Rents. Arrears. Improvements 365 



etc), and a miscellaneous array of things, of course varying with the 

 nature of the farm and local custom. To this nucleus he had inevitably 

 to add belongings 1 of his own, which were likely to increase with time 

 if the farm prospered in his hands. His rent 2 might be either a fixed 

 yearly payment in cash or produce, or a proportionate share of produce 

 varying from year to year. The money-rent 3 seems to have been the 

 usual plan, and it was in connexion therewith that claims for abate- 

 ment generally arose. The impression left by the frequent references 

 to reliqua in the Digest, and the experiences of the younger Pliny, is 

 that tenant-farmers in Italy were habitually behind with their rents 

 and claiming 4 remissio. This is probably true of the period (say) 100- 

 2 50 AD, with which we are here concerned. It was probably a time of 

 great difficulty for both landlords and tenants, at least outside the 

 range of suburban market-gardening. Signs are not lacking that want 

 of sufficient capital 5 cramped the vigour of agriculture directly and 

 indirectly. Improvements might so raise the standard of cultivation on 

 an estate as to leave an awkward problem for the owner. Its upkeep on 

 its present level might need a large capital ; tenants of means were not 

 easy to find, and subdivision into smaller holdings would not in all 

 circumstances provide a satisfactory solution. Moreover, if the man of 



i means was not unlikely to act independently, in defiance of the land- 

 lord, the small man was more likely to take opportunities of mis- 

 appropriating things to which he was not entitled. 



All these difficulties, and others, suggest no great prosperity in 



1 Italian agriculture of the period. That on certain soils farming did 

 not pay, was as well known 6 to the jurists as to other writers. And 



I one great cause of agricultural decline appears in their incidental 

 remarks as clearly as in literature. It was the devotion of much of the 

 best land in the best situations to the unproductive parks and pleasure- 

 grounds of the rich. This can hardly be laid to the account of the still 

 favoured financial position of Italy as compared with the Provinces, 

 for we find the same state of things existing late in the fourth century, 

 when Italy had long been provincialized and taxed accordingly. It 

 was fashion, and fashion of long standing, that caused this evil. And 



i this cause was itself an effect of the conditions of investment. The 

 syndicates for exploiting provincial dues had gone with the Republic. 



1 xxxin 7 24. 2 xix 2 i9 3 , 256. 



3 xxxin 7 i8 4 , 20 1 , XLVII 2 26 1 . I note that de Coulanges p 14 holds that the 

 contract rested solely on the basis of a fixed money rent, citing (p 12) Gaius III 142, Dig xix 

 2 2 pr (Gaius). But I am not satisfied that cases of rent in kind were not subject to legal 



> remedy. See Monro on Dig XIX 2 19', and Pliny epist IX 37 3. And Vinogradoff, 

 ' Growth of the Manor note 91 on p 109. 



4 See xix 2 15. 5 xni 7 25, xxxi 86 1 . 

 6 vn i 41, xxvn 9 i3P r . 



