coloni appeal to the Emperor 347 



modus 1 plainly ordered \\\s procurators to follow closely the rules and 

 policy applicable to the domains, permitting no exactions in trans- 

 gression of the standing regulations (contra perpetuam formam). Jn 

 short, he reaffirmed the statute of Hadrian. 



In this document also we hear nothing of tenants' arrears or of 

 money-rents. Naturally enough, for the coloni are partiarii whose rent 

 is a share of produce. In connexion with such tenants the difficulty 2 

 of reliqua does not easily arise. They are labouring peasants, who 

 describe themselves as homines rustici tenues manuum nostrarum operis 

 victum tolerantes. Of course they are posing as injured innocents. 

 Perhaps they were : at any rate the great officials in Rome would look 

 kindly on humble peasants who only asked protection in order to go 

 on unmolested, producing the food which it was their duty to produce, 

 food, by the by, of the need of which the Roman mob was a 

 standing reminder. Of vilici or ordinary slaves this document says 

 nothing, for it had no need to 'do so; but the right to operae at certain 

 seasons implies slave labour on the head-tenant's own farm, probably 

 attached to the chief villa orpalatium. In a notable phrase at the end 

 of their appeal the coloni speak of themselves 3 as ' your peasants, 

 home-bred slaves and foster-children of your domains' (rustici tui 

 vernulae et alumni saltuum tuorum). Surely this implies, not only that 

 they are coloni Caesaris, standing in a direct relation to the emperor 

 whose protection 4 they implore against the conductores agrorum 

 fiscalium; but also that their connexion with the estate is an old- 

 established one, passing from fathers to sons, a hereditary tie which they 

 have at present no wish to see broken. 



In this case the circumstances that led to the setting-up of the 

 inscription are clear enough. Evidently the appeal represented a great 

 effort, both in the way of organizing concerted action on the part of 

 the peasant farmers, and in overcoming the hindrances to its presen- 

 tation which would be created by the interested ingenuity of those 

 whose acts were thereby called in question. The imperial officials in 

 the Provinces were often secretly in league with those in authority at 

 Rome, and to have procured an imperial rescript in favour of the 

 appellants was a great triumph, perhaps a rare one. The forma per- 

 petua containing the regulations governing the estate was, we learn, 



1 It is perhaps worth noting that under Commodus the transport of corn from Africa was 

 specially provided for by the creation of a classis Africana for that purpose. See Lamprid 

 Commodus 17 7, 8. 



2 De Coulanges pp 10 foil deals with this point at length, but I think he pushes his 

 conclusions too far. 



3 Cf the Aragueni (see index, Inscriptions) irapoLKuv /ecu yewpywv ruv vfiertpuv. 



4 Dig I 19 3 1 is of a later date, but refers to a protective rescript of Antoninus Pius. 

 Cf XLIX 14 47 1 , L 6 6 n . See Schulten in Hermes XLI pp 11-16. 



