Question of instrumentum 345 



paying for it in ready money, but standing bound to account for the 

 amount on quitting the tenancy. Thus a small man was left free to 

 employ his own little capital in the actual working of the farm. He 

 could add to the stock, and his additions gave to the landlord a further 

 security for his rent, over and above that given by the sureties usually 

 required. What stock was found by landlords, and what by tenant, was 

 a matter for agreement generally following local convention. But on 

 this African domain we are not told how the question of instrumentum 

 was settled. Probably there was a traditional rule so well established 

 that no reference to the point in the statute seemed necessary. The 

 sole landlord was now the emperor. Without some direct evidence to 

 that effect, I can hardly suppose that the provision of farm stock was 

 entrusted to his procurators. On the other hand, if the chief tenants, 

 the conductores, were expected to undertake this business, as if they 

 had been landlords, this too seems to call for direct evidence. Possibly 

 the need of finding stock for 'an African peasant farmer was not so 

 pressing as in Italy: still some equipment was surely required. How 

 it was provided, seems to me a question for answering which we have 

 not as yet sufficient materials. But it may be that on these domains 

 the practical necessity for dealing with it seldom occurred. If, when 

 the formal term of a tenancy expired, the same tenant stayed on either 

 by tacit renewal (reconductio) or by grant of a new lease, the stock 

 originally supplied would surely remain for use on the farm, upkeep 

 and renewals of particular articles being of course allowed for. If a 

 farmer's son succeeded him as tenant, the situation would be the same, 

 or very nearly so. Therefore the manifest desire of emperors to keep 

 tenants in permanence probably operated to minimize questions of 

 instrumentum to the point of practical insignificance. 



That the coloni on this estate were themselves hand-workers can 

 hardly be doubted. The operae required of them suggest this on any 

 natural interpretation. But there is nothing to shew that they did not 

 employ 1 slave labour if and when they could get it. We are not to 

 assume that they were all on one dead level of poverty. That the 

 head-tenants kept slaves to work those parts of the domain that they 

 farmed for their own account, is indicated by the mention of their 

 vilici, and made certain by the small amount of supplementary labour 

 guaranteed them in the form of tenants' operae. Only one direct 

 mention of slaves (servis dominicis) occurs in the inscription, and the 

 text is in that place badly mutilated. Partly for the same defect, it 

 seems necessary to avoid discussing certain other details, such as the 

 position of the stipendiarii of whom we hear in a broken passage. Nor 



1 So Cuq, Seeck, Schulten, rightly I think. But in practice I believe the chance seldom 

 occurred. 



