This consideration will account for the identity of the concessions granted in these two inscriptions. And it agrees perfectly with the evidence of later legislation in the Theodosian code. The normal course of events is, legislation to protect the poorer classes of cultivators, then evasion of the law by the selfish rich, then reenactment of evaded laws, generally with increased penalties. That under the administrative system of the domains much the same phenomena should occur, is only what we might expect.

XLVIII. Discussion of the Above Inscriptions

In reviewing the state of things revealed to us by these inscriptions we must carefully bear in mind that they relate solely to the Province Africa. Conditions there were in many ways exceptional. When Rome took over this territory after the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, it was probably a country divided for the most part into great estates worked on the Carthaginian system by slave labour. Gradually the land came more and more into the hands of Roman capitalists, to whose opulence Horace refers. Pliny tells us that in Nero’s time six1422 great landlords possessed half the entire area of the Province, when that emperor found a pretext for putting them to death and confiscating their estates. Henceforth the ruling emperor was the predominating landlord1423 in a Province of immense importance, in particular as a chief granary of Rome. We are not to suppose that any change in the system of large units was ever contemplated. Punic traditions, probably based on experience, favoured the system; though the Punic language, still spoken, seems to have been chiefly confined to the seaboard districts. What the change of lordship effected was not only to the financial advantage of the imperial treasury: it also put an end to the creation of what were a sort of little principalities that might some day cause serious trouble. At this point we are tempted to wonder whether the great landlords, before the sweeping measure of Nero, had taken any steps towards introducing a new organization in the management of their estates. Trajan’s statute refers to a lex Manciana and adopts a number of its regulations. These regulations clearly contemplate a system of head-tenants and sub-tenants, of whom the latter seem to be actual working farmers living of the labour of their own hands, as those who some 65 years later described themselves in appealing to Commodus. The former have stewards in charge of the cultivation of the ‘manor farms’ attached to the principal farmsteads, and evidently employ gangs of slaves: but at special seasons have a right to a limited amount1424 of task-labour from the free sub-tenants of the small farms. That these labour-conditions were devised to meet a difficulty in procuring enough slaves to carry on the cultivation of the whole big estate, is an inference hardly to be resisted. That we find it on more than one estate indicates that for the time it was serving its purpose. But, in admitting that it probably began under the rule of great private landlords, we must not lose sight of the fact that it was liable to grievous abuse, and that even the regulations of Hadrian did not remove the necessity of pitiful appeals for redress.

An important characteristic of these estates was that they were outside the municipal1425 system. Each of the so-called civitates had its own charter or statute (lex) conforming more or less closely to a common1426 model, under which the municipal authorities could regulate the management of lands within its territory. But these great estates were independent1427 of such local jurisdictions. And this independence would seem to date from the times of private ownership, before the conversion of many of them into imperial domains. Mommsen thought that this separate treatment of them as ‘peculiars’ began in Italy under the Republic, and was due to the influence of the landowning aristocracy, who were bent upon admitting no such concurrent authority on their latifundia. This may have been so, and the extension of large-scale possessions to the Provinces may have carried the system abroad. At all events there it was, and it suited the convenience of a grasping emperor: he had only to get rid of the present possessor and carry on the administration of the domain as before: his agents stepped into the place of those employed by the late landlord, and only slight modification of the current regulations would be required. He issued a statute for management of ‘crown-property’ as he would for a municipality. It was in effect a local law, and it does not appear that the common law administered by the ordinary courts could override it. The imperial procurator was practically the magistrate charged with its administration in addition to his financial duties, for government and extraction of revenue were really two sides of the same function. Obviously the interests of the emperor, of his agent, of the head-tenants, and of the peasant cultivators, were not the same. But the peasant, who wanted to pay as little as possible, and the emperor who wanted to receive steady returns—as large as possible, but above all things steady—had a common interest in preventing unlawful exactions, by which a stable income was imperilled and the prosperity of the cultivator impaired. On the other hand the procurator and the conductor could only make illicit profits through combining to rob the emperor by squeezing his coloni. How to accomplish this was no doubt a matter of delicate calculation. How much oppression would the coloni stand without resorting to the troublesome and risky process of an appeal? We only hear of one or two appeals made with success. Of those that were made and rejected or foiled by various arts, and of those abandoned in despair at an early stage, we get no record. Yet that such cases did occur, perhaps not seldom, we may be reasonably sure.

It is well to remember that Columella, in whose treatise letting of farms to tenants first appears, not as an occasional expedient but as part of a reasoned scheme of estate-management, makes provision for a procurator1428 as well as a vilicus. One duty of the former is to keep an eye on the latter. In the management of great estates an atmosphere of mistrust is perhaps to some extent unavoidable. In an agricultural system based on slave labour, this mistrust begins at the very bottom of the structure and reaches to the very top, as is shewn by all experience ancient and modern. Industry in slaves, diligence and honesty in agents and stewards, are not to be relied on when these subordinates have no share in the profit derived from the practice of such virtues. And mistrust of slaves and freedmen did not imply a simple trust in free tenants. Columella only advises1429 letting to tenants in circumstances that make it impracticable to cultivate profitably by a slave-staff under a steward. The plan is a sort of last resort, and it can only work well if the tenants stay on continuously. Therefore care should be taken to make the position of the coloni permanently attractive. This advice is primarily designed for Italy, but its principles are of general application, and no doubt justified by experience. Their extension to latifundia abroad, coupled with a falling-off in the supply of slaves, led to similar results: great estates might still be in part worked by slave labour under stewards, but letting parcels to small tenants became a more and more vital feature of the system. But to deal directly from a distance with a number of such peasant farmers would be a troublesome business. We need not wonder that it became customary to let large blocks of land, even whole latifundia, to big lessees, speculative men who undertook the subletting and rent-collecting of part of their holdings, while they could work the central manor-farm by slave labour on their own account, and generally exploit the situation for their own profit. Thus, as once the latifundium had absorbed little properties, so now its subdivision was generating little tenancies, with chief-tenants as a sort of middlemen between the dominus and the coloni. To protect the colonus, the powers of the conductor1430 had to be strictly limited: to ease the labour-problem and retain the conductor, a certain amount of task-work had to be required of the colonus. And this last condition was ominous of the coming serfdom.

If the economic situation and the convenience of non-resident landlords operated to produce a widespread system of letting to small tenants, it was naturally an object to levy the rents in such a form as would best secure a safe and regular return. To exact a fixed money-rent would mean that the peasant must spend time in marketing his produce in order to procure the necessary cash, and thereby lessen the time spent in actual farm-labour. In bad years he would look for an abatement of his rent, nor would it be easy to satisfy him: here was material for disputes and discontent. Such difficulties were known in Italy and elsewhere, and jurists recognized1431 an advantage of the ‘partiary’ system in this connexion. An abatement of rent due in a particular year need not imply that the landlord lost the amount of abatement for good and all. If the next year produced a ‘bumper’ crop, the landlord was entitled to claim restitution of last year’s abatement in addition to the yearly rent. This too, it seems, in the case of a tenant sitting at a fixed money-rent. But the partiarius colonus is on another footing: he shares gain and loss with the dominus, with whom he is a quasi-partner1432. It was surely considerations of this kind that led to the adoption of the share-rent system on these great African estates. By fixing the proportion on a moderate scale, the peasant was fairly certain to be able to pay his rent, and he would not be harassed with money transactions dependent on the fluctuations in the price of corn. Under such conditions he was more likely to be contented and to stay on where he was, and that this should be so was precisely what the landlord desired. On the other hand the big conductor might pay rent either in coin or kind. He was a speculator, doubtless well able to take care of his own interests: probably the normal case was that he agreed to a fixed cash payment, and only took the lease on terms that left him a good prospect of making it a remunerative venture. But on this point there is need of further evidence.

When the emperor took over an estate of this kind, such an existing organization would be admirably fitted to continue under the fiscal administration. Apparently this is just what happened. One small but important improvement would be automatically produced by the change. The coloni would now become coloni Caesaris1433 and whatever protection against exactions of conductores they may have enjoyed under the sway of their former lords was henceforth not less likely to be granted and much more certain of effect. To the fiscal officials any course of action tending to encourage permanent tenancies and steady returns would on the face of it be welcome: for it was likely to save them trouble, if not to bring them credit. The only influence liable to incline them in another direction was corruption in some form or other, leading them to connive at misdeeds of the local agents secretly in league with the head-lessees on the spot. That cases of such connivance occurred in the period from Trajan to Severus is not to be doubted. During the following period of confusion they probably became frequent. But it was not until Diocletian introduced a more elaborate imperial system, and increased imperial burdens to defray its greater cost, that the evil reached its height. Then the corruption of officials tainted all departments, and was the canker ever gnawing at the vital forces of the empire. But that this deadly corruption was a sudden growth out of an existing purity is not to be imagined. All this is merely an illustration of that oldest of political truisms, that to keep practice conformable to principle is supremely difficult. The only power that seems to be of any effect in checking the decay of departmental virtue is the power of public opinion. Now a real public opinion cannot be said to have existed in the Roman Empire; and, had it existed, there was no organ through which it could be expressed. And the Head of the State, let him be ever so devoted to the common weal, was too overburdened with manifold responsibilities to be able to give personal attention to each complaint and prescribe an equitable remedy.

How far we are entitled to trace a movement of policy by the contents of these African inscriptions is doubtful. They are too few, and too much alike. Perhaps we may venture to detect a real step onward in the latest of them. The renewal of the encouragement of squatter-settlers1434 on derelict lands does surely point to a growing consciousness that the food-question was becoming a more and more serious one. Perhaps it may be taken to suggest that the system of leasing the African domains to big conductores had lately been found failing in efficiency. But it is rash to infer much from a single case: and the African Severus may have followed an exceptional policy in his native province. It is when we look back from the times of the later Empire, with its frantic legislation to bind coloni to the soil, and to enforce the cultivation of every patch of arable ground, that we are tempted to detect in every record symptoms of the coming constraint. As yet the central government had not laid its cramping and sterilizing hand on every part of its vast dominions. Moreover the demands on African productivity had not yet reached their extreme limit. There was as yet no Constantinople, and Egypt still shared with Africa the function of supplying food to Rome. Thus it is probably reasonable to believe that the condition of the working tenant-farmers was in this age a tolerable1435 one. If those on the great domains were bit by bit bound to their holdings, it was probably with their own consent, so far at least that, seeing no better alternative, they became stationary and more or less dependent peasants. In other parts of Africa, for instance near Carthage, we hear of wealthy landowners employing bodies of slaves. Some of these men may well have been Italians: at least they took a leading part later in the rising against Maximin and the elevation of Gordian.

In connexion with the evidence of this group of inscriptions it may be not out of place to say a few words on the view set forth by Heisterbergk, that the origin of the later serf-colonate was Provincial, not Italian. He argues1436 that what ruined small-scale farming in Italy was above all things the exemption of Italian land from taxation. Landlords were not constrained by the yearly exaction of dues to make the best economic use of their estates. Vain land-pride and carelessness were not checked: mismanagement and waste had free course, and small cultivation declined. The fall in free rustic population was both effect and cause. In the younger Pliny’s time good tenants were already hard to find, but great landlords owned parks and mansions everywhere. In the Provinces nearly all the land was subject to imperial taxation in kind or in money, and owners could not afford to let it lie idle. The practical control of vast estates was not possible from a distance. The direction of agriculture, especially of extensive farming (corn etc) from a fixed centre was little less difficult. There was therefore strong inducement to delegate the business of cultivation to tenants, and to let the difference in amount between their rents and the yearly imperial dues represent the landlord’s profit. Thus the spread of latifundia swallowed up small holdings in the Provinces as in Italy; but it converted small owners into small tenants, and did not merge the holdings into large slave-gang plantations or throw them into pasture. The plan of leasing a large estate as a whole to a big head-tenant, or establishing him in the central ‘manor farm,’ was quite consistent with the general design, and this theory accounts for the presence of a population of free coloni, whom later legislation might and did bind fast to the soil.

This argument has both ingenuity and force, but we can only assent to it with considerable reservations. Letting to free coloni was a practice long used in Italy, and in the first century AD was evidently becoming more common. It was but natural that it should appear in the Provinces. Still, taken by itself, there is no obvious reason why it should develope into serfdom. With the admitted scarcity and rising value of labour, why was it that the freeman did not improve his position in relation to his lord, indeed to capitalists in general? I think the presence of the big lessee, the conductor, an employer of slave labour, had not a little to do with it. Labour as such was despised. The requirement of task-work to supplement that of slaves on the ‘manor farm’ was not likely to make labour more esteemed. Yet to get his little holding the colonus had to put up with this condition. It may be significant that we hear nothing of coloni working for wages in spare time. Was it likely that they would do so? Then, when the conductor came to be employed as collector of rents and other dues on the estate, his opportunities of illicit exaction gave him more and more power over them; and, combined with their reluctance to migrate and sacrifice the fruits of past labour, reduced them1437 more and more to a state of de facto dependence. At the worst they would be semi-servile in fact, though free in law; at the best they would have this outlook, without any apparent alternative to escape their fate. This, I imagine, was the unhappy situation that was afterwards recognized by law.

I must not omit to point out that I have said practically nothing on the subject1438 of municipal lands and their administration by the authorities of the several res publicae or civitates. Of the importance of this matter I am well aware, more particularly in connexion with the development of emphyteusis under the perpetual leases granted by the municipalities. In a general history of the imperial economics this topic would surely claim a significant place. But it seems to have little or no bearing on the labour conditions with which I am primarily concerned, while it would add greatly to the bulk of a treatise already too long. So too the incidence of taxation, and the effects of degradation1439 of the currency, influences that both played a sinister part in imperial economics, belong properly to a larger theme. Even the writers on land-surveying etc, the agrimensores or gromatici, only touch my subject here and there when it is necessary to speak of tenures, which cannot be ignored in relation to labour-questions. All these matters are thoroughly and suggestively treated in Seeck’s great history of the Decline and Fall of the ancient world. Another topic left out of discussion is the practical difference, if any, between the terms1440 fundus and saltus in the imperial domains. I can find no satisfactory materials for defining it, and it does not appear to bear any relation to the labour-question. The meaning of the term inquilinus is a more important matter. If we are to accept Seeck’s ingenious conclusions1441, it follows that this term, regularly used by the jurists of a house-tenant (urban) as opposed to colonus a tenant of land (rustic), in the course of the second century began to put on a new meaning. Marcus settled large numbers of barbarians on Roman soil. These ‘indwellers’ were labelled as inquilini, a word implying that they were imported aliens, distinct from the proper residents. An analogous distinction existed in municipalities between unprivileged ‘indwellers’ (incolae) and real municipes. Now a jurist’s opinion1442 in the first half of the third century speaks of inquilini as attached (adhaerent) to landed estates, and only capable of being bequeathed to a legatee by inclusion in the landed estate: and it refers to a rescript of Marcus and Commodus dealing with a point of detail connected with this rule of law. Thus the inquilinate seems to have been a new condition implying attachment to the soil, long before the colonate acquired a similar character. For the very few passages, in which the fixed and dependent nature of the colonate is apparently recognized before the time of Constantine, are with some reason suspected of having been tampered with by the compilers of the Digest, or are susceptible of a different interpretation. It is clear that this intricate question cannot be fully discussed here. If these rustic inquilini were in their origin barbarian settlers, perhaps two conclusions regarding them may be reasonable. First, they seem to be distinct from slaves, the personal property of individual owners. For the evidence, so far as it goes, makes them attached1443 to the land, and only transferable therewith. Secondly, they are surely labourers, tilling with their own hands the holdings assigned to them. If this view of them be sound, we may see in them the beginnings of a serf class. But it does not follow that the later colonate was a direct growth from this beginning. We have noted above several other causes contributing to that growth; in particular the state of de facto fixity combined with increasing dependence, in which the free colonus was gradually losing his freedom. Whether the later colonate will ever receive satisfactory explanation in the form of a simple and convincing theory, I cannot tell: at present it seems best to admit candidly that, among the various influences tending to produce the known result, I do not see my way1444 to distinguish one as supremely important, and to ignore the effect of others. The opinion1445 of de Coulanges, that the origin of the later colonate is mainly to be sought in the gradual effect of custom (local custom), eventually recognized (not created) by law, is perhaps the soundest attempt at a brief expression of the truth.

XLIX. The Jurists of the Digest

For the position of the colonus in Roman Law during the period known as that of the ‘classic’ Jurists we naturally find our chief source of evidence in the Digest. And it is not surprising that here and there we find passages bearing on labour-questions more or less directly. But in using this evidence it is most necessary to keep in mind the nature and scope of this great compilation. First, it is not a collection of laws. Actual laws were placed in the Codex, based on previous Codes such as the Theodosian (439 AD), after a careful process of sifting and editing, with additions to complete the work. This great task was performed by Justinian’s commissioners in 14 months or less. The Justinian Code was confirmed and published in 529 AD, and finally in a revised form rather more than five years later. Secondly, the Digest is a collection of opinions of lawyers whose competence and authority had been officially recognized, and whose responsa carried weight in the Roman courts. From early times interpretation had been found indispensable in the administration of the law; and in the course of centuries, both by opinions on cases and by formal treatises, there had grown up such a mass of written jurisprudence as no man could master. These writings were specially copious in the ‘classic’ period (say from Hadrian to Alexander 117-235). Actual laws are sometimes cited in the form of imperial decisions, finally settling some disputed point. But the normal product of discussion is the opinion of this or that eminent jurist as to what is sound law in a particular question. The different opinions of different authorities are often quoted side by side. If this were all, we might congratulate ourselves on having simply a collection of authentic extracts from named authors, conveying their views in their own words. And no doubt many of the extracts are of this character.

But the position is not in fact so simple as this. Tribonian and his fellow-commissioners were set to work at the end of the year 530. Their task was completed and the Digesta published with imperial confirmation at the end of 533. Now the juristic literature in existence, of which the Digest was to be an epitome superseding its own sources, was of such prodigious bulk that three years cannot have been sufficient for the work. To read, abstract, classify, and so far as possible to harmonize, this mass of complicated material, was a duty surely needing a much longer time for its satisfactory performance. Moreover, as this official Corpus of jurisprudence was designed for reference and citation as an authority in the courts, it had to be1446 brought up to date. That this necessity greatly increased the commissioners’ burden is obvious: nor less so, that it was a duty peculiarly difficult to discharge in haste, and liable, if hurried, to result in obscurities inconsistencies and oversights. That much of the Digest has suffered from overhaste in its production is now generally admitted. Its evidence is therefore to be used with caution. But on the subject of coloni the main points of interest are attested by witnesses of high authority, such as Ulpian, in cited passages not reasonably suspected of interpolation. And it is not necessary to follow up a host of details. We have only to reconstruct from the law-sources the characteristic features of agriculture and rustic tenancy as it existed before the time of Diocletian; and these features are on the whole significant and clear. Fortunately we are not entirely dependent on collection and comparison of scattered references from all parts of the great compilation. One title (XIX 2 locati conducti)1447 furnishes us with a quantity of relevant matter classified under one head by the editors themselves.

First and foremost it stands out quite clear that the colonus is a free man, who enters into a legal contract as lessee with lessor, and that landlord and tenant are equally bound by the terms of the lease. If any clause requires interpretation owing to special circumstances having arisen, the jurist endeavours to lay down the principles by which the court should be guided to an equitable decision. For instance, any fact by which the productiveness of a farm and therewith the solvency of the tenant are impaired may lead to a dispute. Care is therefore taken to relieve the tenant of responsibility for damage inflicted by irresistible force (natural or human)1448 or due to the landlord’s fault. But defects of climate and soil1449 give no claim to relief, since he is presumed to have taken the farm with his eyes open: nor does the failure of worn-out fruit trees, which tenants were regularly bound by their covenant to replace. The chief rights of the landlord1450 are the proper cultivation of the farm and regular payment of the rent. In these the law duly protects him. The tenant is bound not to let down the land by neglect, or to defraud1451 the landlord by misappropriating what does not belong to him: rent is secured normally by sureties (fideiussores)1452 found by the tenant at the time of leasing, or sometimes by the fact that all property of his on the farm is expressly pledged1453 to the lessor on this account. Thus it is the aim of the law to guard the presumably poorer and humbler party against hard treatment, while it protects the man of property against fraud. In other words, it aims at strict enforcement of the terms1454 of lease, while inclined to construe genuinely doubtful points or mistakes in favour1455 of the party bound. That landlord and tenant, even in cases of fixed money rent, have a certain community1456 of interest, seems recognized in the fact that some legal remedies against third persons (for malicious damage etc) could in some cases be employed1457 by either landlord or tenant. In short, the latter is a thoroughly free and responsible person.

That a tenant should be protected against disturbance1458 was a matter of course. During the term of his lease he has a right to make his lawful profit on the farm: the landlord is not only bound to allow him full enjoyment (frui licere), but to prevent molestation by a third party over whom he has control. Indeed the tenant farmer has in some relations a more positive protection than the landlord himself. Thus a person who has right of usus over an estate may in certain circumstances refuse1459 to admit the dominus; but not the colonus or his staff of slaves employed in the farm-work. Change of ownership can perhaps never be a matter of indifference to the sitting tenant of a farm. But it is the lawyer’s aim to see that the passing of the property shall not impair the tenant’s rights under his current lease. A lease sometimes contained clauses fixing the terms (such as a money forfeit)1460 on which the contract might be broken; in fact a cross-guarantee between the parties, securing the tenant against damage by premature ejectment and the landlord against damage by the tenant’s premature quitting. The jurists often appeal to local custom as a means of equitable decision on disputed points. But one customary principle seems to be recognized1461 as of general validity, the rule of reconductio. If, on expiration of a lease, the tenant holds on and the landlord allows him to remain, it is regarded as a renewal of the contract by bare agreement (nudo consensu). No set form of lease is necessary; but this tacit contract holds good only from year to year. Another fact significant as to the position of the colonus is that he is assumed to have the right to sublet1462 the farm: questions that would in that case arise are dealt with as matters of course. I suppose that a lease might be so drawn as to bar any such right, but that in practice it was always or generally admitted. Again, it is a sign of his genuinely independent position in the eye of the law that his own oath, if required of him, may be accepted1463 as a counter-active plea (exceptio iurisiurandi) in his own defence, when sued by his landlord for damage done on the farm.

On the economic side we have first to remark that the colonus is represented as normally a man of small means. It is true that in the Digest conductor and colonus are not clearly1464 distinguished, as we find them in the African inscriptions and in the later law. For the former is simply the counterpart of locator, properly connoting the relation between the contracting parties: colonus expresses the fact that the cultivation (colere) of land belonging to another devolves upon him by virtue of the contract. Every colonus is a conductor, but not every conductor a colonus. Now custom, recognized by the lawyers, provided a means of supplying the small man’s need of capital. To set him up in a farm, the landlord equipped him with a certain stock (instrumentum). This he took over at a valuation, not paying ready money for it, but accepting liability1465 to account for the value at the end of his tenancy. The stock or plant included1466 implements and animals (oxen, slaves, etc), and a miscellaneous array of things, of course varying with the nature of the farm and local custom. To this nucleus he had inevitably to add belongings1467 of his own, which were likely to increase with time if the farm prospered in his hands. His rent1468 might be either a fixed yearly payment in cash or produce, or a proportionate share of produce varying from year to year. The money-rent1469 seems to have been the usual plan, and it was in connexion therewith that claims for abatement generally arose. The impression left by the frequent references to reliqua in the Digest, and the experiences of the younger Pliny, is that tenant-farmers in Italy were habitually behind with their rents and claiming1470 remissio. This is probably true of the period (say) 100-250 AD, with which we are here concerned. It was probably a time of great difficulty for both landlords and tenants, at least outside the range of suburban market-gardening. Signs are not lacking that want of sufficient capital1471 cramped the vigour of agriculture directly and indirectly. Improvements might so raise the standard of cultivation on an estate as to leave an awkward problem for the owner. Its upkeep on its present level might need a large capital; tenants of means were not easy to find, and subdivision into smaller holdings would not in all circumstances provide a satisfactory solution. Moreover, if the man of means was not unlikely to act independently, in defiance of the landlord, the small man was more likely to take opportunities of misappropriating things to which he was not entitled.

All these difficulties, and others, suggest no great prosperity in Italian agriculture of the period. That on certain soils farming did not pay, was as well known1472 to the jurists as to other writers. And one great cause of agricultural decline appears in their incidental remarks as clearly as in literature. It was the devotion of much of the best land in the best situations to the unproductive parks and pleasure-grounds of the rich. This can hardly be laid to the account of the still favoured financial position of Italy as compared with the Provinces, for we find the same state of things existing late in the fourth century, when Italy had long been provincialized and taxed accordingly. It was fashion, and fashion of long standing, that caused this evil. And this cause was itself an effect of the conditions of investment. The syndicates for exploiting provincial dues had gone with the Republic. State contracts and industrial enterprises were not enough to employ all the available capital. The ownership of land, now that politics were not a school of ambition, was more than ever the chief source of social importance. A man who could afford to own vast unremunerative estates was a great personage. We may add that such estates, being unremunerative, were less likely to attract the fatal attention of bad emperors, while good rulers deliberately encouraged rich men to invest fortunes in them as being an evidence of loyalty to the government. The uneconomic rural conditions thus created are plainly referred to in the staid remarks of the jurists. We read of estates owned for pleasure (voluptaria praedia)1473: of cases where it may be doubted1474 whether the fundus does not rather belong to the villa than the villa to the fundus: and the use of the word praetorium1475 (= great mansion, palace, ‘Court’) for the lord’s headquarters on his demesne becomes almost official in the mouth of lawyers. Meanwhile great estates abroad could be, and were, profitable to their owners, who drew rent from tenants and were normally non-resident. Yet praetoria were sometimes found even in the Provinces.

In connexion with this topic it is natural to consider the questions of upkeep and improvements. The former is simple. As the tenant has the disposal of the crops raised and gathered (fructus), he is bound1476 to till the soil, to keep up the stock of plants, and to see that the drainage of the farm is in working order. Further detail is unnecessary, as his liability must be gauged by the state of the farm when he took it over. Improvements look to the future. From the lawyers we get only the legal point of view, which is of some interest as proving that the subject was of sufficient importance not to be overlooked. Now it seems certain that a conductor or colonus had a right of action to recover1477 from the dominus not only compensation for unexhausted improvements, but his whole outlay on them, if shewn to have been beneficial. Or his claim might rest on the fact that the project had been approved1478 by the landlord. But it might happen that a work beneficial to the particular estate was detrimental to a neighbouring one. In such a case, against whom—landlord or tenant—had the owner of that estate a legal remedy? It was held that, if the tenant had carried out the work in question1479 without his landlord’s knowledge, he alone was liable. If, as some held, the landlord was bound to provide a particular remedy, he could recover the amount paid under this head from his tenant. To insure the owner against loss from the acts of his lessee was evidently an object of the first importance, and this is in harmony with the Roman lawyers’ intense respect for rights of property. The general impression left on the reader of their utterances on this subject is that a landlord, after providing a considerable instrumentum, had done all that could reasonably be expected from him. Improvements, the desirability of which was usually discovered through the tenant’s experience, were normally regarded as the tenant’s business: it was only necessary to prevent the landlord from arbitrarily confiscating what the tenant had done to improve his property. Obviously such ‘improvements’ were likely to occasion disputes as to the value of the work done: but it was the custom of the countryside to refer technical questions of this kind to the arbitration of an impartial umpire (vir bonus), no doubt a neighbour familiar with local circumstances. On the whole, it does not appear that the law treated the colonus badly under this head, and the difficulty of securing good tenants may be supposed to have guaranteed him against unfair administration.

A great many more details illustrating the position of coloni as they appear in the Digest could be added here, but I think the above will be found ample for my purpose. The next topic to be dealt with is that of labour, so far as the references of the lawyers give us any information. First it is to be noted that the two systems1480 of estate-management, that of cultivation for landlord’s account by his actor or vilicus, and that of letting to tenant farmers, were existing side by side. The latter plan was to all appearance more commonly followed than it would seem to have been in the time of Columella, but the former was still working. A confident opinion as to the comparative frequency1481 of the two systems is hardly to be formed on Digest evidence: for in rustic matters the interest of lawyers was almost solely concerned with the relations of landlord and tenant. What an owner did with his own property on his own account was almost entirely his own business. There are signs that a certain change in the traditional nomenclature represents a real change of function in the case of landlords’ managers. The term actor is superseding1482 vilicus, but the vilicus still remains. He would seem to be now more of a mere farm-bailiff, charged with the cultivation of some part or parts of an estate that are not let to tenants. It may even be that he is left with a free hand and only required to pay a fixed1483 yearly return. If so, this arrangement is not easily to be distinguished from the case of a slave colonus or quasi colonus1484 occupying a farm. The financial and general supervision of the estate is in the hands of the actor1485, who collects all dues, including rents of colonie and is held to full account1486 for all these receipts as well as for the contents of the store-rooms. He is a slave, but a valuable and trusted man: it is significant that the manumission1487 of actores is not seldom mentioned. Evidently the qualities looked for in such an agent were observed to develope most readily under a prospect of freedom. But, so long as he remained actor of an estate, he could be regarded as part of it: in a bequest the testator could include him as a part1488, and often did so: and indeed his peculiar knowledge of local detail must often have been an important element in its value. To employ such a person in the management of an estate, with powerful inducements to good conduct, may have solved many a difficult problem. We may perhaps guess that it made the employment of a qualified legal agent (procurator) less often necessary, at least if the actor contrived to avoid friction with his master’s free tenants.

Whether an estate was farmed for the owner by his manager, or let to tenants, or partly on one system partly on the other, it is clear that slave-labour is assumed as the normal basis of working. For the colonus takes over slaves supplied by the dominus as an item of the instrumentum. And there was nothing to prevent him from adding slaves of his own, if he could afford it and thought it worth his while to employ a larger staff. Whether such additions were often or ever made, we must not expect the lawyers to tell us; but we do now and then hear1489 of a slave who is the tenant’s own. Such a slave might as part of the tenant’s goods be pledged to the landlord as security for his rent, but he would not be a part of the estate of which the landlord could dispose by sale or bequest. In such a case the slaves might be regarded1490 as accessories of the fundus, if it were so agreed. This raised questions as to the degree of connexion that should be treated as qualifying a slave to be considered an appurtenance of a farm. The answer was in effect that he must be a member of the regular staff. Mere temporary employment on the place did not so attach him, mere temporary absence on duty elsewhere did not detach him. A further question was whether all slaves in any sort of employment on the place were included, or only such as were actually engaged in farm work proper, cultivation of the soil, not those employed in various subsidiary1491 industries. These questions the jurists discussed fully, but we cannot follow them here, as their legal importance is chiefly in connexion with property and can hardly have affected seriously the position of tenants. But it is interesting to observe that the lawyers were feeling the necessity of attempting some practical classification. The distinction1492 between urbana and rustica mancipia was old enough as a loose conversational or literary one. But, when rights of inheritance or legacy of such valuable property were involved, it became important to define (if possible) the essential characteristics of a ‘rustic’ slave.

That the condition of the rustic slave was improving, and generally far better than it had been on the latifundia of Republican days, seems indicated by the jurists’ speaking of a slave as colonus or quasi colonus without any suggestion of strangeness in the relation. We may assume that only slaves of exceptional capacity and merit would be placed in a position of economic (if not legal) equality with free tenants. Still the growth of such a custom can hardly have been without some effect on the condition of rustic slaves in general. It was not new in the second century: it is referred to by a jurist1493 of the Augustan age. The increasing difficulty of getting either good tenants or good slaves no doubt induced landlords to entrust farms to men who could and would work them profitably, whether freemen or slaves. And a slave had in agriculture, as in trades and finance, a point in his favour: his person and his goods1494 remained in his master’s power. If by skilled and honest management he relieved his master of trouble and worry, and contributed by regular payment of rent to assure his income, it was reasonable to look for gratitude expressed, on the usual Roman lines, in his master’s will. Manumission, perhaps accompanied by bequest1495 of the very farm that he had worked so well, was a probable reward. May we not guess that some of the best farming carried on in Italy under the earlier Empire was achieved by trusted slaves, in whom servile apathy was overcome by hope? Such a farmer-slave would surely have under him1496 slave labourers, the property of his master; and he would have the strongest possible motives for tact and skill in their management, while his own capacity had been developed by practical experience. I can point to no arrangement in Roman agriculture so calculated to make it efficient on a basis of slavery as this.

The services (operae) of a slave, due to his owner or to some one in place of his owner, were a property capable of valuation, and therefore could be let and hired at a price. That is, the person to whom they were due could commute1497 them for a merces. This might, as in the corresponding Greek case of ἀποφορά, be a paying business, if a slave had been bought cheap and trained so as to earn good wages. It was common enough in various trades: what concerns us is that the plan was evidently in use in the rustic world also. Now this is notable. We naturally ask, if the man’s services were worth so much to the hirer, why should they not have been worth as much (or even a little more) to his own master? Why should it pay to let him rather than to use him yourself? Of course the owner might have more slaves than he needed at the moment: or the hirer might be led by temporary need of labour to offer a fancy price for the accommodation: or two masters on neighbouring farms might engage in a reciprocity of cross-hirings to suit their mutual convenience at certain seasons. Further possibilities might be suggested, but are such occasional explanations sufficient to account for the prevalence of this hiring-system? I think not. Surely the principal influence, steadily operating in this direction, was one that implied an admission of the economic failure of slavery. If A’s slave worked for B so well that it paid A to let him do so and to receive a rent for his services, it follows that the slave had some inducement to exert his powers more fully as B’s hireling than in the course of ordinary duty under his own master. Either the nature and conditions of the work under B were pleasanter, or he received something for himself over and above the stipulated sum claimed by his master. In other words, as a mere slave he did not do his best: as a hired man he felt some of the stimulus that a free man gets from the prospect of his wage. So Slavery, already philanthropically questioned, was in this confession economically condemned.

These points considered, we are not surprised to find mention of slaves letting out their own1498 operae. This must imply the consent of their masters, and it is perhaps not rash to see in such a situation a sign of weakening in the effective authority of masters. A master whose interest is bound up with the fullest development of his slave’s powers (as rentable property exposed to competition) will hardly act the martinet without forecasting the possible damage to his own pocket. A slave who knows that his master draws an income from his efficiency is in a strong position for gradually extorting privileges till he attains no small degree of independence. We may perhaps find traces of such an advance in the arrangement by which a slave hires his own operae1499 from his master. He will thus make a profit out of hiring himself: in fact he is openly declaring that he will not work at full power for his master, but only compound with him for output on the scale of an ordinary slave. This arrangement was common in arts and handicrafts, and not specially characteristic of Rome. In rustic life, the slave put into a farm as tenant1500 at a fixed rent, and taking profit and loss, may furnish an instance. Whether such cases were frequent we do not know. The general impression left by the Digest passages on hiring and letting of slaves is that, when we read of mercennarii, it is generally if not always hireling1501 slaves, not free wage-earners, that are meant. In a passage1502 where servus occurs as well as mercennarius, it is reference to the owner as well as to the hirer that necessitates the addition. If I have interpreted these points aright, the picture suggested is a state of things in which the rustic slave was steadily improving his position, supplying hired labour, at times entrusted with the charge of a farm, and with a fair prospect of becoming by manumission under his owner’s will a free colonus, or even his own landlord. How far this picture is really characteristic of rustic Italy, or of the Provinces (such as Gaul or Spain), is what one would like to know, but I can find no evidence.

In the foregoing paragraphs I have refrained from inquiring whether the colonus as he appears in the Digest was a farmer who worked with his own hands, or merely an employer and director of labour. The reason is that I have found in the texts no evidence whatever on the point. It was not the jurist’s business. We are left to guess at the truth as best we may, and we can only start from consideration of the farmer’s own interest, and assume that the average farmer knew his own interest and was guided thereby. Now, being bound to pay rent in some form or other and to make good any deficiencies in the instrumentum at the end of his tenancy, he had every inducement to get all he could out of the land while he held it. How best to do this, was his problem. And the answer no doubt varied according to the size of the farm, the kind of crops that could profitably be raised there, and the number and quality of the staff. In some rough operations, his constant presence on one spot and sharing the actual work might get the most out of his men. Where nicety of skill was the main thing, he might better spend his time in direction and minute watching of the hands. On a fairly large farm he would have enough to do as director. We may reasonably guess that he only toiled with his own hands if he thought it would pay him to do so. This a priori guesswork is not satisfactory. But I see nothing else to be said; for the African inscriptions do not help us. The circumstances of those great domains were exceptional.

So far we have been viewing agriculture as proceeding in times and under conditions assumed to be more or less normal, without taking account of the various disturbing elements in rustic life, by which both landlords and tenants were liable to suffer vexation and loss. Yet these were not a few. Even a lawyer could not ignore wild beasts. Wolves carried off some of A’s pigs. Dogs kept by B, colonus of a neighbouring villa, for protection of his own flocks, rescued the pigs. A legal question1503 at once arises: are the rescued pigs regarded as wild game, and therefore belonging to the owner of the dogs? No, says the jurist. They were still within reach; A had not given them up for lost; if B tries to retain them, the law provides remedies to make him give them up. I presume that B would have a claim to some reward for his services. But the lawyer is silent, confining his opinion to the one question of property. References to depredations of robbers or brigands (latrones, grassatores,) occur often, and quite as a matter of course. The police of rural Italy, not to mention the Provinces, was an old scandal. Stock-thieves, who lifted a farmer’s cattle sheep or goats, and sometimes his crops, were important enough to have a descriptive name (abigei)1504 and a title of the Digest to themselves. That bad neighbours made themselves unpleasant in many ways, and that their presence gave a bad name to properties near them, was an experience of all lands and all ages: but the jurists treat it gravely1505 as a lawyer’s matter. Concealment of such a detrimental fact1506 by the seller of an estate made the sale voidable. The rich (old offenders in this kind) were by a rescript of Hadrian1507 awarded differential punishment for removing landmarks: in their case the purpose of encroachment was not a matter open to doubt.

In one connexion the use of force as an embarrassing feature of rustic life was a subject of peculiar interest to the jurists, and had long been so. This was in relation to questions of possession. In Roman law possessio held a very important place. All that need be said of it here is that the fact of possession, or lack of it, seriously affected the position of litigants in disputes as to property. Great ingenuity was exercised in definition and in laying down rules for ascertaining the fact. Now among the means employed in gaining or recovering possession none was more striking or more effective than the use of force. Special legal remedies had been provided to deal with such violence; interdicta issued by the praetor, to forbid it, or to reinstate a claimant dislodged by his rival, or simply to state the exact issue raised in a particular case. On conformity or disobedience to the praetor’s order the case was formally tried in court: the question of law mainly turned on questions of fact. What concerns us is that force was solemnly classified under two heads, vis and vis armata. Each of these had its own proper interdict at least as early as the time of Cicero, and they occupy a whole title1508 in the Digest. Clearly the use of force was no negligible matter. That it was a danger or at least a nuisance to owners or claimants of property, is not less clear. But how did it touch the colonus? He was, as such, neither owner nor claimant of the property of his farm. He had in his own capacity1509 no possession either. But, as tenant of a particular owner, his presence operated1510 to secure the possession of his landlord. Hence to oust him by force broke the landlord’s possession; whether rightly or wrongly, the law had to decide. Now it is obvious that, in cases where serious affrays resulted from intrusion, a tenant might suffer grave damage to his goods and person. The intruders (often a gang of slaves) would seldom be so punctiliously gentle as to do no harm at all. Therefore, having regard to the amount of interest in this subject shewn by the lawyers, we cannot omit the use of force in matters of possession from the list of rustic embarrassments.

Another cause of annoyance was connected with servitudes, such as rights of way and water, which were frequent subjects of dispute in country districts. Whether regarded as rights or as burdens, the principles governing them were a topic that engaged the minute and laborious attention1511 of the lawyers. Now it is evident that a right of way or water through an estate, though a material advantage to a neighbouring estate served by the convenience, might be a material disadvantage to the one over which the right extended. Also that the annoyance might be indefinitely increased or lessened by the cantankerous or considerate user of the right by the person or persons enjoying it. When we consider that servitudes were already an important department of jurisprudence in Republican days, and see how great a space they occupy in the Digest, we can hardly resist the conclusion that country proprietors found in them a fertile subject of quarrels. But surely the quarrels of landlords over a matter of this kind could not be carried on without occasional and perhaps frequent disturbances and injury to the tenants on the land. Even if the law provided means of getting compensation for any damage done to a tenant’s crops or other goods in the course of attempts to enforce or defeat a claimed servitude, was the average colonus a man readily to seek compensation in the law-courts? I think not. But, if not, he would depend solely on the goodwill of his own landlord, supposing the latter to have got the upper hand in the main dispute. On the whole, I strongly suspect that in practice these quarrels over rustic servitudes were a greater nuisance to farmers than might be supposed. So far as I know, we have no statement of the farmer’s point of view. Another intermittent but damaging occurrence was the occasional passage of soldiery, whose discipline was often lax. We might easily forget the depredations and general misconduct of these unruly ruffians, and imagine that such annoyances only became noticeable in a later period. But the jurists do not allow us to forget1512 the military requisitions for supply of troops on the march, the payment for which is not clearly provided, and would at best be a cause of trouble; or the pilferings of the men, compensation for which was probably not to be had. It would be farmers in northern Italy and the frontier-provinces that were the chief sufferers.

Damage by natural disturbances or by fires may happen in any age or country. That Italy in particular was exposed to the effect of floods and earthquakes, we know. Accordingly the lawyers are seriously concerned with the legal and equitable questions arising out of such events. It was not merely the claim of tenants1513 to abatement of rent that called for a statement of principles. Beside the sudden effects of earthquakes torrents or fires, there were the slower processes of streams changing their courses1514 and gradual land-slides on the slopes of hills. These movements generally affected the proprietary relations of neighbouring landlords, taking away land from one, sometimes giving to another. Here was a fine opening for ingenious jurists, of which they took full advantage. The growth of estates by alluvion, and loss by erosion, was a favourite topic, the operation of which, and the questions thereby raised, are so earnestly treated as to shew their great importance in country life. Of fire-damage, due to malice or neglect, no more need be said; nor of many other minor matters.

But, when all the above drawbacks have been allowed for, it is still probably true that scarcity of labour was a far greater difficulty for farmers. We hear very little directly of this trouble, as it raised no point of law. Very significant1515 however are the attempts of the Senate and certain emperors to put down an inveterate scandal which is surely good indirect evidence of the scarcity. It consisted in the harbouring1516 of runaway slaves on the estates of other landlords. A runaway from one estate was of course not protected and fed on another estate from motives of philanthropy. The slave would be well aware that severe punishment awaited him if recovered by his owner, and therefore be willing to work for a new master who might, if displeased, surrender him any day. The landlords guilty of this treason to the interests of their class were probably the same as those who harboured1517 brigands, another practice injurious to peaceful agriculture both in Italy and abroad. Another inconvenience, affecting all trades and all parts of the empire in various degrees, was the local difference in the money-value1518 of commodities in different markets. This was sometimes great: and that it was troublesome to farmers may be inferred from the particular mention of wine oil and corn as cases in point. No doubt dealers had the advantage over producers, as they generally have, through possessing a more than local knowledge of necessary facts. These middlemen however could not be dispensed with, as experience shewed, and one of the later jurists1519 openly recognized. Facilities for borrowing, and rates of interest, varied greatly in various centres. But all these market questions do not seem to have been so acute as to be a public danger until the ruinous debasement of the currency in the time of Gallienus. A few references may be found to peculiar usages of country life in particular Provinces. Thus we read that in Arabia1520 farms were sometimes ‘boycotted,’ any person cultivating such a farm being threatened with assassination. In Egypt1521 special care had to be taken to protect the dykes regulating the distribution of Nile water. Both these offences were summarily dealt with by the provincial governor, and the penalty was death. Here we have one more proof of the anxiety of the imperial government to insure the greatest possible production of food. The empire was always hungry,—and so were the barbarians. And the northern frontier provinces could not feed both themselves and the armies.

While speaking of landlords and tenants we must not forget that all over the empire considerable areas of land were owned by municipalities, and dealt with at the discretion of the local authorities. Variety of systems was no doubt dictated by variety of local circumstances: but one characteristic was so general as to deserve special attention on the part of jurists. This was the system of perpetual leaseholds1522 at a fixed (and undoubtedly beneficial) rent, heritable and transferable to assigns. So long as the tenant regularly paid the vectigal, his occupation was not to be disturbed. It was evidently the desire of the municipal authorities to have a certain income to reckon with: for the sake of certainty they would put up with something less than a rack-rent. There were also other lands owned by these civitates that were let on the system1523 in use by private landlords; the normal term probably being five years. Of these no more need be said here. Beneficial leases under a municipality were liable to corrupt management. It had been found necessary1524 to disqualify members of the local Senate (decuriones) from holding such leases, that they might not share out the common lands among themselves on beneficial terms. But this prohibition was not enough. The town worthies put in men of straw1525 as nominal tenants, through whom they enjoyed the benefits of the leases. So this evasion also had to be met by revoking the ill-gotten privilege. But disturbance of tenancies was not to be lightly allowed, so it appears that a reference to the emperor1526 was necessary before such revocation could take place. This system of perpetual leases is of interest, not as indicating different methods of cultivation from those practised on private estates, but as betraying a tendency to fixity1527 already existing, destined to spread and to take other forms, and to become the fatal characteristic of the later Empire. Another striking piece of evidence in the same direction occurs in connexion with the lessees (publicani) of various state dues (vectigalia publica) farmed out in the usual way. In the first half of the third century the jurist Paulus attests1528 the fact that, in case it was found that the right of collecting such dues, hitherto very profitable to the lessees, could only be let at a lower lump sum than hitherto, the old lessees were held bound to continue their contract at the old price. But Callistratus, contemporary or nearly so, tells us that this was not so, and quotes1529 a rescript of Hadrian (117-138 AD) condemning the practice as tyrannical and likely to deter men from entering into so treacherous a bargain. It appears that other1530 emperors had forbidden it, but there is no proof that they succeeded in stopping it. At all events the resort to coercion in a matter of contract like this reveals the presence of a belief in compulsory fixity, ominous of the coming imperial paralysis, though of course not so understood at the time. It did not directly affect agriculture as yet; but its application to agriculture was destined to be a symptom and a cause of the empire’s decline and fall.

Another group of tenancies, the number and importance of which was quietly increasing, was that known as praedia Caesaris1531, fundi fiscales, and so forth. We need not discuss the departmental differences and various names of these estates. The tenants, whether small men or conductores on a large scale who sublet in parcels1532 to coloni, held either directly or indirectly from the emperor. We have seen specimens in Africa, the Province in which the crown-properties were exceptionally large. What chiefly concerns us here is the imperial land-policy. It seems clear that its first aim was to keep these estates permanently occupied by good solvent tenants. The surest means to this end was to give these estates a good name, to create a general impression that on imperial farms a man had a better chance of thriving than on those of average private landlords. Now the ‘state,’ that is the emperor or his departmental chiefs, could favour crown-tenants in various ways without making a material sacrifice of a financial kind. In particular, the treatment of crown-estates as what we call ‘peculiars,’ in which local disputes were settled, not by resort to the courts of ordinary law, but administratively1533 by the emperor’s procuratores, was probably a great relief; above all to the humbler coloni, whom we may surely assume to have been a class averse to litigation. No doubt a procurator might be corrupted and unjust. But he was probably far more effectually watched than ordinary magistrates; and, if the worst came to the worst, there was as we have seen the hope of a successful appeal to the emperor. Another favour consisted in the exemption of Caesar’s tenants from various burdensome official duties in municipalities, the so-called munera, which often entailed great expense. This is mentioned by a jurist1534 near the end of the second century: they are only to perform such duties so far as not to cause loss to the treasury. Another1535, somewhat later, says that their exemption is granted in order that they may be more suitable tenants of treasury-farms. This exemption is one more evidence of the well-known fact that in this age municipal offices were beginning to be evaded1536 as ruinous, and no longer sought as an honour. We must note that, if this immunitas relieved the crown-tenants, it left all the more burdens to be borne by those who enjoyed no such relief. And this cannot have been good for agriculture in general.

It is not to be supposed that the fiscus1537 was a slack and easy landlord. Goods of debtors were promptly seized to cover liabilities: attempts to evade payment of tributa by a private agreement1538 between mortgagor and mortgagee were quashed: a rescript1539 of Marcus and Verus insisted on the treasury share (½) of treasure trove: and so on. But there are signs of a reasonable and considerate policy, in not pressing demands so as to inflict hardship. Trajan1540 had set a good example, and good emperors followed it. We may fairly guess that this moderation in financial dealings was not wholly laid aside in the management of imperial estates. Nor is it to be imagined that the advantages of imperial tenants were exactly the same in all parts of the empire. In Provinces through which armies had to move it is probable that coloni Caesaris would suffer less1541 than ordinary farmers from military annoyances. But on the routes to and from a seat of war it is obvious that the imperial post-service would be subjected to exceptional strain. Now this service was at the best of times1542 a cause of vexations and losses to the farmers along the line of traffic. The staff made good all deficiencies in their requirements by taking beasts fodder vehicles etc wherever they could find them: what they restored was much the worse for wear, and compensation, if ever got, was tardy and inadequate. The repair of roads was another pretext for exaction. It is hardly to be doubted that in these respects imperial tenants suffered less than others. Some emperors1543 took steps to ease the burden, which had been found too oppressive to the roadside estates. But this seems to have been no more than relief from official requisitions: irregular ‘commandeering’ was the worst evil, and we have no reason to think that it was effectually suppressed. It appears in the next period as a rampant abuse, vainly forbidden by the laws of the Theodosian code.

L. The Later Colonate, Its Place in Roman History

In the endeavour to extract from scattered and fragmentary evidence some notion of agricultural conditions in the Roman empire before and after Diocletian we are left with two imperfect pictures, so strongly contrasted as to suggest a suspicion of their truth. We can hardly believe that the system known as the later Colonate appeared in full force as a sudden phenomenon. Nor indeed are we compelled to fly so directly in the face of historical experience. That we have no narrative of the steps that led to this momentous change, is surely due to the inability of contemporaries to discern the future effect of tendencies operating silently1544 and piecemeal. What seems at the moment insignificant, even if observed, is seldom recorded, and very seldom intentionally. Hence after generations, seeking to trace effects to causes, are puzzled by defects of record. Their only resource is to supplement, so far as possible, defective record by general consideration of the history of the time in question and cautious inference therefrom: in fact to get at the true meaning of fragmentary admissions in relation to their historical setting. The chief topic to be dealt with here from this point of view is the character of the Roman Empire in several aspects. For among all the anxieties of the government during these troubled centuries the one that never ceased was the fear of failure in supplies of food.

The character of the Roman Empire had been largely determined by the fact that it arose from the overthrow of a government that had long been practically aristocratic. The popular movements that contributed to this result only revealed the impossibility of establishing anything like a democracy, and the unreality of any power save the power of the sword. The great dissembler Augustus concealed a virtual autocracy by conciliatory handling of the remains of the nobility. But the Senate, to which he left or gave many powers, was never capable of bearing a vital part in the administration, and its influence continued to dwindle under his successors. The master of the army was the master of the empire, and influence was more and more vested in those who were able to guide his policy. That these might be, and sometimes were, not born Romans at all, but imperial freedmen generally of Greek or mixed-Greek origin, was a very significant fact. In particular, it marked and encouraged the growth of departmental bureaus, permanent and efficient beyond the standard of previous Roman experience. But the price of this efficiency was centralization, a condition that carried with it inevitable dangers, owing to the vast extent of the empire. In modern times the fashionable remedy suggested for over-centralization is devolution of powers to local governments controlling areas of considerable size. Or, in cases of aggregation, the existing powers left to states merged in a confederation are considerable. In any case, the subordinate units are free to act within their several limited spheres, and the central government respects their ‘autonomy,’ only interfering in emergencies to enforce the fulfilment of definite common obligations.

But, if it had been desired to gain any such relief by a system of devolution within the Roman empire, this would have meant the recognition of ‘autonomy’ in the Provinces. And this was inconceivable. The extension of Roman dominion had been achieved by dividing Rome’s adversaries. Once conquered, it was the interest or policy of the central power to keep them in hand by preventing the growth of self-conscious cohesion in the several units. Each Province was, as the word implied, a department of the Roman system, ruled by a succession of Roman governors. It looked to Rome for orders, for redress of grievances, for protection at need. If the advance of Rome destroyed no true nations, her government at least made the development of truly national characteristics impossible, while she herself formed no Roman nation. Thus, for better or worse, the empire was non-national. But, as we have already seen, the decline of Italy made it more and more clear that the strength of the empire lay in the Provinces. Now, having no share in initiative and no responsibility, the Provinces steadily lost vitality under Roman civilization, and became more and more helplessly dependent on the central power. As the strain on the empire became greater, the possibility of relief by devolution grew less: but more centralization was no cure for what was already a disease.

That local government of a kind existed in the empire is true enough; also that it was one of the most striking and important features of the system. But it was municipal, and tended rather to subdivide than to unite. It was the outcome of a civilization profoundly urban in its origins and ideas. The notion that a city was a state was by no means confined to the independent cities of early Greece. Whether it voluntarily merged itself in a League or lived on as a subordinate unit in the system of a dominant power, the city and its territory were politically one. Within their several boundaries the townsmen and rustic citizens of each city were subject to the authorities of that community. Beyond their own boundary they were aliens under the authorities of another city. It is no wonder that jealousies between neighbour cities were often extreme, and that Roman intervention was often needed to keep the peace between rivals. But the system suited Roman policy. In the East and wherever cities existed they were taken over as administrative units and as convenient centres of taxation: in the West it was found useful and practicable to introduce urban centres into tribes and cantons, and even in certain districts to attach1545 local populations to existing cities as dependent hamlets. And, so long as the imperial government was able to guard the frontiers and avert the shock of disturbances of the Roman peace, the empire held its own in apparent prosperity. To some historians the period of the ‘Antonines’ (say about 100-170 AD) has seemed a sort of Golden Age. But signs are not lacking that the municipal system had seen its best days. The severe strain on imperial resources in the time of Marcus left behind it general exhaustion. The decay of local patriotism marked the pressure of poverty and loss of vitality in the cities. More and more their importance became that of mere taxation-centres, in which the evasion of duty was the chief preoccupation: they could not reinvigorate the empire, nor the empire them.

Another characteristic of the empire, not less significant than those mentioned above, was this: taken as a whole, it was non-industrial. Manufactures existed here and there, and products of various kinds were exchanged between various parts of the empire. So far as the ordinary population was concerned, the Roman world might well have supplied its own needs. But this was not enough. The armies, though perilously small for the work they had to do, were a heavy burden. The imperial civil service as it became more elaborate did not become less costly. The waste of resources on unremunerative buildings and shows in cities, above all in Rome, and the ceaseless expense of feeding a worthless rabble, were a serious drain: ordained by established custom, maintained by vanity, to economize on these follies would seem a confession of weakness. Nor should the extravagance of the rich, and of many emperors, be forgotten: this created a demand for luxuries chiefly imported from the East; precious stones, delicate fabrics, spices, perfumes, rare woods, ivory, and so forth. Rome had no goods to export in payment for such things, and the scarcity of return-cargoes must have added heavily to the cost of carriage. There was on this account a steady drain of specie to the East, and this had to be met by a corresponding drain of specie to Rome. In one form or another this meant money drawn from the Provinces, for which the Provinces received hardly the bare pretence of an equivalent, or a better security for peace.

Thus the empire, created by conquest and absorption, administered by bureaucratic centralization, rested on force; a force partly real and still present, partly traditional, derived from a victorious past. The belief in Rome as the eternal city went for much, and we hear of no misgivings as to the soundness of a civilization which expressed itself in a constant excess of consumption over production. Naturally enough, under such conditions, the imperial system became more and more what it really was from the first, a vast machine. It was not a league of cooperating units, each containing a vital principle of growth, and furnishing the power of recovery from disaster. Its apathetic parts looked passively to the centre for guidance or relief, depending on the perfection of a government whose imperfection was assured by attempting a task beyond the reach of human faculty and virtue. The exposure of the empire’s weakness came about through collision with the forces of northern barbarism. What a machine could do, that it did, and its final failure was due to maladies that made vain all efforts to renew its internal strength.

The wars with the northern barbarians brought out with singular clearness two important facts, already known but not sufficiently taken into account. First, that the enemy were increasing in numbers while the people of the empire were in most parts stationary or even declining. Bloody victories, when gained, did practically nothing to redress the balance. Secondly, that at the back of this embarrassing situation lay a food-question of extreme seriousness and complexity. More and more food was needed for the armies, and the rustics of the empire, even when fitted for military service, could not be spared from the farms without danger to the food-supply. The demands of the commissariat were probably far greater than we might on the face of it suppose; for an advance into the enemy’s territory did not ease matters. Little or nothing was found to eat: indeed it was the pressure of a growing population on the means of subsistence that drove the hungry German tribes to face the Roman sword in quest of abundant food and the wine and oil of the South and West. The attempt of Marcus and others after him, to solve the problems of the moment by enlisting barbarians in Roman armies, was no permanent solution. The aliens too had to be fed, and their pay in money could not be deferred. Meanwhile the taxation of the empire inevitably grew, and the productive industries had to stagger along under heavier burdens. The progressive increase of these is sufficiently illustrated in the history of indictiones. At first an indictio was no more than an occasional1546 impost of so much corn levied by imperial proclamation on landed properties in order to meet exceptional scarcity in Rome. But it was in addition to the regular tributum, and was of course most likely to occur in years when scarcity prevailed. No wonder it was already felt onerous1547 in the time of Trajan. Pressure on imperial resources caused it not only to become more frequent, and eventually normal: it was extended1548 to include other products, and became a regular burden of almost universal application, and ended by furnishing a new chronological unit, the Indiction-period of 15 years.

That agriculture, already none too prosperous, suffered heavily under this capricious impost in the second century, seems to me a fact beyond all doubt. And, not being then a general imperial tax, it fell upon those provinces that were still flourishing producers of corn. Debasement of currency already lowered the value of money-taxes, and tempted emperors to extend the system of dues in kind. Under Diocletian and Galerius things came to a head. Vast increase of taxation was called for under the new system, and it was mainly taxation in kind. Already the failure of agriculture was notorious, and attempts had been made to enforce cultivation of derelict lands. The new taxation only aggravated present evils, and in despair of milder measures Constantine attached the coloni to the soil. Important as the legal foundation of the later serf-colonate, this law is historically still more important as a recognition of past failure which nothing had availed to check. He saw no way of preventing a general stampede from the farms save to forbid it as illegal, and to employ the whole machinery of the empire in enforcing the new law. This policy was only a part of the general tendency to fix everything in a rigid framework, to make all occupations hereditary, that became normal in the later Empire. The Codes are a standing record of the principle that the remedy for failure of legislation was more legislation of the same kind. Hard-pressed emperors needed all the resources they could muster, particularly food. They had no breathing-space to try whether more freedom might not promote enterprise and increase production, even had such a policy come within their view. Hence the cramping crystallizing process went on with the certainty of fate. The government, unable to develope existing industry, simply squeezed it to exhaustion.

How came it that the government was able to do this? How came it that agricultural tenants could be converted into stationary serfs without causing a general upheaval1549 and immediate dissolution of the empire? Mainly, I think, because the act of Constantine was no more than a recognition de iure of a condition already created de facto by a long course of servilizing influences. Also because it was the apparent interest, not only of the imperial treasury but of the great proprietors generally, to tie down to the soil1550 the cultivators of their estates. Labour was now more valuable than land. In corn-growing Africa the importance attached to the task-work of sub-tenants was a confession of this. And, law or no law, things had to move in one or other direction. Either the landlord and head-lessee had to win further control of the tenants, or the tenants must become less dependent. Only the former alternative was possible in the circumstances; and the full meaning of the change that turned de facto dependence into legal constraint may be stated as a recognition of the colonus as labourer rather than tenant. Whether the settlement of barbarians as domiciled aliens in some Provinces under strict conditions of farm-labour had anything to do with the creation of this new semi-servile status, seems hardly to be decided on defective evidence. At all events it cannot have hindered it. And we must make full allowance for the effect of various conditions in various Provinces. If we rightly suppose that the position of coloni had been growing weaker for some time before the act of Constantine, this does not imply that the process was due to the same causes operating alike in all parts of the empire in the same degree. The evidence of the Theodosian Code shews many local differences of phenomena in the fourth and fifth centuries; and it is not credible that there was a greater uniformity in the conditions of the preceding age. Laws might aim at uniformity, but they could not alter facts.

My conclusion therefore is that the general character of the imperial system was the main cause of the later serf-colonate. However much the degradation of free farm-tenants, or the admission of slaves to tenancies, or the settlement of barbarians under conditions of service, may have contributed to the result, it was the mechanical nature of the system as a whole that gave effect to them all. After Trajan the rulers of the empire became more and more conscious that the problem before them was one of conservation, and that extension was at an end. Hadrian saw this, and strove to perfect the internal organization. By the time of Aurelian it was found necessary to surrender territory as a further measure of security. We can hardly doubt that under such conditions the machine of internal administration operated more mechanically than ever. Then, when the reforms of Diocletian made fresh taxation necessary to defray their cost, an agricultural crisis was produced by the turning of the imperial screw. The hierarchy of officials justified their existence by squeezing an assured revenue out of a population unable to resist but able to remove. There was no other source of revenue to take the place of the land: moreover, it was agricultural produce in kind that was required. Therefore the central bureaucracy, unchecked by any public opinion, did after its wont. In that selfish and servile world each one took care of his own skin. Compulsion was the rule: the coloni must be made to produce food: therefore they must be bound fast to the soil, or the empire would starve—and the officials with it.

Chapter L

Additional Notes to

I cannot lose this opportunity of referring to a very interesting little book by M. Augé-Laribé, L’évolution de la France agricole [Paris 1912]. Much of it bears directly on the labour-question, and sets forth the difficulties hindering its solution. It is peculiarly valuable to a student of the question in the ancient world, because it lays great stress on the effect of causes arising from modern conditions. Causes operating in both ancient and modern times are thereby made more readily and clearly perceptible. Such modern influences in particular as the vast development of transport, the concentration of machine-industries in towns, and the constant attraction of better and more continuous wage-earning, by which the rustic is drawn to urban centres, are highly significant. The difference from ancient conditions is so great in degree that it practically almost amounts to a difference in kind. So too in the material resources of agriculture: the development of farm-machinery has superseded much hand-labour, while Science has increased the possible returns from a given portion of soil.

Most significant of all from my point of view is the author’s insistence on the irregularity of wage-earning in rustic life as an active cause of the flitting of wage-earners to the towns. This brings it home to a student that a system of rustic slavery implies a set of conditions incompatible with such an economic migration; and also that the employment of slaves by urban craftsmen would not leave many eligible openings for immigrant rustics. It is fully consistent with my view that the wage-earning rustic was a rare figure in the Greco-Roman world.

It is perhaps in the remedies proposed by the author for present evils (and for the resulting depopulation of the countryside) that the contrast of ancient and modern is most clearly marked. Bureaucratic the French administrative system may be: but it is not the expression of a despotism that enslaves its citizens in the frantic effort to maintain itself against pressure from without. For individuals and organizations are free to think speak and act, and so to promote what seems likely to do good. Initiative and invention are not deadened by the fear that betterment will only serve as a pretext for increase of burdens. Stationary by instinct the French peasant proprietor may be: but he is free to move if he will, and no one dare propose to tie him to the soil by law.

Nor can I omit a reference to a paper of the late Prof Pelham on The Imperial domains and the Colonate (1890, in volume of Essays, Oxford 1911).

The simplicity of the solution there offered is most attractive, and the general value of the treatise great. But I do not think it a final solution of the problem. Not only are there variations of detail in the domains known to us from the African inscriptions (some of them found since 1890). That some of the regulations may have been taken over from those of former private owners is a point not considered. And there is no mention of the notable requisition of the services of coloni as mere retainers, to which Caesar refers without comment (above pp 183, 254). Therefore, while I welcome the proposition that the system of the Imperial domains had much to do with the creation of the later Colonate, I still think that earlier and more deep-seated causes cannot safely be ignored. Perhaps this is partly because I am looking at the matter from a labour point of view.