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    204 The Class Sirugglein the Ancient Greek World the economy of the Greek world, then the properted classes must have extracted their surplus in other ways, primarily chrough wxfe labour (hat of slaves, serfs tnd borrlsmen) performed direct” for individual (a nubject U have alteady ‘deat with in Section iv ofthis chapter), bat also ‘indirecly’ to some extent, it the form of ret (an money oF kind) from leases, or else from taxation, ot ‘compalery secs performed for the state or the municipalities (which I propose ta deal with in the next chapter) Te may not be out of place if add note listing all he references to hited labour in the New Testament, of which the only ones of particular interest are Mt. XX.1-16 (the ‘Parable ofthe Vineyard, referred to above) and James V.4 IV Forms of Exploitation in the Ancient Greek World, and the Small Independent Producer @ ‘Directindividual’ and “indirect collective’ exploitation So far in discussing the forms of dass trig nthe ancient Gresk wor has spoken mainly of the diet individual explowstion involved ithe mastersla felationship and other forms of unfte Ibou, and in sage-abous. little more than mention such relationships a chose of landlord and tena, and the yieléing oflabour, and (exeept in I nothing abour the indie clleave exploitation effected through the various organs ofthe sate ~ aterm which, when applied to the Hellensec and Roma periods, must be taken to include not only imperal officals (those of the Fetlenivic kings and ofthe Roman Republicand Enpite} but abo the agent of polet through which the Greck Kast eatne more and more 1 Be tered, Broadly speaking, all those among the exploited canses who ‘were of sereile or quasi-srvile condition (including sets and bondsrnen) ant also hired labourers tenants ane debtors were subyectto what Uhavecalled dirt exploitation by individual members ofthe propericd cass, although ~even apart from the slaves ofthe emperors and other members ofthe imiperal household. the familia Caesrit = there were a certain number of publieslaves sis public) owned by the Roman state or by particular ples. The forms of exploit tion which [have called inde on the other hand, were plied by dhe state (e ‘ways I shall describe presently) forthe clletive benefit of faint) che proper tied class, above allo persons oft least nominally fre satus who were smal independent producers! ofthese a few were either traders (merchants, shop- keepers of petty dealers) or else independent artisans (working not for wages, bbutom their own account: Section vi ofthis chapter and e1above). bu d= ‘vast majority were peasants, and most of what Ihave wo say abour this cgory ‘of small independent producers will be concentrated on the peasantry torr ‘hich [shall define in Section i ofthis chapter. Tdeally it might have been best to deal separately with the kinds oFexploita- tion effected by landlords and mortgagecs (raking the form of rent or interes together with ther kinds of what | have ealed “direct indiedual explosion but since they applied almost enircly to those Tam calling “peasant as found it convenient to ert them in thi chapter, with forms of collective’ exploitation By “indirect and collective” forms of exploitation I mean those py services which were not rendered from individual t idivalual bat wer 206, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World raced by the autho ofthe sete tv abo) roma whole commun {@ village for example) o rom intvutals They would warmly take one of Uhroe a cos 1) octet tmeyovin Kies Cy raiaryertcrpeo or (3) eompulhory meal src such av te ogra netioned La above Treat, of cour wis ul the mst portant of tee fm ofp tion, Af working out hc postion hve jut sated, same asta statement im Mars which proves dot he too dstnguinhed beeen what Lar cling “vet individual andres ole caleaon, seal a regard taxation, Inthe cars of is tree nar works on teat Freeh hry, Th Cas Stas nFome publi neyo ails nthe Now Rue eau dng 181), Marx sys the onion the French pests of ib dy that "Their exploitation dies only in fer 0 the explokation ofthe ‘industria prolarat, The eaplerb these cpl The dividual apes exploit the nvidia pessans through mona and vu, the apa ls ‘explo the pean cae dhrough de Sta er (WMECTW 129) Now except im democracy. lik dat of Athens i the fit and fourth centuries B.C. which extend! pica thlowear veh of thee population the sate wohl bem cee spy the tseuen of te eave Propecy-ovmers or ven of oH kin Enis henchmen, for state, oa Romun pero and the perl abo tracy To the wider eso tc rtm Sil inld Bel ont rte ‘ler may fer realy tren another: 0 fh essa the ference harm eon thatthe one chs fn wth hit the ter wth sep (Quite spar fom direct exploitation of wcrc, ser he labourers tenanes, debrors and hors by nt el yropcrtymers sch vate would Provide for is own nal’ by tact, the reaction of compar series Siu conscnprion,Tasaton took nny ferent ors inthe Gc world the cites fret Helleistic peat nyt have ee gute ht nly becanetheck ofamything estmbhing a mndcr cioiscrvie made dial! not impowableta collect smal mstitasespeottably fom poor empl hat toy from the great mat of he poplar), without terreno tarcfarmers Cela in Gaeet. Latin poblan), wo sre to have Been Wry tunpope with all lise. We avs hardly any infrmation abut taxation the Grek isin dc Clase pri cso Ate: wht the por were Practice exept trun eh ipo te ony frm of dee taacion ad were probably ie act by inet fuser er dha the ampore das ant Feu cs iis elnchly ft charaeri of oar sure of inormaton for Greck~cven Aihcnian ~etyoniestry hot our at tf taxes ora yin any Bray wonrce sul wearin Comedy: Antophanee, Way {See} The tov harden of atom the Goch ees and te terion. certainly increased inthe Fallen und Roman pride. Ascording vo Row tovtzefl. "the Hellenic peri di noire ny subtailcange no the system which bad Bun ly ceed freer in the Grek ete (SEHHIW BI.1374n 71, Wis mph om the word sania this on be cepted, but the evidence consists tly sal erp te ony tia Soure of any real significa ncpta en iy SIG HM (ich has ten fly dncised up Enlist." Barto the Creek cies wer soon oF Uter auger some aston by Hele Kings and oven te redarieamong th IV. Exploitarion, and the small independent producer (i) 207 wad to payrtance 0 Roo. Asia, of cours, the Hellenistic kings Persian syste of axatin anised by Dariast atthe ond of thesivth ceutury I. sand alhoxgh es Holienshe period many Greck ates swore excrnpt Fem this, the peasants on lard not included inthe erenory of fdty must alive have been subj: Yo tis berden, tn Egype, the Prolen eomginised Hs 4 arrangenicets they 4 torts have ln and Roman perry material. Restoxtaod 5 pe his SEHHIF (i. 1741-2) wilt sho index to his SEHRE? ur know from an insctpt by the Romans. Moder hie iy Of carsion in dhe Hellenic relevant mde of ed with enteics and ahalf nthe irapncscoveris may wall extend ‘onc im the past. For etance 338 oy Bulgaria that the frst example fame to light ofa poliax (oF cnc dewaréos pot head) collected by a lacal ty from sonic of the inhabitants of Ws ar, vith the express perinesion of Ah ‘emperor, For ig.w eet (IGE. 1V_2263, nes 8) tthe Middle and Later Roman opie, fn Tahal expla Soran al is of Tecation gray i noat heavily on hs peasnntry. who fa Kast poser tors a VIlL blow. the rich nan haa fr better chance of scp paymont. The small prodioce raat ab Fompulory serices iii bist of the state, frat mainly aptaone pets of the Grecke world (especially Eaypt snd Sor) soho byt nce formed part of Persian enpite snd is wich there survived snefinitely forms of abgasory personal service such ss the srr (Kor repairing cay st. onthe tape ‘Bates which were th origin wean ac Litabove ad te 8 Belov) ‘Among, he forms of what [have called “exrect collective exploitation mint not fil ro wotie cooscription. tn the Grek cite, sary service nt cavalry ote hetvy-arned infantry lve hoplite atmny) vas itargy expec ‘mainly of those lam callng "he propertod clase fee HL eakove),sthitah F believe that hoplitesereice sometiies (pera otton vt des athe bet that level and afeted some of those who noranlly had dee cera ama (of work for thei living. Lightarmed troops and aval freee were tected aves, amaatgoxbers, 29 from the nen-propertied, ae some cis even Us row their wuships (are eg. The, 1542 55.0). | ‘Comeription of the poor for such purposes wat rather far {or at least rations} were given. And T think 1 beliese Hat at ‘thers in particular those Below the oplte elas (the Thsts) were cnscrpted ‘only temporarily. in emergencies ($i 424, 46 and perhaps 37), ase 362 ‘when — a8 I think ~ conscription of Thotes forthe fect wis iro and became much more frequent” The (eatare of military conscription whichis particularly relevant heres that will have represented no relly scrious burden upon the well. whe did jt have to work for their Living and whom muliary serve would merely vert fron other occupations ~ often more profitable, struc. For al howe below my ‘properticd class, conscription, diverting them from the actvtics by ‘which they earned their daily bread, could boa real menace, andthose who wore 208 Thec furthest {rom belonging to the properticd class would presumably sffr mos. Marx, who knew his Appian, quotes in a footnote to Vol, LoF Capa pp.725-7 1) part of the passage in which Appian describe the growth of great estates apd the impoverishment ofthe Ialian peasantry during the Republic (BC 17) indus the comment, "Military service hastened to so great an exten the ruin fof the Roman plebcians.” (Appian indced, in that passage ives the Feedom oF Slaves from conscription as te reson why Roman landowners ‘osd lave 38 ealeators and herdsmen’, rather than free mien.) With the tceptin of the Roman Principate (and indeed even earlicr, from the time of Marit, the late second century B.C.) conscription came to be replaced to some coasidcrable extent by voluntary reerutment, although it continued toa greater degece dha ‘many historins have realised (ce Section i ofthis chapter and ite. below 5 Struggle in the Ancient Greek World Gi) The peasantry and their villages Althoaigh the peasantry represents an aspect ofthe past surviving i the con= temporary world’ yeti ie'worth remembering that as inthe past 4a in the [present = peasants are the majority of mankind! Thus Teodor Shani, in his nroduetion (p17) to the valuable Penguin volume on Prasae and Prasant “Saceties whic he ete in 1971." In the preset generation, party aa result of the revent proliferation of studies of backward or exploited counerice (the sonclled developing countries) there has boon aremarkabicrowchofinerest, sn what some peape ike to refer toa -peusant economics’ or peasantsoccties, ‘anda Jour of Pestant Stes began to appear in 1973. A grat deslofwaormation fas been collected about peasants; but st as this branch of studies had to rly [agely in ime past upon historians units iu sociology and with Mec or no regard for wider sociological issue, 20 now inn anger of bocoming mainly the province of sociologists who have an invites historical apraach or are not qualified by ther texning to make the best use of nscrieal material ~ in particular that from dhe ancient world, much of which s very had for anyone bur a tained Classical scholar and ack historian to se pray "Now Iadmit that avery linge pare ofthe Grek (nd Roman) world ehroughout most ofits history woul stnfy some ofthe carrnty popular definitions of my’ of "peasant sity not one tts eel sceeped today I Thomer, presented tthe Second International Conference Of Bistory at Ait in 1962, a a papcr entitled "Peasant cconomty 383 category in economic history’. published n 1965 in the Proceedings of the ence and reprinted in Shanin’s Pengin reader mentioned above (PPS 202-1 se esp. 218-5). where we at find a number of atemaive definitions and discussions of the concep of "peasant economies’ (e.g 2-100, 150-40, 323.4)and ‘peasans' (108-105, 240-5, 2545, 322.5) The ancenthistorn needs to be able co operate occasionslly withthe concept of 3 ‘peasant economy’, a Jeast for comparative purposes, and he may sometimes find this category relly tsefl in dealing with Greck and Roman society. On the other hand he will also ‘want to isolate the speitc fearures which differentiate the various phases of ‘ancient Greck (and Roman) society from peasant exonoonics~ orate pease ‘economies, My own inchnations ae ather of tho secon variety, and ainough 1 IV. Exploitation, and the small independent producer (ii) 208 shall certainly make woe (after defining it} oF the category of "yeasts [sal Tarely think in terts ofa "peasant enemy’ Tage with Rede Hilin, sth the publication of his 1973 Ford Lectures at Oxfors has punted oot ths “Os concept "peasant economy” could embrace most of basa history Sete toibal” (American, "folk" society and the compleion af etastrl wast mation in modem tints, [could certaly apply co 28 states! (EPLMA 7). If we fel the necessity 9 cass are studying, in order to group it with certain broly saa sates ya “istinguish i from thosein other groups, then for mest purywsesahoik we shall find ie more profitable o place the ancknt Greek word, ins successive andi some ways very different phases, within the fil of ‘save soe: hs ‘peasant society" alchough ofcourse operating tainly wit da forarer cence} docs noe by any micans exclude the use of the later i approgeate stations Pethaps {should repeat here what Uhave said before (eg. in IL an I30 above): for my purposes, the fact chat the propertid eases the Greck 204 [Roman world derived th bulk of det suri from the cxpletatcs oF wns labour makes it possible for us to consider that world (i ery lose sense) ‘slave economy’ or slavesocicty’ even though wehave-toconcade thi unig large pare of Greek and Roman history peasants and other independent ro ducers may not only have formed the actual majortyof the total populace nt ‘may also have ad a larger share (usually a much larger shar) in prolactin chan slaves and othcr unfree workers. Even when, By the focth cemuiry of th (Christan era atthe very latest ts posible to be fay te that predacton by chattel slaves in the striet sens has dropped wel blow thecombel redaction c Peasants, peasant ers, and miscellaneous artisan othe ise workers fof all nds, wiaether working on their own account or for wages (ore HI above) the unftee labour ofthe ser isa major facior. and rrmating thes hae Society isthe universal and unquestioning acceptance of avery a8 part af natural order (ef IILiv above and Section i of this chapte) As shall demion- Strate in V.vi and VIL below, Christianity made na diflereace watever to this situation, except perhap= to strengthen the position of the governing Few and increase the aequrescence of the exploited Many, even if did encourage individual aes of charity "The townsman throvigh the ages has always regarded the peasint’s ot a+ tunenviable, except on those oceasions when he has allowed hireel some ‘sentimental reflection upon the morally superior quality ofthe peaart sie (ce aph of Liliabove). Edward Gibbon, congraulatiag hinsclfinhis autobiography on having been born into “a fimily of honosrable rank and ‘needing sumed greater economic portance ater Arusts" (M78): and vwemay surly areca leas thar bythe stond entry of eure wes payne _much large ol than nh se eury Bn th cco se ed entre the lawyer someximes use the cores chica expres fo he "consort of Slave, dumber, but yrmetimes re fo the at aie unre, whch Suit law they culdneverb although he tem aay often have bev ait them in popusr speech. as by Caro, Dew 141 quoted above Ulan Big XX Kio Tbe ehh words 7 ofthese side he actully ret to the ear swore = surprising poe by Jar tls it had become very common fr slaves to have perma convo to IV, Exploitation, and the small independent producer (it) 237 such an extent that even a lawyer could ffer to dhem loosely as ‘wives! A particularly interesting text fom Salvius Juliane, weting probably inthe (50s, ontemplates a cate in which a man provided in his will hat his lave woman ‘Should be foe 'ifshe bore thee slaves. bur she ws prevented rom doing so by his heir either giving her some ‘medicimentum’ to prevent conccption 0 procuring aortion (Dig, XL,vi.3 16) Imay add that children orm 6 te Saves in a man’s urban familia might be eared on his country estate see Dig XXXll.xcx.3 (Paulus); xe. 210 (Mareianus). 11, Thope Ehave now established that, insofar 25 permistible co speak of 4 “decline’ of slavery during the Pmexpat, what we must concenerate on is the face that asa result of slaves being ca large extent bred within the economy instead of being brought into it under exceptionally favourable conditions. he ‘ate ofexplouation of the lave population 26a whole must have diminished, to allow for the diversion of effort to producing and rearing children, snchuding 2 ‘cmsidcrable number who would nor survive to become uefa o thei owners The increased cost of slaves imported from outside the economy would ako iminish thie profitability, 12., We have now admited the necessity for slave-breeding inthe Princpate and the desirability of encouraging slaves co breed by establishing them in| tonditions conducive to che rearing of families. Ie need not surprises, there= fore, to find actual evidence, from a5 ctl 2 the ast century B.C. onwards of slaves setled as virtual tenants of 2griculcral plots ~a situation which might have been widespread without its making an appearance im our sources, but ‘which we happen to know about from quotation in Justinan's Dige fom some ofthe culier lawyers whore works are cited there, including two of the ‘ery caries: Alfonas Varus, consul in 39 8.C., and bis younger contemporary (M. Antonius Labeo, who flourished under Augustus. Alen wrote of aman ‘who leased a farm to his slave for culsvation (ida fidion colendion sr 8 Ibcavit: Dig, XW si 16), and mentioned the posmbalty of such lease at We ‘normal occurrence (XL-vi. H4.p.). Labeo (and also Pegasus, who was at work tn the 70s of the first century), as quoted by Ulpian, wrote of serous qui gus! ‘oles in ro erat "a save who a8 on agricultural land as fhe were a tenant (Dig. XXXII vi, 12.3). The same situation is alo referred vo hy Q. Gervidius ‘Seaevoa, leading jurist ofthe second half ofthe second cneary CCXML Wi. 20. with 18.4; ef. XX132). and [ would see it relecred again im two other texts of Scaevola: Dig. XXXII. vii.23,3 (clr! prado who are sive) and vi.20,3 (Where the religus due from vill, as well as colon, may well be, oF at least include, rents). All the texts in question mention this situation quite casually as ‘fit were well known, and I suggest chat i was probably very common indeed ‘rom the frst cencury onvards. In such eases the tenant, considered from the strictly legal aspect, was ill slave, but fom the economic point of view the Slave was properly atenant, and he might even employ slaves of is own (ar mentioned by Seaevola, for example, in Dig. XX132), as an ordinary fee ‘olonus might (see e.g. Dig. IX279.11; XIXH.30.9). Ulpian could con ‘template a slave as occupier (habitatr of ahouse (Dig. Di. he goes on 9 define a habiavr ax one who oecuplesa house thats his own or leased to him. oF Which he is occupying by favour vel lnsuo vei conduc vel gratuie.§ 9). 238 The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World In the late fourth century slave tenants wore spparnely stileommon, for an imperial constitution of 392 (CT XViv20) ordering the punishment as ciminals of those who allowed herical wactings take place am lands they fowned oF leased, decrees that ) guilty of any such heinous fflence isto pay a large fine ta 8 fepring of servile droge’ (vile face derondon) nde conten he vine becaune of his poverty and his low condition, he & to be Rogged ond deport. realise, of ours. that the Latin phrase I ave quoretneed noe rcvesarly imply more than servile birth, and was presumably used to covce bo saves and feedeven,) A century liter inthe 40s, «slave the Roman Chur narsed Ampiaas, who had boca conductor of some of ts Land, i nietioncd in seer (28) of Pope Gelasius (A.D. 492-43," If such tenancies of slaves were found eo be wo ehe master’s advantage. they would donbuoss be senso indeimitey. and the slave~olonus, n0t manutd in hit maser’ fesime, might wel be freed by his master's wil (asin Dig, XXXILxcvi, Pavls), The stuaton I have been dlscussing has long ben known of course, an goals hasTocen made of some ‘vious modern hastorne ncding foe instance ‘of the texts Ihave quoted b Mare Bloch (in CEFIE F.251-2). although he concentrating entirely on the Latin West, whereas we ate primarily wntcrested inthe Greek East The “tte slave’, sero waynes 90 much im evidence by the ime of Charkemage, fs HOt known under that designation in dhe Roman empire the er casa before the Middle Ages. and the cauni who are bracketed with oo constitution of 369 ares likely eo be fre "eottager as “huts saves (CTH IX-xit7 = CJ IX.slie. 7), But Pope Pelagivs I, n 2 wer giving sections about an inheritance, part of which could be claimed by ls Chueh (Fp. #4, of| ‘A.D. 5e-1), advises his agent, Bishop Julian of Cinguhns, that a rasticus vel colonus'is preferable tan arife et mniotrilspocr (1) asd warashim not torelease ‘those who can become rondutore ot colon? (§ Band wo to giveaway “auch men as may be able to oecupy cottages oF to come eestor’ (ui oe soninee casas vel clerepessunt,§ 2) ~ whete the words “cominere cass" come art calling these mich scrv cost The serene gua clin was well known among the German eibes a carly 28 the first century, for Tacitus describes the condition oF sack aman as the characteristic forma of German slavery, Eachslave, hess ivexon sown, ad the miaster imposes on hin Tabilty for fixed sjuatty of comm ee cattle or slorhing, "3.0m cole’, or “asi he wer cole a loo: Germ, 281, We fan accepe this without snigiving: it was probably tn best way of preventing the slave from escaping o bs borne, which might quite ncar (ce Thompson, SEG 22-3, 1819 = SCA od. Finley] 195-7. 192-9, ‘According wo 3 much-qued letter of Piny the Vounge. erie i the fist years of the second entry he bitislf nowhere ime chained slaves (eit flsewhere als compe allt), noe dad anyone else m Uae part Tayo which he is referring (Ep. IML... 7). Sherwin-Whitc, in his commentary on Play's levers, has shown that the arc in question must be onthe edge of Tuscany, where Pliny ad an estate in the upper valley of the Tiber. at Tiferaun Tiberinum (.P 254), A passage m the poot Mart, probably wnt within decade bofore this eter of Piny's, contemplates the prospect of ‘the elds of “Tuscany resounding with courless fetrs’ (ene mimes compe Tass er. IV, Exploitation, and the small independent producer (iii) 239 1X soe); but this may not refer toa real contemporary situation. Inthe carly 70h the Flder Pliny had deplored large-scale cultivation by vn, housed in prison-lke barracks (rgstla): hi. he says. is ee worst kind of farming. and ‘ne could well believe that it makes Mother Earth hese unwilling and ind ‘nand (NH XVII.21.35-6). However, Columella (writing probably afew years carlier) docs refer occasionally to chained saves: and although two of thse [passages rather suger thatthe mn concemed {erat mamcpu, Li tT ‘manips vinta, 813.22) will be in that condition as special punishment, Colmells also speaks of vineyards a8 being ‘very often cultivated by Ktered slaves! (vines pluriaon per algoes excohmur, Lix-t; of. Lvi3: Wil: aso I.praef3: 8.12). Evidently the use of chai-gangs in agriculture was on the decline even in aly in the time ofthe to Pings but had not entirely ded out by the Beginning of the second century. 13, T wish to mention at this point three works which have made a pat ularly vahuble contribution to our understanding of Reman land tenure and the rise of the colonate ts earlier form, before ie Was converted into serfdom. () The first is a brillant lecture delivercd by Max Weber in 1896 and published inthe same year. Itemained unread even by Rostoviel (se SEHRE* 1.751 n.9) who did not miss much; but i recent yeas ie has become easily available in good English translation in no Fewer than three diferent paper backs, under the tile,“ The socal eaues ofthe decay oF ancient civilisation” (ce Iv above and its m8 below). and Mazzarino has described it (with some exaggeration) as really the mos fundamental work and the greatest work of | genius which has ever been written on the economic eri of aniguty” (EAN 40). Weber's interesting approach to hin problem i frm the point af view of the supply of labour. He points out, as Thave done, that dhe slave-barracks ‘which had lourishod in certain areas tn the Late Republic were anything but sel-reproducing, and that when the extemal supply of slaves began t some extent to dey up, “the effect on the save-harracks must be the same a that of tcthaustion of the coaldeposts on the Blstfumaces’. When that happen, ‘Weber adds, “we have reached the suring. point in the development of ancient civilisation’, But his sketch ofthe decline of slavery nd the development of the colonate, perfectly valid as fr as t goes." ls fo bring out the complex of connected processes which I explained in § 6 above: the fall the rate expla fo o slave labour consequent upon the widespread extension ofslave-breding, and also an increased expliarion of humble free me, 382 material result of the fact, Thar the propersied clases were deermined eo maintain thet relatively high standard of hfe and had all the politcal control necesiry to enable them £0 ‘other. Fustel de Coulanges. ‘Le colomat romain’ in his Recherhes sur quelques problemes @kioie (Paris. 1885) 1-196, Fustel his 3 great deal to say on the development ofthe colonate that will of seal interest He lays particular stress on the fact that on often went decply to debe, like che eenantof the Younger Pliny some of whom seem tohave got ‘hopeless postion, wich their arrears (rdigud) ever mounting and thie sceuriies forfeited (Pliny. Ep. 119.67. IX.37.1-3: of, VIM IX 3.65 X-A.5) There are many referees inthe works of the Ronan layers cited in 240 ‘The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World the Digest 0 ‘rents cutstnding from tenant’ (liu colon). These would surely inch rents merely due after the etators dest, and not only rent hen already overdue in area (for no text Thave noticed distinguishes between che two): Bucof course they would also ince any arrears, suchas the cig that 0 worried Pliny (Ep 19.6; IX.37.2, More recent work as shown tht Fustel ‘was mistaken on certain technical questions of Roman law: in parbcula, he as wrong in believing that a fixed rene was essential for the Roman contract of lease, lovtio comdutio (see e.g. Clausing, RC 161-2: Thomas, NM). Never theless, his works wery uso in is demonstration ofthe humble status and the precariousness ofthe legal and economic poiion, ofthe clon ofthe Principate Horace, asthe very opposite of kings, had chosen ‘strengths colt (apes ‘oloni: Od. ILxiv11-12). Later we ce them dominated by thet landlords even in religious matters: im 251 Se. Cyprian could praise African landlords who had thee Christan inglin et colont from the act of pb sacrifice demanded by the Emperor Decius (Ep. LV-xii.2). and around che year 400 ‘masterful landowners in North Africa took it upon themsclves a convert their ‘colon from Donatism to Catholicism (August...Ep. 581) or vie versa (Aug. ‘Li, Pei. 184, 28) (¢. The ls of the thece works i an article by Bembard Klee (SCRK, esp. 580-8) which Brings out better than anything cls know the very weak position lof the lessee under the Roman contrat of lovato conde. Iis wort drawing attention hereto something recently pointed out by Elizabeth Rawson: "the ray, among the upper dss [of Late Republican Ron), of renting. wich may be ‘connected with dhe unfavourable position at aw ofa tenant’ (SRP. ed. Finley, #7, And here. going back to what I said under the heading “I, Debt bondage! in IIL above about persons] execution’ for debt, I mist point out that rent in arrear, 2 breach of the contract of lovato conducts between landlord and tenant, ‘would constitute a debr for which the landlord would be ented to “personal ‘execution’ against the defauling tenant, as against any other debtor. lean now add an importane consideration to one | advanced in UL. above (in the pars raph just before the one containing 1.70), to the effect that the aldiate oF lindicatis, who could have slave-termnology =pplicd wo him in popular ussge, may often have been obliged in practice to work for his creditor sit not very Hikely indeed that m sucha situation 2 Lndlord would often offer 10 kev his tenant on the same land, under moe burdensome conditions thax could rly Be exacted from a willing tenant, and that the tenane would prefer we aept sah ‘ditions, rather than risk Being tamed into an adéue and simply kept i 3 prison, or taken away elsewhere to work off his arears? We kiow trom & Statement in the treatise of Calistatus, De tre fi, pooscrved in the Dig (OXLIX-xiv-2.6), char by the second quarter ofthe secon! cemary a practice had {grown up of foreing the lessees of public land to renew thei tenancies ifno one flse could be found to take the property atthe same rent, (Tax farmers. t00. ‘were similarly made ro renew their contracts.) Hadrian, rebaking stich a pro~ cedure, ceferstoit asa thoroughly inhuman auton (reldeinkaoas mes) rom ‘which we must conclude chat it had already occurred on numerons occasions. And according t 3 provision of che Emperor Philip in 244 the retention of “unwilling lessees or their heis after the expiration of a lease had “ofter® bon IV, Exploitation, and the small independent producer (iii) 241 forbidden by imperial script (CJ IV. Dev. 11) leis indeed cay to believe that private landlords. a5 well as imperial agents, often attempted to keep their fenantson the land after their leases had expired although of course they had no right todoso~vness, I would emphasise, the tenant was in deb to the landlord see the reference at the beginning ofthis pacsgraph to IIL iv above, dealing with ‘personal execution’ for debt. I would assume that in the ease which ix being

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