396 Liability to military service 



free to name some of their coloni for that purpose. But there was no 

 fear that they would be eager to do this, for the work of their tenants 

 was what gave value to their properties. And the imperial officers 

 charged with recruiting duty were ordered 1 (and this in 400, when the 

 need of soldiers was extreme) not to accept fugitive tenants belonging 

 to an estate (indigenis) : these no doubt if found were to be returned 

 to their lords. The military levy was to fall upon sons of veterans, for 

 in this class as in others no effort was spared to make the ways of life 

 hereditary ; or on wastrels (vagos)*, of whom the laws often make 

 mention ; or generally on persons manifestly by the circumstances of 

 their birth (prigo) liable to army service. Here we have the service 

 still in principle confined to freemen. But it is not to be doubted that 

 many a slave (and these would be nearly all rustic slaves) passed muster 

 with officers hasting to make up their tale of men, and so entered the 

 army. At a much later date (529) we find Justinian 3 contemplating 

 cases of slaves recruited with the consent of their owners, in short 

 furnished as recruits. He enacts that such men are to be declared 

 ingenui*, that is freeborn not freedmen, the master losing all rights 

 over them : but, if they are efficient soldiers, they are to remain in the 

 service. And the power of commuting 5 the obligation of furnishing 

 a recruit for a payment of money, which was to some extent allowed, 

 introduced a method of recruiting 6 by purchase. A recruit being de- 

 manded, it did not follow that the emperor got either the particular 

 man (inspected of course and passed as fit) or a fixed cash-commutation. 

 The recruiting officer conveniently happened to have a man or two at 

 disposal, picked up in the course of his tour. The landlord, anxious 

 to keep his own staff intact, came to terms with the officer for one of 

 these as substitute. These officers knew when they could drive hard 

 bargains, and did not lose their chances. In a law of 375, this system 

 is directly referred to, and an attempt is made to regulate it 7 on an 

 equitable footing. To abolish it was clearly impossible. Eventually 

 the state undertook to work it officially, and bought its own ' bodies ' 

 (corpora, like o-co^ara, of slaves) with the composition-money or aurum 

 temonarium. That some of these ' bodies ' were escaped slaves is highly 



1 Cod Th vii 18 10, cf vm 2 3 (380). See Seeck n 490-1. 



2 Cod Th vin i 3. By long use the word had become quite official. & mopes ac vagi 

 in Tac ann iv 4, etc. 3 Cod Just xn 33 6. 



4 De Coulanges pp 168-9 points out that in the early Middle Age we find ingenui 

 coloni. 



5 temonariafunctio. See Dirksen under temo. Cod Th xi 16 14, 15, 18, cf vn 13 7, 

 VI 26 14. 6 Wallon in 149, 476. 



7 Cod Th vn 13 7, where occur the words cum corpora postulantur opposed to aurum. 

 For the money-commutation (adaeratio) often accepted from the landlords see Mommsen 

 Ges Schr VI p 254 Das Rom Militdrwesen sett Diocletian. Also Rostowzew in the Journal 

 of Roman Studies vol vin on Synteleia tironon, and Wagner on Ammianus xix n 7. 



