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 upheaval[1549] 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 soil[1550] 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.
ADDITIONAL NOTES TO CHAPTER L.
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.
FROM DIOCLETIAN
LI. GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
If we desire to treat History as the study of causation in the affairs of
mankind—and this is its most fruitful task—we shall find no more striking
illustration of its difficulties than the agricultural system of the
later Roman Empire. In the new model of Diocletian and Constantine we see
the imperial administration reorganized in new forms[1551] deliberately
adopted: policy expresses itself, after a century of disturbance, in a
clear breach with the past. But, when Constantine in 332 legislates[1552]
to prevent _coloni_ from migrating, he refers to a class of men who are
not their own masters but subject to control (_iuris alieni_), though
he distinguishes them from slaves. Evidently he is not creating a new
class: his intention is to prevent an existing class from evading its
present responsibilities. They are by the fact of their birth attached
as cultivators to their native soil. With this tie of _origo_[1553] goes
liability to a certain proportion of imperial tax (_capitatio_). This
is mentioned as a matter of course. Now we know that such serf-_coloni_
formed at least a large part of the rustic population under the later
Empire. We cannot but see that the loss of the power of free migration is
the vital difference that marks off these tied farmers from the tenant
farmers of an earlier period, the class whom Columella advised landlords
to retain if possible. For these men cannot move on if they would. How
came they to be in this strange condition, in fact neither slave nor
free, so that Constantine had merely to crystallize relations already
existing[1554] and the institution of serf-tenancy became a regular
part of the system? If we are to form any notion of the conditions of
farm labour in this period, we must form some notion of the causes that
produced the later or dependent colonate. And this is no simple matter:
on few subjects has the divergence of opinions been more marked than on
this. I have stated my own conclusions above, and further considerations
are adduced in this chapter.
Our chief source of evidence is the collection of legal acts of the
Christian emperors issued by authority in the year 438, and known as the
_codex Theodosianus_. It covers a period of more than a hundred years,
and innumerable references to the land-questions attest the continual
anxiety of the imperial government to secure adequate cultivation of
every possible acre of land. Contemporary history may suggest motives
for this nervousness. The increased expenses of the court and the
administrative system made it necessary to raise more taxes than ever for
the civil services. The armies, now mainly composed of Germans and other
barbarians, were necessary for imperial defence, but very costly to equip
pay and feed. Whether they were mercenaries drawing wages, or aliens
settled as Roman subjects within the empire on lands held by tenure
of military service, they were either a burden on the treasury or a
doubtful element of the population that must at all costs be kept in good
humour. On a few occasions Roman victories furnished numbers of barbarian
prisoners to the slave-market. These would be dispersed over various
districts, generally at some distance from the troubled frontiers, and
the rustic slaves of whom we hear were doubtless in great part procured
in this way. But that the rustic population consisted largely of actual
slaves we have no reason to believe. Of estates worked on a vast scale
by slave labour we hear nothing. Naturally; for the social and economic
conditions favourable to that system had long passed away. Slaves were
no longer plentiful, markets were no longer free. Under the Empire, the
pride of great landlords needed a strong mixture of caution; under a
greedy or spendthrift emperor the display of material wealth was apt to
be dangerous. In the century of confusion before Diocletian agriculture
had been much interrupted in many parts of the empire, and much land had
gone out of cultivation. So serious was the situation in the later part
of that period, that Aurelian[1555] imposed upon municipal senates the
burden of providing for the cultivation of derelict farms.
When a taxpayer is required to pay a fixed amount in a stable currency,
he knows his liability. So long as he can meet it, any surplus income
remains in his hands, and he has a fair chance of improving his economic
position by thrift. If what the state really wants is (say) corn, it
can use its tax-revenue to purchase corn in the open market. But this
assumes that the producer is free to stand out for the best price he
can get, and that he will be paid in money on the purchasing power of
which he can rely for his own needs. This last condition had ceased to
exist[1556] in the Roman empire. Not to mention earlier tamperings with
the currency, since the middle of the third century its state had been
deplorable. Things had now gone so far that the value of the fixed money
taxes seriously reduced the income derived from them: the government was
literally paid in its own coin. The policy of Diocletian was to extend an
old practice of exacting payment in kind, and this became the principal
method[1557] of imperial taxation. We must bear in mind that the supply
of corn for the city of Rome, the _annona urbis_, went on as before,
though the practical importance of Rome was steadily sinking. Diocletian
made it no longer the residence of emperors, and Constantine founded
another capital in the East: but Rome was still fed by corn-tributes
from the Provinces, chiefly from Africa and Egypt. When the New Rome on
the Bosporus was fully equipped as an imperial capital, Egypt was made
liable for the corn-supply of the Constantinopolitan populace. Old Rome
had then to rely almost entirely on Africa, with occasional help from
other sources. Italy itself[1558] was now reduced to the common level,
cut up into provinces, and liable for furnishing supplies of food. But
it was divided into two separate regions: the northern, officially named
_Italia_, or _annonariae regiones_, in which a good deal of corn was
grown, had to deliver its _annona_ at Mediolanum (Milan) the new imperial
headquarters: the southern, _suburbicariae_ (or _urbicariae_) _regiones_,
in which little corn was grown, sent supplies of pigs cattle wine
firewood lime etc to Rome. The northern _annona_, like that from other
provinces, helped to maintain military forces and the host of officials
employed by the government. For it soon became the practice to pay
salaries in kind. In the pitiful state of the currency this rude method
offered the best guarantee for receipt of a definite value.
Unhappily this exaction and distribution in kind was at best a wasteful
process. At worst it was simply ruinous. The empire was subject
to constant menace of attack, and was in dire need of the largest
possible income raised on the most economical system. If the ultimate
basis of imperial strength was to be found in the food-producers, it
was all-important to give the farming classes a feeling of security
sufficient to encourage industry and enterprise, and at all costs to
avoid reducing them to despair. Nor was the new census as designed by
Diocletian on the face of it an unjust and evil institution. Taking
account of arable lands and of the persons employed in cultivating them,
it aimed at creating a fixed number[1559] of agricultural units each of
which should be liable to furnish the same amount of yearly dues in kind.
But it is obvious that to carry out this doctrinaire scheme with uniform
neatness and precision was not possible. To deal fairly with agriculture
a minute attention to local differences and special peculiarities was
necessary, and this attention could not be given on so vast a scale.
Perhaps careful observation and correction of errors might have produced
a reasonable degree of perfection in a long period of unbroken peace:
but no such period was at hand. The same strain that drove the imperial
government to the new taxation also prevented any effective control of
its working.
It is perhaps inevitable that the exaction of dues in kind should lead
to abuses. At all events, abuses in this department were no new thing:
the sufferings of such Provinces as Sicily and Asia were notorious in the
time of the Republic. A stricter control had made the state of things
much better in the first two centuries of the Empire. The exploitation
of the Provincials was generally checked, and the imperial government
was not as yet driven by desperate financial straits to turn extortioner
itself. Caracalla’s law of 212, extending the Roman franchise[1560] to
all free inhabitants, was a symptom of conscious need, for it brought
all estates under the Roman succession-tax. At the same time it did
away with the old distinction between the ruling Roman people and the
subject nationalities: henceforth, wherever there was oppression within
the Roman world, it necessarily fell upon Roman[1561] citizens. Time had
been when the Roman citizen, free to move into any part of the Roman
dominions and to acquire property there[1562] under protection of Roman
law, made full use of the opportunities afforded him, to the disadvantage
of the subject natives. Now all alike were the helpless subjects of a
government that they could neither reform nor supersede; a government
whose one leading idea was to bring all institutions into fixed grooves
in which they should move mechanically year after year, unsusceptible of
growth or decay. True, the plan was absurd, and some few observers may
have detected its absurdity. But the power of challenging centralized
officialism and evoking expression of public opinion, never more than
rudimentary in the Roman state, was now simply extinct. Things had come
to such a pass that, speaking generally, a citizen’s choice lay between
two alternatives. Either he must bear an active part in the system
that was squeezing out the vital economic forces of the empire, making
whenever possible a profit for himself out of a salary or illicit gains;
or he must submit passively to all such extortions as the system, worked
by men whose duty and interest alike tended to make them merciless, was
certain to inflict. The oppressors, though numerous, could only be few
in proportion to the whole free population. Therefore the vast majority
stood officially condemned to lives of penury and wretchedness. The
system became more hard-set and the outlook more hopeless with the lapse
of time.
The dues exacted from the various parts of the empire varied in
quality[1563] according to local conditions, and to some extent in
methods of collection. In the frontier Provinces the quantity was
sometimes reduced[1564] by remissions, when a district ravaged by
invaders was relieved for a few years that it might recover its normal
productiveness. The details of these variations are beyond the scope
of the present inquiry. The general principle underlying the whole
system was the fixing of taxation-units equal in liability, and the
organizing of collection in municipal groups. Each municipal town
or _civitas_ was the administrative centre of a district, and stood
charged in the imperial ledgers as liable for the returns from a
certain number of units, this number being that recorded as existing at
the last quinquennial census. For the collection the chief municipal
authorities were responsible; and they had to hand over the amount due
to the imperial authorities, whether they had received it in full or
not. Already burdened with strictly municipal liabilities, the members
of municipal senates (_curiales_) were crushed by this additional and
incalculable pressure. Unable to resist, they generally took the course
of so using their functions and powers as to protect their own interests
as far as possible. One obvious precaution was to see that the number
of taxable units[1565] in their district was not fixed too high by the
census officials. This precaution was certainly not overlooked, and
success in keeping down the number may well have been the chief reason
why the system was able to go on so long. The _curiales_ were mostly
considerable landlords, residing in their town and letting their land to
tenants. But there were other landlords, smaller men, some also resident
in the towns, others in the country. We still hear of men farming
land[1566] of their own, and it seems that some of these held and farmed
other land also, as _coloni_ of larger landlords. When any question arose
as to the number of units for the tax on which this or that farm was
liable, it is clear that the interests of different classes might easily
clash. And the _curiales_ undoubtedly took care[1567] that their own and
those of their friends did not suffer.
These remarks imply that the system practically worked in favour of the
richer classes[1568] as against the poorer. And so it certainly did, not
only in the time of revision at the census each fifth year, but on other
occasions. If an invasion or some other great disaster led the emperor
to grant temporary relief, this would normally take the form of reducing
the number of taxable units in the district for a certain period. But
the local authorities were left to apportion this reduction[1569] among
the several estates, and the poor farmers had no representative to see
that they got their fair share of relief. Moreover, outside taxation,
the farmers were often subjected to heavy burdens and damage by the
irregular requisitions of imperial officials. For instance, the staff
of the imperial post-service (_cursus publicus_)[1570] were a terror.
They pressed the goods of farmers into the service of their department
on various pretexts, and exacted labour on upkeep of roads and stations.
For their tyranny there was no effective compensation or redress. Like
other officials, they could be bought off by bribes: but this meant that
the various exactions[1571] were shifted from the shoulders of the rich
to those of the poor. Another iniquity, the revival of a very old[1572]
abuse, was connected with the question of transport, an important
consideration in the case of dues in kind, often bulky. For instance, in
the case of corn, the place at which it had to be delivered might easily
count for more in estimating the actual pressure of the burden than the
amount of grain levied. In making the arrangements for delivery there
were openings for favouritism and bribery. Circumstances varied greatly
in various parts of the empire. In some Provinces delivery was made at a
military depot within easy reach. Transport by sea from Egypt or Africa
was carried on by gilds[1573] of shippers, who became more and more
organized and regulated by law. But in many parts good roads were few,
and laid out for strategic reasons; the country roads inconvenient and
rough: and for transport in bulk the post-service provided no machinery
available for the use of private persons.
It is not necessary here to follow out in detail all the particular
discomforts and grievances of the farming classes under the system
devised by Diocletian and developed by his successors. Enough has
been said to shew that they were great, and to remove all ground for
wondering that the area of arable land actually under tillage, and
with it population, continued to decline. Constantine’s law confirming
the bondage of _coloni_ to the soil by forbidding movement was the
confession of a widespread evil, but no remedy. Repeated legislation
to the same purpose only recorded and continued the failure. When all
the resources of evasion were exhausted, the pauperized serf fled to
a town and depended for a living on the pitiful doles of private or
ecclesiastical charity, or turned brigand and took precarious toll
of those who still had something to lose. In either case he was an
additional burden on a society that already had more than it could bear.
In 382 we find an attempt[1574] made to put down ‘sturdy beggars.’ The
law rewarded anyone who procured the conviction of such persons by
handing over the offenders to him. An ex-slave became the approver’s own
slave, and one who had nothing of his own beyond his freeborn quality
was granted to him as his _colonus_ for life. But this law seems to have
been ineffectual like others. Desertion of farms might to some extent be
checked, but mendicity and brigandage remained.