LIX. SALVIAN.
The calamities that befel the Roman world in the fourth century led to much recrimination between Pagan and Christian, each blaming the other for misfortunes generally regarded as the signal expression of divine wrath. Symmachus had been answered by Ambrose, and Christian interpretation of the course of human history produced its classic in Augustine’s great work de civitate Dei early in the fifth century. About the same time Orosius wrote his earnest but grotesque historiae adversus paganos, an arbitrary and superficial distortion of history, interesting as a specimen of partisan composition. But it is not till the middle of the century that we come upon a Christian author who gives us a graphic picture of the sufferings of the people in a Province of the empire, and a working theory of their causes, strictly from a pious Christian’s point of view. This is Salvian, an elder of the Church at Massalia. His evidence is cited by all historians, and must be repeated here. The main thesis is that all the woes and calamities of the age are judgments of God provoked by the gross immorality[1741] of the Roman world. So far from imputing all vices and crimes to the Heathen and the Pagan, he regards them as shared by all men: but he draws a sharp line between those who sin in ignorance, knowing no better, and those who profess the principles of a pure Christianity and yet sin against the light that is in them. For the barbarians are either Heathen or Heretics (he is thinking of the Arians), while in the empire the Orthodox church prevails. And yet the barbarians prosper, while the empire decays. Why? simply because even in their religious darkness the barbarians are morally superior to the Romans. For our present purpose it is the economic and social phenomena as depicted by Salvian that are of interest, and I proceed to give an abstract of the passage[1742] in which he expounds his indictment of Roman administration and the corrupt influences by which it is perverted from the promotion of prosperity and happiness to a cause of misery and ruin.
The all-pervading canker is the oppression of the poor by the rich. The heavy burdens of taxation are thrown upon the poor. When any relief is granted, it is intercepted by the rich. Franks Huns Vandals and Goths will have none of these iniquities, and Romans living among those barbarians also escape them. Hence the stream of migration sets from us to them, not from them to us. Indeed our poor folk would migrate in a body, but for the difficulty of transferring their few goods their poor hovels and their families. This drives them to take another course. They put themselves under the guardianship and protection of more powerful persons, surrendering[1743] to the rich like prisoners of war, and so to speak passing under their full authority and control. But this protection is made a pretext for spoliation. For the first condition of protection is the assignation[1744] of practically their whole substance to their protectors: the children’s inheritance is sacrificed to pay for the protection of their parents. The bargain is cruel and one-sided, a monstrous and intolerable wrong. For most of these poor wretches, stripped of their little belongings and expelled from their little farms, though they have lost their property, have still to bear the tribute on the properties lost: the possession is withdrawn, but the assessment[1745] remains: the ownership is gone, but the burden of taxation is crushing them still. The effects of this evil are incalculable. The intruders (pervasores) are settled down (incubant) on their properties, while they, poor souls, are paying the tributes on the intruders’ behalf. And this condition passes on to their children. So they who have been despoiled by the intrusion[1746] of individuals are being done to death by the pressure of the state (publica adflictione), and their livelihood is taken from them by squeezing as their property was by robbery. Some, wiser or taught by necessity, losing their homes and little farms through intrusions or driven by the tax-gatherers to abandon them through inability to keep them, find their way to the estates of the powerful, and become[1747] serf-tenants (coloni) of the rich. Like fugitives from the enemy or the law, not able to retain their social birthright, they bow themselves[1748] to the mean lot of mere sojourners: cast out of property and position, they have nothing left to call their own, and are no longer their own masters. Nay, it is even worse. For though they are admitted (to the rich men’s estates) as strangers (advenae), residence operates to make them[1749] natives of the place. They are transformed as by a Circe’s cup. The lord of the place, who admitted them as outside[1750] aliens, begins to treat them as his own (proprios): and so men of unquestioned free birth are being turned into slaves. When we are putting our brethren into bondage, is it strange[1751] that the barbarians are making bondsmen of us?
This is something beyond[1752] mere partisan polemic. It finds the source of misery and weakness in moral decay. Highly coloured, the picture is surely none the less true. The degradation of the rustic population presents itself in two stages. First, the farmer, still owning his little farm (agellus, rescula), finds that, what with legal burdens and illegal extortions, his position is intolerable. So he seeks the protection[1753] of a powerful neighbour, who exploits his necessities. Apparently he acquires control of the poor man’s land, but contrives to do it in such a form as to leave him still liable to payment of the imperial dues. That this iniquity was forbidden[1754] by law mattered not: corrupt officials shut their eyes to the doings of the rich. From the curiales of the several communities no help was to be looked for. Salvian declares[1755] that they were tyrants to a man. And we must not forget that they themselves were forced into office and held responsible for paying in full the dues they were required to collect. The great machine ground all, and its cruel effects were passed on from stronger to weaker, till the peasant was reached and crushed by burdens that he could not transmit to others. The second stage is the inevitable sequel. The poor man’s lot is more intolerable than before. His lesson is learnt, and he takes the final step into the status of a rich man’s colonus. Henceforth his lord is liable[1756] for his dues, but he is himself the lord’s serf, bound to the soil on which his lord places him, nominally free, but unable to stir from the spot[1757] to which his labour gives a value. If he runs away, the hue and cry follows him, and he is brought ignominiously back to the servile punishment that awaits him—unless he can make his way to some barbarian tribe. Whether he would find himself so much better off in those surroundings as Salvian seems to imply, must be left doubtful. Any family that he might leave behind would remain in serfage under conditions hardly improved by his desertion.