Tenants becoming dependent 209 



We shall also find reason to think that both in Italy and in the 

 Provinces there was a tendency to reduce farm-tenants to a considerable 

 degree of de facto dependence by manipulation of economic relations. 

 A landlord could let a farm on terms apparently favourable but so 

 arranged that it was easy for the tenant to fall into arrears and become 

 his debtor. The exploitation of debtors' necessities 1 was -a practice 

 traditionally Roman from very early times. True, it was seldom politic 

 to sell up a defaulting tenant in the declining state of Italian agriculture. 

 But the gradual acceptance of a liability to small burdens in lieu of 

 cash payment might rob him of his effective independence before he 

 was well aware of the change in his position. On a great provincial 

 domain, the emperor being far away, a head-tenant could deal with the 

 sub-tenants on much the same lines. A trifling requirement, just ex- 

 ceeding what was actually due, would be submitted to as not worth 

 the trouble and risk of settingthe appeal-machinery in motion. Further 

 encroachments, infinitesimal but cumulative, might reduce the colonus 

 to a semi-servile condition: and, the poorer he became, the less his 

 prospect of protection from the emperor's local agents, too often men 

 of itching palms. Still the coloni were freemen, and we have evidence 

 that they sometimes appealed to their imperial lord, and with success. 

 It seems that in some respects coloni Caesaris were at an advantage as 

 compared with coloni of private landlords, at least in the means of 

 protection. Roman law was very chary of interference with matters of 

 private contract, and the principles guiding the courts were well known. 

 An astute landlord could see to it that his encroachments on a tenant's 

 freedom did not entitle the man to a legal remedy. But the imperial 

 domains abroad were often, if not always, governed by administrative 

 procedure under the emperor's own agents; and these gentry could 

 quickly be brought to order, and compelled to redress grievances, by 

 a single word from headquarters. That the word was forthcoming on 

 occasion is not wonderful. The policy of an emperor was to cherish 

 and encourage the patient farmers whose economic value was a sound 

 imperial asset, while the head-tenant was only a convenient middleman. 

 But the private landowner had no imperial interest to guide him, and 

 looked only to his own immediate profit. 



In tracing the influences that changed the condition of the working 

 farmer we must not forget the establishment of a new military system. 

 The standing army created by Augustus was an absolute necessity for 

 imperial defence. At the same time it was a recognition of the fact that 

 the old system of temporary levies, long proved inadequate, must 

 henceforth be abandoned. Frontier armies could not be formed by 



1 For the cases of India and China see references to Sir A Fraser and Macgowan [Ap- 

 pendix D 6]. 



H. A. 14 



