On the Roman Coloni. 141 not done from the imitation of an order of things which had past away long before ; nor were they the invention of the legislator : it was the personal interest of the landlords that led to them. Thenceforward the slaves and the coloni subsisted side by side : but the condition of the former was in some measure assimilated to that of the latter ^^ which was more in accord with the prevalent opinions of the age^ and no doubt also with its wants. Still it is not easy to explain how this class of coloni could first arise. Individuals became members of it by birth : thus much we know : but how the whole class originally grew up, our lawbooks do not inform us. In later times at least, as it seemSj persons were not allowed to enter into it at will ^^ : so that it would appear necessary to assume that at some period or other now un- known a number of persons placed themselves in this state; after which the admission into it was closed, or at least ob- structed and limited. Nor was such a voluntary entrance into a state of dependence at all agreeable to the principles of the older Roman law. Nevertheless our only definite piece of historical information is directly in favour of this supposition. It is found in a passage of a book by Sal- vianus, written toward the middle of the fifth century ^^. He complains about the great hardships of the landtax, which prest mainly on the poor, the rich contriving to mo- nopolize the benefit of whatever was done to alleviate it ^^. The effects of these hardships he enumerates under the fol- lowing stages. Some persons took refuge under the pro- tection of the rich, made over the property of their land to them, and became farmers upon it : after all however they had such a heavy rent to pay, that in fact they were still com- pelled to bear the landtax, from which they had been trying to escape ^^. Others quitted their own land altogether, and »»' See above p. 125. »2 gge above p. 127- '^ Salvianus de gubematione Dei v. 8, 9. ^^ This agrees entirely with what Ammianus says, xvi. 5. '^ Cum rem amiserint^ amissarum tamen rerum tributa patiantur^ cum possessio ah his recesserit^ capitatio non recedit^ proprietatibus carent^ et vectigalibus obruun- tur. Here capitatio must evidently be the landtax, not the polltax, as it is usually rendered : this is proved both by the expression rerum tributa^ and by the complaint about its intolerable pressure ; for the polltax assuredly was not so high that the farmers could be ruined by it.
