33 2 hortulanus and colonus 



supremacy by a self-interested obedience to the central government. 

 Thus local magnates (their evil day was not yet come) were left very 

 much to their own devices, and most provincial governors cared too 

 much for their own ease and comfort to display an inquisitive zeal. 

 Moreover, so far as the rich thought it judicious to keep the poorer 

 contented, it would be the town rabble that profited chiefly if not 

 exclusively by their liberalities: the more isolated rustic was more 

 liable to suffer from their land-proud greediness. We must picture 

 them as overbearing and arbitrary slaveholders, practically uncon- 

 trolled; and the worst specimens among them as an ever-present 

 terror to a cowed and indigent peasantry. We are not to suppose 

 that things were as bad as this in all parts of Greece, but that there 

 was little or nothing to prevent their becoming so, even in happier 

 districts. 



From time immemorial the Greek tendency had been to congregate 

 in towns, and after the early fall of the landowning aristocracies this 

 tendency was strengthened by democratic movements. The country 

 as a whole was never able to feed its population. But the population 

 was now greatly reduced. Given due security, perhaps the rustics 

 might now have been able to feed the towns. And that they were to 

 some extent doing so may be inferred from the fact that the chief 

 peasant figure in the rural life of the Metamorphoses is the market- 

 gardener 1 . If he is but left in peace, he seems to be doing fairly well. 

 It is natural at this point to inquire whether a hortulanus might not 

 also be a colonus^ the former name connoting his occupation and the 

 latter his legal position in relation to the land. Both terms often 

 occur, but they seem to be quite distinct: I can find nothing to justify 

 the application of both to the same person. And yet I cannot feel 

 certain that Apuleius always means a tenant-farmer 2 under a landlord 

 whenever he uses the word colonus. Probably he does, as Norden 

 seems to think. In any case the gardener is evidently in a smaller 

 way of business than the average colonus, and it may be that his little 

 scrap of land is his own. He certainly works 3 with his own hands, and 

 I find nothing to suggest that he is an employer of slaves, or that he 

 himself is not free. That the tenant-farmers were often coloni partiarii, 

 bound to deliver to their landlord a fixed share of their produce in 

 kind, is highly probable. But this does not exclude the payment of 

 money rents as well. Local usage probably varied in different districts. 

 It is true that Apuleius several times 4 uses partiarius metaphorically, 



1 hortulamts, see IV 3, IX 31-2, 39-42. 



2 See v 17, vn 15, vin 17, 29, 31. Cf Norden pp 88-9. 



3 ix 32. Cf the case of small farmers in Africa, Apol 17, 23. 



4 See iv 30, vni 26. Cf Norden p 89, and pp 84-5 on metaphorical use of the legal term 

 postliminiuni) which occurs also in Rutilius de reditu I 214. 



