376 Municipal estates. Perpetual leases 



but one characteristic was so general as to deserve special attention on 

 the part of jurists. This was the system of perpetual leaseholds 1 at 

 a fixed (and undoubtedly beneficial) rent, heritable and transferable 

 to assigns. So long as the tenant regularly paid the vectigal, his occu- 

 pation was not to be disturbed. It was evidently the desire of the 

 municipal authorities to have a certain income to reckon with: for the 

 sake of certainty they would put up with something less than a rack- 

 rent. There were also other lands owned by these civitates that 

 were let on the system 2 in use by private landlords; the normal 

 term probably being five years. Of these no more need be said here. 

 Beneficial leases under a municipality were liable to corrupt manage- 

 ment. It had been found necessary 3 to disqualify members of the local 

 Senate (decuriones) from holding such leases, that they might not share 

 out the common lands among themselves on beneficial terms. But this 

 prohibition was not enough. The town worthies put in men of straw 4 

 as nominal tenants, through whom they enjoyed the benefits of the 

 leases. So this evasion also had to be met by revoking the ill-gotten 

 privilege. But disturbance of tenancies was not to be lightly allowed, 

 so it appears that a reference to the emperor 5 was necessary before such 

 revocation could take place. This system of perpetual leases is of 

 interest, not as indicating different methods of cultivation from those 

 practised on private estates, but as betraying a tendency to fixity 6 al- 

 ready existing, destined to spread and to take other forms, and to 

 become the fatal characteristic of the later Empire. Another striking 

 piece of evidence in the same direction occurs in connexion with the 

 lessees (publicani) of various state dues (vectigalia publicd) farmed out 

 in the usual way. In the first half of the third century the jurist Paulus 

 attests 7 the fact that, in case it was found that the right of collecting 

 such dues, hitherto very profitable to the lessees, could only be let at a 

 lower lump sum than hitherto, the old lessees were held bound to con- 

 tinue their contract at the old price. But Callistratus, contemporary or 

 nearly so, tells us that this was not so, and quotes 8 a rescript of Hadrian 

 (i 17-138 AD) condemning the practice as tyrannical and likely to deter 

 men from entering into so treacherous a bargain. It appears that other 9 



1 agri vectigales or (as the title calls them by a later name) emphyteuticarii. VI 3 i, 2, 

 xix i 136, XLIII 9 i, L 16 219. Large blocks were also hired by middlemen (mandpes) 

 and sublet in parcels to coloni, xix 2 53. 



2 vi 3 i, 3. 3 L 8 21. 



4 subiectis aliorum nominibus. 5 xxxix 4 n 1 , auctoritate prindpali. 



6 Gaius in 145 concludes that the contract in these leases is one of letting and hiring, not 

 of purchase and sale. That is, it includes everything save the bare dominium, notably 

 possessio, and, as Prof Buckland points out to me, covenants usual in such cases could be 

 enforced by the actio ex locato. 



7 xxxix 4 ii 5 . 8 XLIX 14 3 6 . 



9 printipalibus rescriptis. From the text I infer that these are later than Hadrian. 



