and legal rights of tenants 247 



that damage done by the lessor to the lessee's interest in the farm de- 

 prived him of right of action against the lessee, in case he wanted to 

 enforce some claim (for rent or for some special service) under the 

 terms of the existing contract 1 of lease. If this inference be just, the 

 evidence is important. For the colonus is conceived as a humble person, 

 whose interest a brutal inconsiderate landlord would be not unlikely 

 to disregard, and to whom a resort to litigation would seem a course 

 to be if possible avoided. 



To this question of the rights of landlord and tenant Seneca returns 

 later, when engaged in reconciling the Stoic thesis that 'all things 

 belong to the Wise Man' with the facts of actual life. The Wise Man 

 is in the position of a King to whom belongs the geneTaT'rTghlTbT 

 sovranty (imperium) while his subjects have the particular right of 

 ownership (dominium). Illustrating the point he proceeds 2 thus. 'Say 

 I have hired a house from you. Of its contents some belong to you and 

 some to me. The thing (res) is your property, but the right of user 

 (usus} of your property is mine. Just so you must not meddle with 

 crops, though grown on your own estate, if your tenant forbids it; and 

 in a season of dearness or dearth you will be like the man in Vergil 

 wistfully gazing at another's plenteous store, though the land where it 

 grew, the yard where it is stacked, and the granary it is meant to fill, 

 are all your own property. Nor, when I have hired a lodging, have 

 you a right to enter it, owner though you be : when a slave of yours is 

 hired for service by me, you have no right to withdraw him : and, if I 

 hire a trap from you and give you a lift, it will be a good turn on my 

 part, though the conveyance belongs to you.' I have quoted this at 

 some length, in order to make the farm-tenant's position quite clear. 

 His rights are presumed to be easily ascertainable, and his assertion of 

 them will be protected by the law. His contract, whether a formal 

 lease or not, is also presumed to guarantee him complete control of the 

 subject for the agreed term. Whether encroachments by landlords and 

 legal proceedings for redress by tenants were common events in rural 

 Italy, Seneca need not and does not say. I suspect that personal in- 

 terest on both sides was in practice a more effective restraint than 

 appeals to law. 



There are other references to agricultural conditions, which though 

 of less importance are interesting as confirming other evidence as to 

 the latifundia of this period. A good specimen is found in his denun- 

 ciation of human greed as the cause of poverty, by bringing to an end 



1 The pactum implied in pepigerat. 



2 de benefvu 5 2, 3, conduxi domum a te ; in hac aliquid tuum est, aliquid meum; res 

 tua est, usus rei tuae meus est. itaque nee fructus tanges colono tuo prohibente, quamvis in 

 tua possessions nascantur...nec conductum meum, quamquam sis dominus, intrabis^ nee servum 

 tuum, mercennarium meum, adduces... etc. See the chapter on the Jurists of the Digest. 



