praedia Caesaris. immunitas 377 



emperors had forbidden it, but there is no proof that they succeeded in 

 stopping it. At all events the resort to coercion in a matter of contract 

 like this reveals the presence of a belief in compulsory fixity, ominous 

 of the coming imperial paralysis, though of course not so understood 

 at the time. It did not directly affect agriculture as yet ; but its appli- 

 cation to agriculture was destined to be a symptom and a cause of the 

 empire's decline and fall. 



Another group of tenancies, the number and importance of which 

 was quietly increasing, was that known as praedia Caesaris 1 , fundi 

 fiscales, and so forth. We need not discuss the departmental differences 

 and various names of these estates. The tenants, whether small men 

 or conductores on a large scale who sublet in parcels 2 to coloni, held 

 either directly or indirectly from the emperor. We have seen specimens 

 in Africa, the Province in which the crown-properties were exception- 

 ally large. What chiefly concerns us here is the imperial land-policy. 

 It seems clear that its first aim was to keep these estates permanently 

 occupied by good solvent tenants. The surest means to this end was 

 to give these estates a good name, to create a general impression that 

 on imperial farms a man had a better chance of thriving than on those 

 of average private landlords. Now the ' state,' that is the emperor or 

 his departmental chiefs, could favour crown-tenants in various ways 

 without making a material sacrifice of a financial kind. In particular, 

 the treatment of crown-estates as what we call ' peculiars,' in which 

 local disputes were settled, not by resort to the courts of ordinary law, 

 but administratively 3 by the emperor's procurators, was probably a 

 great relief; above all to the humbler coloni, whom we may surely 

 assume to have been a class averse to litigation. No doubt a procurator 

 might be corrupted and unjust. But he was probably far more effect- 

 ually watched than ordinary magistrates ; and, if the worst came to 

 the worst, there was as we have seen the hope of a successful appeal 

 to the emperor. Another favour consisted in the exemption of Caesar's 

 tenants from various burdensome official duties in municipalities, the 

 so-called munera, which often entailed great expense. This is mentioned 

 by a jurist 4 near the end of the second century : they are only to per- 

 form such duties so far as not to cause loss to the treasury. Another 5 , 

 somewhat later, says that their exemption is granted in order that 

 they may be more suitable tenants of treasury-farms. This exemption 

 is one more evidence of the well-known fact that in this age municipal 

 offices were beginning to be evaded 6 as ruinous, and no longer sought 



1 xxx 39 10 , xix i 49. 2 XLIX 14 47 1 (Paulus). 



3 XLIU 8 2 4 (Ulpian), a very important passage. 



4 Papirius Justus in L i 38 1 , muneribus fungi sine damno fisci oportere. 



5 Callistratus in L 6 6 11 , ut idoniorcs praediis fiscalibus habeantur. 



fl References are endless. Most significant is L 4 4 (Ulpian) honores qui indicuntur. 



