212 The capitalists prevail 



to the common level by subjecting Italian land to taxation. This he 

 did, and the new Oriental Monarchy was complete. 



That a labour-question underlay the policy of attaching the coloni 

 to the land, is to be gathered from the following considerations. The 

 development of the plan of promoting small tenancies, particularly on 

 the imperial domains, was undoubtedly calculated to take the place of 

 large-scale cultivation by slave labour. It was a move in the direction 

 of more intensive tillage, and economically sound. So long as a firm 

 hand was kept on large head-tenants and imperial officials, the plan 

 seems to have been on the whole a success. But all depended on the 

 protection of the small working farmers, and of course on the modera- 

 tion of government demands.<^The disorders of the third century 

 tended to paralyse the protection while they increased demands^There- 

 forc the head-tenants, aided by the slackness or collusion of officials, 

 gained a predominant power, which imperial policy had been concerned 

 In prevent. \\\ 1 In: t i me >f I )i< >< l< -I i,i i) I heir position was far stron-er than 



it had been under Hadrian. To restore the former relations by govern- 

 mental action would be certainly difficult, perhaps impossible. As 

 middlemen, through whose agency the collection of dues in non- 

 municipal areas could be effected, they were useful. It was a saving 

 of trouble to deal with a comparatively small number of persons, and 

 those men of substance. The remodelling of the disordered Empire was 

 no doubt a complicated and laborious business, and anything that 

 promised to save trouble would be welcomed. So the government 

 accepted 1 the changed position as accomplished fact, and left the coloni, 

 its former clients, to the mercies of the men of capital. But the big 

 men, controlling ever more lands, whether as possessors or as imperial 

 head-tenants or as 'patrons' of helpless villagers, could not meet their 

 oNij-ations to tin- j.;overmnent without haviiu; the disposal of a sufficient 

 and regular supply of labour. And to the authorities of the later Empire, 

 deeply committed to a rigid system of castes and gilds, no way of 

 meeting the difficulty seemed open but to extend the system of fixity 

 to the class of toilers on the land. The motive was a financial one, 

 naturally. Non-industrial, and so unable to pay for imports by export 

 of its own manufactures, the civilization of the empire was financially 

 based upon agriculture. Looking back on the past, we can see that 



the deadenim.; ol' hop,- <m <l enterprise in the farmiiu; population was a 



ruinous thing. But theempirc drifted into it as the result of circumstances 

 and influences long operative and eventually irresistible. To displace 

 the free peasant by the slave, then the slave by the small tenant, only 

 to end by converting the small tenant into a serf, was a part of the 

 Roman fate. 



1 This is the view of Kostowzcw Rom Colonat p 397. 



