colonus, worker or director? 371 



his own operae* from his master. He will thus make a profit out of 

 hiring himself: in fact he is openly declaring that he will not work at 

 full power for his master, but only compound with him for output on 

 the scale of an ordinary slave. This arrangement was common in arts 

 and handicrafts, and not specially characteristic of Rome. In rustic 

 life, the slave put into a farm as tenant 2 at a fixed rent, and taking 

 profit and loss, may furnish an instance. Whether such cases were 

 frequent we do not know. The general impression left by the Digest 

 passages on hiring and letting of slaves is that, when we read of 

 mercennarii, it is generally if not always hireling 3 slaves, not free 

 wage-earners, that are meant. In a passage 4 where servus occurs as 

 well as mercennarius, it is reference to the owner as well as to the 

 hirer that necessitates the addition. If I have interpreted these points 

 aright, the picture suggested is a state of things in which the rustic 

 slave was steadily improving his position, supplying hired labour, at 

 times entrusted with the charge of a farm, and with a fair prospect of 

 becoming by manumission under his owner's will a free colonus, or even 

 his own landlord. How far this picture is really characteristic of rustic 

 Italy, or of the Provinces (such as Gaul or Spain), is what one would 

 like to know, but I can find no evidence. 



In the foregoing paragraphs I have refrained from inquiring 

 whether the colonus as he appears in the Digest was a farmer who 

 worked with his own hands, or merely an employer and director of 

 labour. The reason is that I have found in the texts no evidence 

 whatever on the point. It was not the jurist's business. We are left to 

 guess at the truth as best we may, and we can only start from con- 

 sideration of the farmer's own interest, and assume that the average 

 farmer knew his own interest and was guided thereby. Now, being 

 bound to pay rent in some form or other and to make good any 

 deficiencies in the instrumentum at the end of his tenancy, he had 

 every inducement to get all he could out of the land while he held it. 

 How best to do this, was his problem. And the answer no doubt 

 varied according to the size of the farm, the kind of crops that could 

 profitably be raised there, and the number and quality of the staff. In 

 some rough operations, his constant presence on one spot and sharing 

 the actual work might get the most out of his men. Where nicety of 

 skill was the main thing, he might better spend his time in direction 

 and minute watching of the hands. On a fairly large farm he would 

 have enough to do as director. We may reasonably guess that he only 

 toiled with his own hands if he thought it would pay him to do so. 



1 XL 7 i 4 P r mercedem referre pro operis suis (Alfenus), cf XLV 3 i8 3 . 



2 xxxin 7 i8 4 , 20 1 . mercede or pensionis certa quantitate as opposed to fide dominica. 



3 vin 6 20, XLIII 16 i 20 , 24 3P r . 4 XLIII 24 5". 



242 



