35 Reclamation encouraged 



Now this right, which fills a whole important chapter in Roman law, 

 was one protected by special legal remedies, and even on an imperial 

 domain can hardly have been a matter of indifference. It was quite 

 distinct from mere possessio naturalis 1 , which was all that the ordinary 

 colonus enjoyed on his own behalf. This new-type squatter is allowed 

 the same privilege of so many years of grace, free of rent, at the outset 

 of his enterprise, that we have noted above. The details are somewhat 

 different. For olives the free term is ten years : for fruit trees (poma, 

 here mentioned without reference to vines) it is seven years. It is 

 expressly provided that the divtsio, which implies the partiary system 

 of tenancy, shall apply only to such poma as are actually brought 2 to 

 market. This suggests that in the past attempts to levy the quota as 

 a proportional share of the gross crop, without regard to the needs of 

 the grower's own household, had been found to discourage reclamation. 

 It has been pointed out that the effect of the new policy would be to 

 create a sort of perpetual leasehold, similar to that known by the 

 Greek term emphyteusis, which is found fully established in the later 

 empire. But the land was not all under fruit-crops. The disposal of 

 corn crops is regulated in a singular clause thus. ' Any shares of dry 3 

 crops that shall be due are, during the first five years of occupation, 

 to be delivered to the head-tenant within whose holding 4 the land 

 occupied is situate. After the lapse of that time they are to go to the 

 account (of the Treasury 8 ).' Why is the conductor to receive these 

 partes aridaet It is reasonably suggested that the intention was to 

 obviate initial obstruction on the part of the big lessee, and thus to 

 give the reclamation-project a fair start. 



For we have no right to assume that the parcels of land thrown 

 open to occupation had hitherto been included 6 in no tenancy. The 

 whole import of the document shews that they often belonged to this 

 or that area held by one or other of the big lessees. That there was 

 at least one conductor to each of the five saltus seems certain. That 

 there was only one to each, is perhaps probable, but hardly to be 

 gathered from the text. Now, so long as the conductor regularly paid 

 his fixed rent (canon) and accounted for the taxes (tributd) due from 

 the estate, why should the imperial authority 'step in to take pieces 

 of land (and that the poorest land) out of his direct control ? The 



1 Dig XLI 3 33 x . Of course the dominus could possess per colonum. See Buckland, 

 Elementary Principles 38 p 77. 



2 quae venibunt a possessoribus. 8 For aridifructus cf Digest XLIX 14 50. 



4 in cuius conductione agrum occupaverit . 



5 rationi (bus fisci) gives the sense. But rationi simply may be correct, cf Digest n 14 

 42, etc. 



6 Girard cites Rostowzew's opinion that the right to occupy abandoned land as well as 

 old wastes was an extension of the lex Manciana by the lex Hadriana. 



