340 Land and labour 



enlisted from the first and settled in permanent stations, they were 

 year by year raising large families and turning deserted borderlands 

 into nurseries of imperial soldiers. This picture may be somewhat 

 overdrawn, but it has the merit of accounting for the phenomena. 

 Without some explanation of the kind it is very hard to understand 

 how the empire came to survive at all. With it, the sequel appears 

 natural and intelligible. These barbarians were so far Romanized as 

 to be proud of becoming Romans: the empire was barbarized so far as 

 to lend itself to institutions of a more and more un-Roman character, 

 and to lose the remaining traditions of literature and art: and when 

 ruder barbarians in the fifth century assailed the empire in the West 

 they found the control of government already in the hands of kinsmen 

 of their own. 



If we are to take the very meagre gleanings from the general 

 records of this period and combine them with the information gathered 

 from the African inscriptions referred to below, we can provisionally 

 form some sort of notion of the various classes of labour employed on 

 the land. First, there were coloni, freemen 1 in the eye of the law, how- 

 ever much local conditions, or the terms of their tenancies and the 

 tendency for tenancies to become hereditary, may have limited the 

 practical use of their legal freedom. Secondly, there were, at least in 

 some parts, protected occupants encouraged to turn to account parcels 

 of land that had for some reason or other lain idle. Thirdly, there 

 were also rustic slaves who did most of the work on large farms. The 

 stipulated services of tenants 2 at certain seasons to some extent sup- 

 plemented their labour, at least in some parts : and the falling supply 

 of slaves tended to make such auxiliary services more important. For 

 the value of agricultural land depends mainly on the available supply 

 of labour. Fourthly, chiefly if not entirely in the northern Provinces, 

 a number of barbarians had been planted upon Roman soil. Some 

 entered peacefully and settled down as willing subjects of the empire 

 on vacant lands assigned to them. Some had surrendered after defeat 

 in battle, and came in as prisoners. But, instead of making them rustic 

 slaves on the old model, Marcus had found a new and better use for 

 them. A new status, that of inquilini* or ' alien denizens ' was created, 

 inferior to that of free coloni but above that of slaves. They seem to 

 have been generally left to cultivate plots of land, paying a share of 

 the produce, and to have been attached to the soil, grouped under 

 Roman landlords or chief-tenants. They had their wives and families, 



1 See chapter on evidence of the Digest. 



2 See chapter on the African inscriptions. 



3 This matter is ably treated at length by Seeck op cit vol I pp 578-83. That they were 

 distinct from coloni and servi is clear from the later constitutions in Cod Theod v 17, i& 

 (9, 10), XII 19, and Cod Just XI 48 13. 



