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Deserti agri


Journal: Encyclopedia of Ancient History
Manuscript ID: ECON096
Wiley - Article type: Article
Date Submitted by the
Author:
07-Oct-2010
Complete List of Authors: Soricelli, Gianluca
Keywords:
Roman History < Classics < Subject, Economic History < History <
Subject, agriculture < Key topics




Encyclopedia of Ancient History
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Agri deserti
Gianluca Soricelli
Universit del Molise
gianluca.soricelli@unimol.it
Word count: 691
Agri deserti, deserted lands, are a recurrent topic in late Roman literary and legal sources.
From as early as the third century Christian and Pagan writers wrote about the flight of the
peasants from the countryside and the loss of productivity of the land but these witnesses
may be affected by their ideological sentiments. Bishop Cyprian, amongst his other woes,
complained about the infertility of the countryside and the flight of the peasants (ad
Demetrianum, 3-5). He wrote about the rich province of Africa, one of the main productive
areas of the empire. Some decades later Libanius claimed that heavy taxation had
resulted in the abandonment of the land (Or. 2, 32): he was writing from the region of
Antiochia where archaeology suggests an important economic boom destined to continue
through to the half of the 6
th
century (Whittaker 1976; Tate 1992).
According to legal sources (Jaillette 1996), agri deserti were intended as agricultural areas
subjected to taxation from which it was no longer possible receive the tax. The first
provision known on such land dates back to the Emperor Aurelianus, but it is possible that
there were measures passed previously (cfr. Herod., 2, 4, 6 regarding a measure of
Pertinax). Aurelian stated that the members of the city councils took on the responsibility
for abandoned land and estates (fundi) for which it was impossible to trace the owners.
Constantine renewed this law, adding that such land would be exempt from taxes for the
first three years and, where city councils were unable to maintain it, the tax obligations of
abandoned land should be distributed among all landowners (Cod. Iust. 11.59.1). The
subsequent laws seem to point in the same direction and reflect more the Emperors wish
to guarantee his fiscal revenue than to boost the productivity of the land.
The archaeological evidence (Duncan Jones 2004) suggests a decrease in rural
settlement in Italy (cfr. Cod. Theod. 11.28.2 [395 CE] that measures in 528,042 iugera
about 1,320 km sq, equal to 10-15% of presumable arable areas deserted land in the
province of Campania) and in the Rhine provinces, but an increase in Africa and in the
eastern provinces. It is important to note that the number of settlements continued to grow
in Africa at least until the end of the fifth century. This seems inconsistent with Cod. Theod.
11.28.13 (CE 422), a measure concerning imperial lands in Africa Proconsularis and
Byzacena, according to which almost half of the land was deserted and excluded from
taxation. This is a dramatic figure but the ratio of cropland to fallow land is very close to
modern agricultural statistics for the region corresponding to the two Roman provinces
(Lepelley 1967).
The elusive nature of the sources available explains the deep division among modern
scholars regarding the exact meaning of agri deserti. In the past they were often believed
to be proof of a long and deep crisis of late imperial agriculture, determined by multiple
factors (see Jones 1964: 816-823). In order to remedy the crisis and encourage once
again the cultivation of abandoned land, the central government took a series of legislative
measures (of which also the institution of the COLONATE and, with respect to imperial
property, the EMPHYTEUSIS). These measures did not produce concrete results as the
law was frequently proposed again (Jaillette 1996: 334-338). Without denying that the
central decades of the third century were years of crisis, a different interpretation of the
phenomenon states that the depopulation of the countryside was less dramatic than
initially thought. Archaeology also suggests that the fourth century, far from being the
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culmination of the crisis, saw in many provincial areas a growing rural landscape. Agri
deserti in this context represent the marginal land, scarcely fertile, periodically unused and,
depending on circumstances, undervalued by its owners or abandoned in order to
concentrate on more fertile soils (this must be the case in Italy where the new fiscal regime
imposed by Diocletian drove marginal land out of use) (Whittaker & Garnsey 1998: 281-
285). They therefore represented a fiscal rather than an agricultural problem (Grey 2007:
363) as the efforts of the Emperor to guarantee the taxes would demonstrate.
SEE ALSO: Agriculture, Roman Empire; Finance, Roman; Landscapes, Roman; Taxation,
Roman
References and Suggested Readings
Duncan-Jones, R. (2004) Economic Change and the Transition to Late Antiquity. In S.
Swain and M. Edwards, eds., Approaching Late Antiquity: The Transformation from
Early to Late Empire : 20-49. Oxford and New York.
Grey, C. (2007) Revisiting the problem of agri deserti in Late Roman Empire. Journal of
Roman Archaeology 20: 362-376.
Jaillette, P. (1996) Les dispositions du Code Thodosien sur les terres abbandonnes. In
J.-L. Fiches, ed., Le IIIe sicle en Gaule Narbonnaise : donnes rgionales sur la
crise de l'Empire : 333-404. Aix-en-Provence.
Jones, A. H. M. (1964), The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A Social, Economic, and
Administrative Survey. Oxford.
Lepelley, Cl. (1967) Dclin ou stabilit de l'agriculture africaine au Bas-Empire? A propos
d'une loi de l'empereur Honorius. Antiquits Africaines 1:135-144 (reprinted in
Aspects de lAfrique romaine. Les cits, la vie rurale, le christianisme, coll. Munera
Studi storici sulla Tarda Antichit 15 : 217-232. Bari, 2001).
Tate, G. (1992) Les campagnes de la Syrie du Nord di IIe au VIIe sicle : un example
dexpansion dmographique et conomique dans les campagnes la fin de
lantiquit. Paris.
Whittaker, C. R. (1976) Agri deserti. In M. I. Finley, ed., Studies in Roman Property,137-
165;193-200. Cambridge (reprinted in Land, City and Trade in the Roman Empire:
000-000. Aldershot).
Whittaker, C. R. and P. Garnsey. (1998) Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire. In A.
Cameron and P. Garnsey, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. XIII. The Late
Empire, A.D. 337-425: 277-311. Cambridge and New York.
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