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 silently[1544] 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 attach[1545] 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 occasional[1546] 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 onerous[1547] in the time of Trajan. Pressure on imperial resources caused it not only to become more frequent, and eventually normal: it was extended[1548] 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 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.