but not less serious as affecting the practical working of the imperial
machine. With the increase of poverty life in municipal towns became less
attractive. Local eminence was no longer an object of ambition; for to
local burdens, once cheerfully borne, was now added a load of imperial
responsibilities which lay heavy on all men of property, and which they
could neither shake off nor control. In hope of evading them, well-to-do
citizens took refuge[1575] in the country, either on estates of their own
or under the protection of great landlords already settled there. But to
allow this would mean the depletion of the local senates (_curiae_) on
whose services as revenue-collectors the financial system of the empire
depended. To prevent men qualified for the position of _curiales_ from
escaping that duty was the aim of legislation[1576] which by repeated
enactments confessed its own failure. That there were country magnates,
men of influence (_potentes_), whose protection might seem able to
screen municipal defaulters, is a point to be noted. They were the great
_possessores_[1577] (a term no longer applied to small men), who held
large estates organized on a sort of manorial model, and sometimes ruled
them like little principalities, territorial lordships[1578] standing
in direct relations with the central authorities and not hampered
by inclusion in the general municipal scheme. Such ‘peculiars’ had
existed under the earlier Empire, and evidently continued to exist: the
Crown-lands of the emperors, especially in Africa, were the most signal
cases. But the great private Possessor could not secure to his domain
the various exemptions[1579] that emperors conferred on theirs. He had
to collect and pay over[1580] the dues from his estate, as a municipal
magistrate did from the district round his town-centre. But he had a more
immediate and personal interest in the wellbeing of all his tenants and
dependants, whose presence and prosperity gave to his land by far the
greater part[1581] of its value.
That territorial magnates should be free to build up a perhaps dangerous
power in various corners of the empire by gathering dependants round
them, could hardly be viewed with approval by the jealousy of emperors.
Not only was the system of letting land in parcels to tenants spreading,
but the power of the landlords over them was increasing, long before
Constantine took the final step of treating them as attached permanently
to the soil. Whether they were the landlord’s free tenants who had
gradually lost through economic weakness the effective use of freedom;
or small freeholders who had found it worth their while to part with
their holdings to a big man and become his tenants for the sake of
enjoying his protection; or former slaves to whom small farms had been
entrusted on various conditions; they were in a sort of economic bondage.
Doubtless most of them lived from hand to mouth, but we have no reason
to believe that poverty, so long as they had plenty to live on, was the
motive[1582] that made them wish to give up their holdings and try their
luck elsewhere. It was the cruel pressure of Diocletian’s new taxation,
and the army of officials employed to enforce it, that drove them to
despair. A contemporary witness[1583] tells us, referring to this very
matter, ‘the excess of receivers over givers was becoming so marked
that farms were being abandoned, and tillages falling to woodland, the
resources of the tenants being exhausted by the hugeness[1584] of the
imposts.’ And this evidence does not stand alone. So Constantine sought a
remedy in prevention of movement, binding down the tenants to the soil.
Henceforth the land to which a _colonus_[1585] was attached by birth, and
the _colonus_ himself, were to be legally and economically inseparable.
Attempts at evading the new rule were persistently met by later[1586]
legislation. The motive of such attempts may be found by remembering
that depopulation was steadily lowering the value of land and raising
that of labour. If an individual landlord could add to the value of his
own estate by getting more _coloni_ settled on it, withdrawn from other
estates, he might profit by the transaction: but the government, whose
policy was to keep the greatest possible area under cultivation, could
not allow one part to be denuded of labourers to suit the interest of the
owner of another part.
When the law stepped in to deprive the tenant, already far gone in
dependence on his landlord, of such freedom of movement as he still
retained, it is remarkable that rustic slaves were not at the same time
legally attached to the soil. That inconvenience was caused by masters
selling them when and where they chose, is shewn by Constantine’s
law[1587] of 327, allowing such sales to take place only within the
limits of the Province where they had been employed. No doubt their
removal upset the arrangements for that part of a taxable unit in
which the number of adult heads[1588] was taken into account, and
so had to be checked. But it seems not to have been till the time
of Valentinian[1589], somewhere between 367 and 375, that the sale
of a farm-slave off the land was directly prohibited, like that of
a _colonus_. In referring to this matter, the significance of the
difference of dates is thus brought out[1590] by Seeck: ‘That this
measure was carried through much sooner in the case of the small farmers
than in that of the farm-slaves, is very characteristic of the spirit
of that age. Where court favour is the deciding factor that governs
the entire policy, the government is even more reluctant to limit the
proprietary rights of the great landlord[1591] than the liberties of
the small man.’ This is very true, but we must not forget that in both
cases the binding of the labourer to the soil did in fact restrict the
landlord’s freedom of disposal. He as well as his dependants came under
a system not designed to promote his private convenience or interest,
but to guarantee a maximum of total cultivation in the interest of the
empire as a whole. So we find that he was not allowed[1592] to raise at
will the rents of his tenants: they could sue their landlord (a right
which in practice was probably not worth much), and even when this right
was restricted[1593] in 396 they still retained it in respect of unfair
increases of rent and criminal cases. So too, if he acquired extra
slaves, either by receiving them as volunteers from derelict farms or
in virtue of an imperial grant, it was strictly ordained[1594] that
such acquisition carried with it the tax-liability for the whole of the
derelict land. The landlord was therefore kept firmly in the grip of
the central power, and not left free to build up a little principality
by consolidating at will all the labour-resources that he could annex
as dependants. Moreover he was watched by a host of imperial agents and
spies whose interests could only be reconciled with his own by the costly
method of recurrent bribery.
When we return to the main question of the actual farm-labour, and ask
who toiled with their own hands to raise crops, we find ourselves in a
curious position. The evidence, whether legal or literary, leaves us
in no doubt that the tenant farmer of this period was normally himself
a labourer. And yet it is not easy to cite passages in which this is
directly affirmed. The pompous and affected language of the imperial
laws is throughout a bad medium for conveying simple facts; nor was the
question, who did the work, of any interest to the central authority,
concerned solely with the regular exaction of the apportioned dues. The
real proof that _coloni_, whether still holding some land of their own
or merely tenants, and _inquilini_, whether solely barbarian dependants
or not, were actual handworkers, is to be found in legitimate inference
from certain facts. First, the increase in the value of labour compared
with the decline in that of land. The binding of tenant to soil was a
confession of this. Secondly, the general poverty of the farmers[1595]
and their helplessness against oppression and wrong. Of this the
description of Salvian gives a striking, if rhetorical, picture, and it
is implied in many laws designed[1596] for their protection. That persons
in so weak an economic position could have carried on their business
as mere directors of slave-labour is surely inconceivable: and we are
to remember that not only they themselves but their families also were
bound to the soil. It was their presence, that is to say their labour,
that gave value to the land, and so paid the taxes. Hence it was that in
forming taxable units (_capita_) it was generally the practice to include
in the reckoning[1597] not only the productive area (_iugatio_) but also
the ‘heads’ that stocked it (_capitatio_). In other words, productiveness
must in the interest of the state be actual, not merely potential.
The importance of keeping the real locally-bound _coloni_ strictly to
their business of food-production was fully recognized in the regulations
for recruiting the armies. Landlords, required to furnish[1598] recruits,
were free to name some of their _coloni_ for that purpose. But there
was no fear that they would be eager to do this, for the work of their
tenants was what gave value to their properties. And the imperial
officers charged with recruiting duty were ordered[1599] (and this in
400, when the need of soldiers was extreme) not to accept fugitive
tenants belonging to an estate (_indigenis_): these no doubt if found
were to be returned to their lords. The military levy was to fall upon
sons of veterans, for in this class as in others no effort was spared
to make the ways of life hereditary; or on wastrels (_vagos_)[1600], of
whom the laws often make mention; or generally on persons manifestly
by the circumstances of their birth (_origo_) liable to army service.
Here we have the service still in principle confined to freemen. But
it is not to be doubted that many a slave (and these would be nearly
all rustic slaves) passed muster with officers hasting to make up their
tale of men, and so entered the army. At a much later date (529) we find
Justinian[1601] contemplating cases of slaves recruited with the consent
of their owners, in short furnished as recruits. He enacts that such men
are to be declared _ingenui_[1602], that is freeborn not freedmen, the
master losing all rights over them: but, if they are efficient soldiers,
they are to remain in the service. And the power of commuting[1603]
the obligation of furnishing a recruit for a payment of money, which
was to some extent allowed, introduced a method of recruiting[1604] by
purchase. A recruit being demanded, it did not follow that the emperor
got either the particular man (inspected of course and passed as fit) or
a fixed cash-commutation. The recruiting officer conveniently happened
to have a man or two at disposal, picked up in the course of his tour.
The landlord, anxious to keep his own staff intact, came to terms with
the officer for one of these as substitute. These officers knew when
they could drive hard bargains, and did not lose their chances. In a
law of 375, this system is directly referred to, and an attempt is made
to regulate it[1605] on an equitable footing. To abolish it was clearly
impossible. Eventually the state undertook to work it officially, and
bought its own ‘bodies’ (_corpora_, like σώματα, of slaves) with the
composition-money or _aurum_ _temonarium_. That some of these ‘bodies’
were escaped slaves is highly probable. Some may have been stray
barbarians, not included in the various barbarian corps which more and
more came to form the backbone of the Roman army. But the majority would
probably be indigent wretches to whom any change seemed better than the
miserable lives open to them in the meanest functions of the decaying
civilization of the towns. In any case such recruits[1606] would be but a
poor substitute for the pick of the rustic population.
The same anxiety to spare the rustics unnecessary exactions, that
they might not sink under their present burdens, appears in other
regulations. The subordinates employed in the public services such as
the Post, or as attendants on functionaries, were tempted to ease their
own duties by demanding contributions from the helpless countryfolk.
This we find forbidden[1607] in 321 as interfering with the farmers’
right to procure and carry home things required for agriculture. So
too a whole Title[1608] in the _Codex_ is devoted to the prevention of
_superexactiones_, a form of extortion often practised by officials,
chiefly by the use of false weights and measures or by foul play with the
official receipts. The laws forbidding practices of this kind seem to
belong to the latter part of the fourth century and the earlier part of
the fifth. But the evil was clearly of old standing, and the laws almost
certainly vain. That illicit exactions were a particular affliction of
the poorer rustics, who could not bribe the officials, is confessed[1609]
by a law of 362, which ordains that the burdens of supplying beasts
fodder etc for service of the Post, upkeep of the roads and so forth,
are to be laid on all _possessores_ alike. Further enactments follow in
401 and 408. But these rules for equitable distribution of burdens, even
if carried out, only spread them over all landowners and _coloni_. All
the upper ranks[1610] of the imperial service carried exemption from
_sordida munera_ in some form or other, and personal grants of exemption
were often granted as a favour. It is true that such exemption only
extended to the life of the grantee, that exemptions were revocable, and
that in course of time extreme necessities led to revocations. But all
this did not operate to relieve the unhappy rustic on whom the whole
imperial fabric rested. The rich might have to lose their privileges, but
it was too late for the poor to gain a benefit. That the underlings of
provincial governors were a terror to farmers, levying on them illicit
services and generally blackmailing them for their own profit, is clear
from the law[1611] (somewhere 368-373) announcing severe punishment for
the offence and declaring that it had become a regular practice. The law
of 328, enacting[1612] that no farmer (_agricola_) was to be impressed
for special service in the seasons of seed-time or harvest, is on rather
a different footing. It expressly justifies the prohibition on the ground
of agricultural necessity: in short, it is not to protect the farmer,
but, to leave him no excuse for not producing food.
A great critic[1613] has commented severely on the intellectual
stagnation that fell upon the Roman empire and was one of the most
effective causes of its decline. That literature fed upon the past and
dwindled into general imbecility is commonly recognized: but the lack
of material inventions and the paucity of improvements is perhaps not
less significant than the decay of literature and art. The department of
agriculture was no exception to this sterile traditionality. Since the
days of Varro there had been no considerable change. So far as labour is
concerned, the system of Columella can hardly be called an advance; for
it employs directly none but slave labour, a resource already beginning
to fail, and causing landlords to seek help from the development of
tenancies. In modern times the dearness of labour has stimulated human
ingenuity to produce machines by which the efficiency of human labour
is increased and therefore fewer hands required for a given output. But
in the world under the Roman supremacy centuries went by with hardly
any modification of the mechanical equipment. A small exception may
perhaps be found in a sort of rudimentary reaping-machine. It was briefly
referred to by the elder Pliny[1614] in the first century of our era,
and described by Palladius in the fourth. The device was in use on
the large estates in the lowlands of Gaul, and was perhaps a Gaulish
invention. It is said to have been a labour-saving[1615] appliance. From
the description it seems to have been clumsy; and, since it cut off the
ears and left the straw standing, it was only suited to farms on which
no special use was made of the straw. Its structure (for it was driven
by an ox from behind) must have made it unworkable on sloping ground.
That we hear nothing of its general adoption may be due to these or
other defects. But I believe there is no record of attempts to improve
the original design. The lack of interest in improvement of tools has
been noted as a phenomenon accompanying the dependence on slave labour.
And when under the Roman empire we see the free tenant passing into the
condition of a serf-tenant, we are witnessing a process that steadily
tended to reduce him to the moral labour-level of the apathetic and
hopeless slave. To make the agriculture of a district more prosperous
was to attract the attention of greedy officials. To resist their illicit
extortions was to attract the attention of the central government, whose
growing needs were ever tempting it to squeeze more and more out of its
subjects. Why then should the rustic, tied to the soil, trouble himself
to seek more economical methods, the profits of which, if ever realized,
he was not himself likely to enjoy?
LII. LIBANIUS.
In order to get so far as possible a living picture of the conditions of
rustic life and labour we must glean the scattered notices preserved to
us in the writers of the period of decline. Due allowance must be made
for the general artificiality and rhetorical bent of authors trained in
the still fashionable schools of composition and style. For even private
letters were commonly written as models destined eventually to be read
and admired by the public, while in controversial works and public
addresses the tendency to attitudinize was dominant. The circulation
of literary trivialities and exchange of cheap compliments, especially
prevalent in Gaul, was kept up to the last by self-satisfied cliques
when the barbarians were already established in the heart of the empire.
Nevertheless valuable sidelights on questions of fact are thrown from
several points of view. This evidence agrees with that drawn from the
imperial laws, and is in so far better for our purpose that it deals
almost exclusively with the present. When it looks to the future, it is
in the form of petition or advice; while the normal substance of the laws
is to confess the existence of monstrous abuses by threatening offenders
with penalties ever more and more severe, and enjoining reforms that no
penalties could enforce. A writer very characteristic of his age (about
315-400) is the ‘sophist’ =Libanius=, who passed most of his later years
at Antioch, the luxurious chief city of the East. For matters under his
immediate observation he is a good authority, and may help us to form
a notion of the extent to which imperial ordinances were practically
operative in the eastern parts of the empire.
Two of the ‘orations,’ or written addresses, of Libanius are particularly
interesting as appeals to the emperor Theodosius for redress of
malpractices affecting the rustic population and impairing the financial
resources of the empire. The earlier[1616] (about 385) exposes gross
misdeeds of the city magistrates of Antioch. What with the falling of
old houses and clearing of sites for new buildings there were great
quantities of mixed rubbish to be removed and deposited elsewhere.
Apparently there was now no sufficient staff of public slaves at
disposal; at all events the city authorities resorted to illegal means
for procuring the removal. When the country folk came into town to
dispose of their produce, the magistrates requisitioned their carts asses
mules (and themselves as drivers) for this work. Thus the time of the
poor rustics was wasted, their carts and sacks damaged, and they and
their beasts sent back to their homes in a state of utter exhaustion.
No law empowered the city magnates to act thus. From small beginnings a
sort of usage had been created, which nothing short of imperial ordinance
could now break and abolish. That the magistrates were conscious of doing
wrong was shewn by what they avoided doing. They did not impress slaves
or carts from houses in the city. They did not exact like services from
the military or powerful landlords. Nor did they lay the burden on the
estates[1617] of the municipality, the rents from which were part of
the revenues of Antioch. Favour is only justified by equity; and there
is, says Libanius, no equity in sparing the luxurious rich by ruining
the poor. So he entreats his most gracious[1618] Majesty to protect the
farms as much as the cities, or rather more. For the country is in fact
the foundation on which cities rest. Without it they could never have
existed: and now it is on the rise and fall of rural wellbeing that urban
prosperity depends. This appeal speaks for itself. But it is significant
that the skilled pleader thinks it wise to end on a note of imperial
interest. ‘Moreover, Sire, it is from the country that your tribute
is drawn. It is to the cities that you address your orders[1619] for
taxation, but the cities have to raise it from the country. Therefore, to
protect the farmers is to preserve your interests, and to maltreat the
farmers is to betray them.’