394 Sale of slaves and coloni 



steadily lowering the value of land and raising that of labour. If an 

 individual landlord could add to the value of his own estate by getting 

 more coloni settled on it, withdrawn from other estates, he might profit 

 by the transaction : but the government, whose policy was to keep the 

 greatest possible area under cultivation, could not allow one part to 

 be denuded of labourers to suit the interest of the owner of another 

 part. 



When the law stepped in to deprive the tenant, already far gone 

 in dependence on his landlord, of such freedom of movement as he 

 still retained, it is remarkable that rustic slaves were not at the same 

 time legally attached to the soil. That inconvenience was caused by 

 masters selling them when and where they chose, is shewn by Constan- 

 tine's law 1 of 327, allowing such sales to take place only within the 

 limits of the Province where they had been employed. No doubt their 

 removal upset the arrangements for that part of a taxable unit in which 

 the number of adult heads 2 was taken into account, and so had to be 

 checked. But it seems not to have been till the time of Valentinian 3 , 

 somewhere between 367 and 375, that the sale of a farm-slave off the 

 land was directly prohibited, like that of a colonus. In referring to this 

 matter, the significance of the difference of dates is thus brought out* 

 by Seeck: 'That this measure was carried through much sooner in 

 the case of the small farmers than in that of the farm-slaves, is very 

 characteristic of the spirit of that age. Where court favour is the de- 

 ciding factor that governs the entire policy, the government is even 

 more reluctant to limit the proprietary rights of the great landlord* 

 than the liberties of the small man.' This is very true, but we must 

 not forget that in both cases the binding of the labourer to the soil did 

 in fact restrict the landlord's freedom of disposal. He as well as his 

 dependants came under a system not designed to promote his private 

 convenience or interest, but to guarantee a maximum of total cultiva- 

 tion in the interest of the empire as a whole. So we find that he was 

 not allowed 6 to raise at will the rents of his tenants : they could sue 

 their landlord (a right which in practice was probably not worth much), 

 and even when this right was restricted 7 in 396 they still retained it 

 in respect of unfair increases of rent and criminal cases. So too, if he 

 acquired extra slaves, either by receiving them as volunteers from 

 derelict farms or in virtue of an imperial grant, it was strictly ordained 8 



1 Cod Th xi 3 2. 2 The capitatio. 3 Cod Just xi 48 7. 



4 Schatzungsordnung pp 313-4. 



6 Rostowzew Geschiehte des Rom Colonates pp 381-97 traces the abandonment of the policy 

 of favouring coloni, and adoption of reliance on great possessors, as a result of the pressing 

 difficulties of the collection of revenue. 



6 Cod Just xi 50 i (Constantine). 7 Cod Just xi 50 2. 



8 Cod Th xi i 12 (365). 



