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.
There was however another movement, later in time and less in volume, 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?