The veterans a privileged class.
The retired veterans were a privileged class, and specially exempted from many public burdens;[401] but in other respects there is no reason to suppose that in their methods of settlement and agriculture, and [p280] in the size of their holdings proportioned to their single or double yokes, they differed from other free settlers or ancient original tenants on the ager publicus. We may add that, following the usual Roman custom, these settlers probably as a rule lived in towns and villages, and not on their farms. We may assume that, having single or double yokes of oxen and outfits of two kinds of seed, they were arable and not pasture farmers, with their homesteads in the village and their land in the fields around it—in some places under the three-field system, in others with a rectangular block of land on which they followed the three-course or other rotation of crops for themselves.
Groups of settlers may therefore be regarded as sometimes forming something very much like a free village community upon the public land of the Empire, with no lord over it except the fiscal and judicial officers of the Emperor.
V. THE SMALLER TENANTS ON THE 'AGER PUBLICUS'
(continued)—THE LÆTI.
The Læti a semi-servile class, like the Welsh taeogs.
In the second place, there were settlers of quite another grade—families of the conquered tribes of Germany, who were forcibly settled within the limes of the Roman provinces, in order that they might repeople desolated districts or replace the otherwise dwindling provincial population—in order that they might bear the public burdens and minister to the public needs, i.e. till the public land, pay the [p281] public tribute, and also provide for the defence of the empire. They formed a semi-servile class, partly agricultural and partly military; they furnished corn for the granaries and soldiers for the cohorts of the empire, and were generally known in later times by the name of 'Læti,' or 'Liti' [402] They were somewhat in the same position as the Welsh 'taeogs' or 'aillts.' They were foreigners, without Roman blood, and hence a semi-servile class of occupiers distinct from, and without the full rights of, Roman citizens[403]—a class, in short, upon whom the full burden of taxation and military service could be laid.
Mostly deported Germans.
Probably this system had been followed from the time of Augustus, as a substitute for the earlier and more cruel course of sending tens of thousands of vanquished foes to the Roman slave market for sale; but it became a more and more important part of the imperial defensive policy of Rome during the later empire, as the inroads of barbarians became more and more frequent.
System of forced emigration from conquered districts.
There is clear evidence, from the third century, of the extension of this kind of colonisation over a wide district. It is important to realise both its extent and locality.