(1) The inscription of Henschir Mettich[1393] belongs to the year 116-7 AD, at the end of Trajan’s reign. It deals with a domain called fundus villae magnae Variani, and does not refer to it by the term saltus at all. There is no reference to arrears of rent, the reliqua colonorum of which we often hear in the jurists and other writers. Indeed there is no mention of money-rents, unless we reckon as such the little dues (4 as per head) payable for grazing stock on the common pasture. The coloni are partiarii, paying certain shares (generally ⅓) of their yearly produce as rent. These are paid, not to an imperial official but to the lords or head-tenants of the estate (dominis aut conductoribus eius fundi) or to their stewards (vilicis). It seems certain therefore that it was the chief tenants who were responsible to the imperial treasury for the amounts annually due, and that upon them rested the troublesome duty of collection. That this charge was a new one, laid upon them by Trajan, is perhaps possible, but hardly probable. For this statute regulating the domain (a lex data) is expressly declared to be modelled on a lex Manciana[1394], which can hardly be other than a set of regulations issued by a former owner of the estate, and adopted with modifications by the imperial agents (procuratores) specially appointed to organize it as an imperial domain. In Roman practice it was usual to follow convenient precedents. How long the estate had become Crown-property, and by what process, inheritance purchase confiscation etc, we do not know. Nor is it certain whether the new statute was prepared as a matter of course on the cessation of private ownership, or whether it was issued in response to an appeal to the emperor complaining of oppressive exactions on the part of the head-tenants. But of the latter situation there is no sign, and I am inclined to accept the former alternative. In that case it appears necessary to suppose that the system of letting a great estate to one or a few great lessees, who might and did sublet parcels to small tenant farmers, was not unknown in the practice of great private landlords. This may well have been the case in Africa, still populous and prosperous, though such a system never took root in depopulated and failing Italy. It required willingness on the part of men of substance to risk their capital in a speculation that could only succeed if good sub-tenants were to be found. This condition could not be fulfilled in Italy, but in Africa things were very different.
It is however easier to note this difference by unmistakeable signs than to ascertain it in detail. One point is clear. The coloni on this domain were bound to render fixed services to the head-tenants at certain seasons of the year. These services consisted of two days’ work (operas binas) at the times of ploughing hoeing and harvest, six in all. The falling-off in the supply of slaves, despite occasional captures of prisoners in war, was a consequence of the pax Romana, and how to provide sufficient labour was a standing problem of agriculture. The guarantee of extra labour at seasons of pressure was doubtless a main consideration with speculators in inducing them to venture their substance by becoming lessees of large tracts of land. Of hired labour available for the purpose the statute gives no hint, nor is it likely that such labourers were to be found in Africa. Thus the colonus, and perhaps his whole household, were bound to certain compulsory services, and thereby made part of an organization strictly regulated and liable to further regulation. Further regulation was not likely to give the peasant farmer more freedom of movement, since the leading motive of the system was to secure continuous cultivation, and this could best be secured by long tenancies, tending to become hereditary. Therefore this statute offers various inducements to keep the peasant contentedly engaged in bettering his own position by developing the estate. The head-tenants are strictly forbidden to oppress him by exacting larger shares of produce or more operae than are allowed by the regulations. He is encouraged to cultivate parcels of waste land, not included in his farm, by various privileges: in particular, a term of rent-free years is guaranteed to him in case he plants the land with fruit trees. This term, varying from five to ten years according to species of trees, is meant to give him time to get a taste of profit before he becomes liable to rent: its effect in making him loth to move is obvious.
The statute tells us nothing on another important point. From the jurists and other sources[1395] we know that in Italy it was normally the custom for the stock of a farm let to a colonus to be found for the most part by the landlord. It was held[1396] that in taking over this instrumentum at a valuation the tenant virtually purchased it, of course not paying for it in ready money, but standing bound to account for the amount on quitting the tenancy. Thus a small man was left free to employ his own little capital in the actual working of the farm. He could add to the stock, and his additions gave to the landlord a further security for his rent, over and above that given by the sureties usually required. What stock was found by landlords, and what by tenant, was a matter for agreement generally following local convention. But on this African domain we are not told how the question of instrumentum was settled. Probably there was a traditional rule so well established that no reference to the point in the statute seemed necessary. The sole landlord was now the emperor. Without some direct evidence to that effect, I can hardly suppose that the provision of farm stock was entrusted to his procuratores. On the other hand, if the chief tenants, the conductores, were expected to undertake this business, as if they had been landlords, this too seems to call for direct evidence. Possibly the need of finding stock for an African peasant farmer was not so pressing as in Italy: still some equipment was surely required. How it was provided, seems to me a question for answering which we have not as yet sufficient materials. But it may be that on these domains the practical necessity for dealing with it seldom occurred. If, when the formal term of a tenancy expired, the same tenant stayed on either by tacit renewal (reconductio) or by grant of a new lease, the stock originally supplied would surely remain for use on the farm, upkeep and renewals of particular articles being of course allowed for. If a farmer’s son succeeded him as tenant, the situation would be the same, or very nearly so. Therefore the manifest desire of emperors to keep tenants in permanence probably operated to minimize questions of instrumentum to the point of practical insignificance.
That the coloni on this estate were themselves handworkers can hardly be doubted. The operae required of them suggest this on any natural interpretation. But there is nothing to shew that they did not employ[1397] slave labour—if and when they could get it. We are not to assume that they were all on one dead level of poverty. That the head-tenants kept slaves to work those parts of the domain that they farmed for their own account, is indicated by the mention of their vilici, and made certain by the small amount of supplementary labour guaranteed them in the form of tenants’ operae. Only one direct mention of slaves (servis dominicis) occurs in the inscription, and the text is in that place badly mutilated. Partly for the same defect, it seems necessary to avoid discussing certain other details, such as the position of the stipendiarii of whom we hear in a broken passage. Nor do I venture to draw confident inferences from the references to inquilini or coloni inquilini, or to discover an important distinction between the tenants who actually resided on the estate and those who did not. It may be right to infer a class of small proprietors dwelling around on the skirts of the great domain and hiring parcels of land within it. It may be right to regard the inquilini as coloni transplanted from abroad and made residents on the estate. But until such conclusions are more surely established it is safer to refrain from building upon them. The general effect of this document is to give us outlines of a system of imperial ‘peculiars,’ that is of domains on which order and security, necessary for the successful working and continuous cultivation, were not left to the operation of the ordinary law, but guaranteed in each case by what we may call an imperial by-law.
(2) The inscription of Souk el Khmis[1398] deals with circumstances between 180 and 183 AD. The rescript of Commodus, and the appeal to which it was the answer, are recorded in it. The imperial estate to which it refers is called saltus Burunitanus. A single conductor appears to have been the lessee of the whole estate, and it was against his unlawful exactions that the coloni appealed. Through the connivance of the responsible procurator (corruptly obtained, the coloni hint,) this tyrant had compelled them to pay larger shares of produce than were rightly due, and also to render services of men and beasts beyond the amount fixed by statute. This abuse had existed on the estate for some time, but the proceedings of the present conductor had made it past all bearing. Evidently there had been some resistance, but official favour had enabled him to employ military force in suppressing it. Violence had been freely used: some persons had been arrested and imprisoned or otherwise maltreated; others had been severely beaten, among them even Roman citizens. Hence the appeal. It is to be noted that the appellants in no way dispute their liability to pay shares of produce (partes agrarias) or to render labour-services at the usual seasons of pressure (operarum praebitionem iugorumve). They refer to a clause in a lex Hadriana, regulating these dues. It is against the exaction of more than this statute allows that they venture to protest. They judiciously point out to the emperor that such doings are injurious to the financial interest[1399] of his treasury (in perniciem rationum tuarum), that is, they will end by ruining the estate as a source of steady revenue. The officials of the central department in Rome were evidently of the same opinion, for the rescript of Commodus[1400] plainly ordered his procuratores to follow closely the rules and policy applicable to the domains, permitting no exactions in transgression of the standing regulations (contra perpetuam formam). In short, he reaffirmed the statute of Hadrian.
In this document also we hear nothing of tenants’ arrears or of money-rents. Naturally enough, for the coloni are partiarii whose rent is a share of produce. In connexion with such tenants the difficulty[1401] of reliqua does not easily arise. They are labouring peasants, who describe themselves as homines rustici tenues manuum nostrarum operis victum tolerantes. Of course they are posing as injured innocents. Perhaps they were: at any rate the great officials in Rome would look kindly on humble peasants who only asked protection in order to go on unmolested, producing the food which it was their duty to produce,—food, by the by, of the need of which the Roman mob was a standing reminder. Of vilici or ordinary slaves this document says nothing, for it had no need to do so; but the right to operae at certain seasons implies slave labour on the head-tenant’s own farm, probably attached to the chief villa or palatium. In a notable phrase at the end of their appeal the coloni speak of themselves[1402] as ‘your peasants, home-bred slaves and foster-children of your domains’ (rustici tui vernulae et alumni saltuum tuorum). Surely this implies, not only that they are coloni Caesaris, standing in a direct relation to the emperor whose protection[1403] they implore against the conductores agrorum fiscalium; but also that their connexion with the estate is an old-established one, passing from fathers to sons, a hereditary tie which they have at present no wish to see broken.
In this case the circumstances that led to the setting-up of the inscription are clear enough. Evidently the appeal represented a great effort, both in the way of organizing concerted action on the part of the peasant farmers, and in overcoming the hindrances to its presentation which would be created by the interested ingenuity of those whose acts were thereby called in question. The imperial officials in the Provinces were often secretly in league with those in authority at Rome, and to have procured an imperial rescript in favour of the appellants was a great triumph, perhaps a rare one. The forma perpetua containing the regulations governing the estate was, we learn, already posted up on a bronze tablet. It had been disregarded: and now it was an obvious precaution to record that the emperor had ordered those regulations to be observed in future. How long the effect of this rescript lasted we are left to guess. Officials changed, and reaffirmation of principles could not guarantee permanent reform of practice. Still, the policy of the central bureau, when not warped by corrupt influence, was consistent and clear. To keep these imperial ‘peculiars’ on such a footing as to insure steady returns was an undoubted need: and, after the extreme strain on the resources of the empire imposed by the calamitous times of Marcus, it was in the reign of Commodus a greater need than ever.
(3) The Gazr Mezuâr inscription[1404], very fragmentary and in some points variously interpreted, belongs to the same period (181 AD). A few details seem sufficiently certain to be of use here. The estate in question is imperial property, apparently one of the domanial units revealed to us by these African documents. It seems to record another case of appeal against unlawful exaction of operae, probably by a conductor or conductores. It also was successful. But it is notable that the lawful amount of operae to be rendered by coloni on this estate was just double of that fixed in the other cases—four at each of the seasons of pressure, twelve in all. We can only infer that the task-scale varied on various estates for reasons unknown to us. One fragment, if a probable restoration[1405] is to be accepted, conveys the impression of a despairing threat on the part of the appellants. It suggests that on failure of redress they may be driven to return to their homes where they can make their abode in freedom. On the face of it, this is an assertion of freedom of movement, a valuable piece of evidence, if it can be trusted. We may safely go so far as to note that it is at least not inconsistent with other indications pointing to the same conclusion. We may even remark that the suggestion of going home in search of freedom agrees better with the notion that these coloni were African natives than with the supposition of their Italian origin. The Roman citizens on the Burunitan estate will not support the latter view, for they are mentioned as exceptional. Seeck (rightly, I think,) urges that Italy was in sore need of men and had none to spare for populous Africa. I would add that the emigration of Italians to the Provinces as working farmers seems to require more proof than has yet been produced. As officials, as traders, as financiers and petty usurers, as exploiters of other men’s labour, they abounded in the subject countries; but, so far as I can learn, not as labourers. Many of them no doubt held landed estates, for instance in the southern parts of Spain and Gaul. But when we meet with loose general expressions[1406] such as ‘The Roman is dwelling in every land that he has conquered,’ we must not let them tempt us into overestimating the number of Italian settlers taking an active part in the operations of provincial agriculture.
(4) The inscription of Ain Ouassel[1407] belongs to the end of the reign of Severus. The text is much broken, but information of no small importance can be gathered from what remains. Severus was himself a native of Africa, and may have taken a personal interest in the subject of this ordinance. In point of form the document chiefly consists of a quoted communication (sermo) from the emperor’s procuratores[1408], one of whom, a freedman, saw to its publication in an inscription on an ara legis divi Hadriani. A copy of the lex Hadriana, or at least the relevant clauses thereof, was included. The matter on which the emperor’s decision is announced was the question of the right to occupy and cultivate rough lands (rudes agri)[1409], which are defined as lands either simply waste or such as the conductores have neglected to cultivate for at least ten years preceding. These lands are included in no less than five different saltus mentioned by proper names, and the scope of the ordinance is wider than in the cases referred to above. It appears that, while it may have contained some modifications or extensions of the provisions of the lex Hadriana, its main bearing was to reaffirm and apply the privileges granted by that statute. It is not rash to infer that we have here evidence of a set of regulations for all or many of the African domains, forming a part of Hadrian’s great work of reorganization.
If the remaining words of this inscription are rightly interpreted, as I think they are, it seems that the policy of encouraging the cultivation of waste and derelict lands was at this time being revived by the government. We have seen it at work in Trajan’s time, promoted by guarantee of privileges and temporary exemption from burdens. But the persons then encouraged to undertake the work of reclamation were to all appearance only the coloni at the time resident on the estate. In the case of these five saltus, the offer seems to be made more widely, at least so far as the remaining text may justify such conclusions. It reads like an attempt to attract enterprising squatters of any kind from any quarter. They are offered not merely undisturbed occupation and a heritable tenure of some sort, but actual possessio. Now this right, which fills a whole important chapter in Roman law, was one protected by special legal remedies, and even on an imperial domain can hardly have been a matter of indifference. It was quite distinct from mere possessio naturalis[1410], which was all that the ordinary colonus enjoyed on his own behalf. This new-type squatter is allowed the same privilege of so many years of grace, free of rent, at the outset of his enterprise, that we have noted above. The details are somewhat different. For olives the free term is ten years: for fruit trees (poma, here mentioned without reference to vines) it is seven years. It is expressly provided that the divisio, which implies the partiary system of tenancy, shall apply only to such poma as are actually brought[1411] to market. This suggests that in the past attempts to levy the quota as a proportional share of the gross crop, without regard to the needs of the grower’s own household, had been found to discourage reclamation. It has been pointed out that the effect of the new policy would be to create a sort of perpetual leasehold, similar to that known by the Greek term emphyteusis, which is found fully established in the later empire. But the land was not all under fruit-crops. The disposal of corn crops is regulated in a singular clause thus. ‘Any shares of dry[1412] crops that shall be due are, during the first five years of occupation, to be delivered to the head-tenant within whose holding[1413] the land occupied is situate. After the lapse of that time they are to go to the account (of the Treasury[1414]).’ Why is the conductor to receive these partes aridae? It is reasonably suggested that the intention was to obviate initial obstruction on the part of the big lessee, and thus to give the reclamation-project a fair start.