374 Depredations and damages 



of getting compensation for any damage done to a tenant's crops or 

 other goods in the course of attempts to enforce or defeat a claimed 

 servitude, was the average colonus a man readily to seek compensation 

 in the law-courts? I think not. But, if not, he would depend solely on 

 the goodwill of his own landlord, supposing the latter to have got the 

 upper hand in the main dispute. On the whole, I strongly suspect that 

 in practice these quarrels over rustic servitudes were a greater nuisance 

 to farmers than might be supposed. So far as I know, we have no 

 statement of the farmer's point of view. Another intermittent but 

 damaging occurrence was the occasional passage of soldiery, whose 

 discipline was often lax. We might easily forget the depredations and 

 general misconduct of these unruly ruffians, and imagine that such 

 annoyances only became noticeable in a later period. But the jurists 

 do not allow us to forget 1 the military requisitions for supply of troops 

 on the march, the payment for which is not clearly provided, and 

 would at best be a cause of trouble; or the pilferings of the men, 

 compensation for which was probably not to be had. It would be 

 farmers in northern Italy and the frontier-provinces that were the 

 chief sufferers. 



Damage by natural disturbances or by fires may happen in any age 

 or country. That Italy in particular was exposed to the effect of floods 

 and earthquakes, we know. Accordingly the lawyers are seriously con- 

 cerned with the legal and equitable questions arising out of such events. 

 It was not merely the claim of tenants 2 to abatement of rent that called 

 for a statement of principles. Beside the sudden effects of earthquakes 

 torrents or fires, there were the slower processes of streams changing 

 their courses 3 and gradual land-slides on the slopes of hills. These 

 movements generally affected the proprietary relations of neighbouring 

 landlords, taking away land from one, sometimes giving to another. 

 Here was a fine opening for ingenious jurists, of which they took full 

 advantage. The growth of estates by alluvion, and loss by erosion, was 

 a favourite topic, the operation of which, and the questions thereby 

 raised, are so earnestly treated as to shew their great importance in 

 country life. Of fire-damage, due to malice or neglect, no more need 

 be said ; nor of many other minor matters. 



But, when all the above drawbacks have been allowed for, it is still 

 probably true that scarcity of labour was a far greater difficulty for 

 farmers. We hear very little directly of this trouble, as it raised no point 



1 vii i 27 3 , xix i % is 2 (Ulpian). The abuse of the quartering of troops was no new 

 evil in the Provinces. We hear of it from Cicero. In the third century AD we have the 

 notable petitions from Scaptoparene in Thrace (-238) text in Mommsen^ Schrii 174-6, and 

 from the Aragueni in Asia Minor (244-7), text i n Dittenberger Or Graec inscr No 519. For 

 Italy in 5th century see on Symmachus. 



2 xix i p 3 , 15. 3 XLI i 7 1 - 6 , etc. 



