372 Disturbing elements, possessio 



This a priori guesswork is not satisfactory. But I see nothing else to 

 be said ; for the African inscriptions do not help us. The circumstances 

 of those great domains were exceptional. 



So far we have been viewing agriculture as proceeding in times and 

 under conditions assumed to be more or less normal, without taking 

 account of the various disturbing elements in rustic life, by which both 

 landlords and tenants were liable to suffer vexation and loss. Yet these 

 were not a few. Even a lawyer could not ignore wild beasts. Wolves 

 carried off some of A's pigs. Dogs kept by B, colonus of a neighbouring 

 villa, for protection of his own flocks, rescued the pigs. A legal ques- 

 tion 1 at once arises: are the rescued pigs regarded as wild game, and 

 therefore belonging to the owner of the dogs? No, says the jurist. 

 They were still within reach ; A had not given them up for lost ; if B 

 tries to retain them, the law provides remedies to make him give them 

 up. I presume that B would have a claim to some reward for his ser- 

 vices. But the lawyer is silent, confining his opinion to the one question 

 of property. References to depredations of robbers or brigands (latrones, 

 grassatores,) occur often, and quite as a matter of course. The police of 

 rural Italy, not to mention the Provinces, was an old scandal. Stock- 

 thieves, who lifted a farmer's cattle sheep or goats, and sometimes his 

 crops, were important enough to have a descriptive name (abiget)* and 

 a title of the Digest to themselves. That bad neighbours made them- 

 selves unpleasant in many ways, and that their presence gave a bad 

 name to properties near them, was an experience of all lands and all 

 ages: but the jurists treat it gravely 8 as a lawyer's matter. Conceal- 

 ment of such a detrimental fact 4 by the seller of an estate made the 

 sale voidable. The rich (old offenders in this kind) were by a rescript 

 of Hadrian 5 awarded differential punishment for removing landmarks: 

 in their case the purpose of encroachment was not a matter open to 

 doubt. 



In one connexion the use of force as an embarrassing feature of 

 rustic life was a subject of peculiar interest to the jurists, and had long 

 been so. This was in relation to questions of possession. In Roman 

 law possessio held a very important place. All that need be said of it 

 here is that the fact of possession, or lack of it, seriously affected the 

 position of litigants in disputes as to property. Great ingenuity was 

 exercised in definition and in laying down rules for ascertaining the 

 fact. Now among the means employed in gaining or recovering posses- 

 sion none was more striking or more effective than the use of force. 

 Special legal remedies had been provided to deal with such violence; 



1 XLI I 44. Z XLVII 14, Cf XLVIII 19 l6 7 , XLIX l6 $*- 



3 In xix i 25* (Gaius?) the tenant is held to blame for wilful damage done by a neigh- 

 bour with whom he has a quarrel. 



4 xvin i 35 8 . * XLVII 21 2. 



