The Roman Col Onate *

The problem of the late Roman colonate has been debated since the seventeenth century. The debate still goes on, but we do not seem much nearer to answering the questions, when, how, and why the colonus of the principate, a voluntary tenant of land, free to move when his lease expired, became the colonus of the later empire, a serf tied to the land by a hereditary bond. ¹ The position of a colonus in the early third century is clearly defined by the lawyers cited in the Digest. He held a lease, normally for five years, which by the tacit consent of both parties became on expiry an annual tenancy. ² In practice conditions varied very greatly. In Egypt short term leases, from one to four years, were normal. ³ But in many parts farms generally descended from father to son. Under Commodus the tenants of imperial lands in Africa speak of themselves as having been born and bred on the estate. ⁴ In the early third century other imperial tenants in Lydia threaten ‘to leave the hearths of our fathers and the tombs of our ancestors’ unless conditions are improved. ⁵ A colonus might, if he were, as he often was, in arrears with his rent, ⁶ find practical difficulty in leaving; for in such circumstances his landlord would have no hesitation in distraining on his stock. But he could leave with arrears outstanding: a case in the Digest concerns ‘the arrears of coloni who on the conclusion of their lease, having entered into a bond, had abandoned their tenancy’. ⁷