Slavery and the Colonate in the Late Roman Empire

1

Julia Muhlnickel
Term Paper
Ancient Slavery
December 12, 2011

The Colonate and Slavery in the Late Roman Empire

“Granted that they seem, in status, to be free men, nevertheless they are

thought to be slaves of the ground for which they have been born and they have not

the capacity of departing whither they wish.”1 This imperial decree under Honorius

and Theodosius in the late Roman Empire describes the status of the colonate, a

juridical class of tenant farmers often compared with slaves that was defined in the

fourth century. While no clear legal definition was ever given for coloni, laws and

legal communications defined many parameters of their residency. For example, the

previous quote speaks of the colonate much like they were slaves. They are called

“slaves of the ground” and have no ability to leave. Here is the key difference

between slaves and coloni; where slaves were bound to their masters, coloni were

bound to a piece of land. At first glance the status of the colonate seems to be quite

comparable to the status of slaves, but the intricacies reveal that coloni were very

different from slaves and clearly a separate class.

Who was part of the colonate? Recent debates over terminology question

whether the coloni should be considered tenant farmers or estate workers.2

However, we do know that these individuals were rural farm workers originally

bound to the land they worked through the capitatio, a tax based on the Roman

1 William Linn Westermann, "Between Slavery and Freedom," American Historical Review
50, no. 2: page 223, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1842351.
2 Kyle Harper, Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425 (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2011), page 153-155.

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census. The capitatio, enacted by Diocletian, required workers to pay taxes based on

their place of origin.3 In the early stages of the Roman Empire, the coloni were

simply farmers who had legal contracts to work their land called locatio-conductio.

Most scholarly work, however, focuses on the rise of the colonate in the later

empire, when the colonate was seen as comparable to, and debatably replacing, the

institution of slavery. Technically free, a colonus was allowed to marry, have a

family, and live without fear of his landlord. However, the purpose of his life was to

produce harvests and pay taxes to the state and rent to his landlord, not to pursue

his own happiness.4

There were three ways a laborer could become a colonus. Originally, if one

had a single parent who was a colonus, or if both parents were, then the child would

also become part of the colonate. Children were not forced to pay the capitatio tax

from birth, but were instead listed on the census when they were born and began

paying the tax when they came of age. After inheritance, the colonus status was

nearly impossible to remove. From 419 until the reign of Justinian, the rule of thirty

years’ prescription allowed tenants that were freed from their land by their landlord

for thirty years to become free of the colonus bond. Valentinian III adjusted the rule

so that a colonus who left his farm with the approval of his landlord would simply

become a bound tenant of whoever was his new landlord. Justinian finally abolished

3 A.H.M. Jones, "The Roman Colonate," Past and Present Society, no. 13: page 3,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/649865.
4 C.R. Whittaker and Peter Garnsey, "Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire," in The Late

Empire, A.D. 337-427, ed. Peter Garnsey and Averil Cameron, vol. 13 of Cambridge Histories
Online (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), page 287-292, accessed November
27, 2011, doi:1017/CHOL9780521302005.010.

3

the rule in the entire empire, and the only way one could obtain relief from his

colonus status was by becoming a bishop.5

Anastasius passed another law of thirty years, stating that a tenant who

stayed on a parcel of land for thirty years would become a colonus of the land.6 The

status could also be legally imposed. For example, some immigrants and prisoners

of war were allowed to be residents of the Roman Empire. They were legally tied to

the land in their admission and their landlords were not allowed to exploit them like

slaves. The state could also impose coloni status on beggars, vagrants, and

nonconformist residents.7

The creation of a colonate began with the empire, government, taxes, and

need for revenue. Agriculture and rural lands were a key part of taxation for the

state. Although many taxes were paid in cash, in kind payments were common and

necessary for food supply, particularly in Africa and Egypt. Diocletian imposed an

annona taxation system with guidelines that accounted for the type of crop, the

quality of the land, and the region’s agricultural productivity. Landowners paid the

tax based not on their actual production of goods, but on the classification of the

land they owned. These owners were also then tied to their land, for they could not

escape paying taxes by not growing crops or by leaving. Under the system of the

colonate, the same owners had to pay taxes on the land they owned which was

5 A.H.M. Jones, "The Roman Colonate," Past and Present Society, no. 13: page 8-9,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/649865.
6 Ibid, page 9.

27, 2011, doi:1017/CHOL9780521302005.010.

4

cultivated by the colonate as well as the capitatio tax for each colonus on their land.

If the coloni frequently moved and deserted their landlords, the owners would not

have any way to pay taxes to the government, producing a domino effect on

government revenues. To ensure stability of revenue, the state prohibited the coloni

from moving away from their farms. They would have to remain there and stay

active in keeping crops productive.8

Gradually in the fourth century, legal texts restricted the coloni themselves to

pieces of land. Individuals became registered as coloni, which meant they would pay

their capitatio taxes themselves. Constantine, in his constitution of 332, outlined the

first restrictions of coloni and landowners. It became illegal to rent land to a tenant

who was a colonus to another landowner, and coloni could not legally leave the land

to which they were bound. The landowner who originally controlled the deserting

colonus had the legal ability to recall him. Although the Roman rulers placed these

restrictions on the fundamental rights of the coloni to decide where they lived, they

also created codes to help the colonate adhere to necessary taxation. These rules

were set primarily to benefit the state in terms of gaining revenue, but they also

benefitted the individuals of the colonate by aiding agricultural productivity.

Farmers were exempt from any supplementary state and liturgical duties if they

were generating crops. Anyone who removed oxen from the property of farmers for

public use was punished. Farmers also did not have to pay import taxes on

agricultural equipment. Constantine in particular emphasized the importance of

agricultural production and in times of harvest and sowing exempted farmers from

8Dennis P. Kehoe, Law and the Rural Economy in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 2007), page 163-167.

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all liturgical duties. An intriguing rule under Honorius involved the debts of coloni; if

such debts existed the coloni were to prioritize agriculture over the debts and were

not allowed to be called away to pay the debts. Loans and grants were even given to

some coloni to purchase domesticated animals or equipment.9

Several scholars argue that the status of the colonate was significantly

diminished in the fourth and fifth centuries. Called “slaves of the land” in 393,10 the

capitatio tax was removed but because coloni were coloni, they still had no right to

move between lands. After this statement, one quote from Justinian asked if there

was a difference between coloni and slaves. Rights the colonate previously enjoyed

were taken away, such as “to dispose of their own property or marry as they

wished.”11 The coloni began to resemble slaves as the landowners became more like

masters. It appears that the restriction of these sorts of freedoms would not impact

the ability of the state to collect taxes, so there had to be another reason for them.

Peter Garnsey and C.R. Whittaker refute the idea that the decline in slavery and

further decline in labor supply was the cause. They propose that the limitations on

colonate rights were an attempt to appease landowners and encourage them to take

on new “emphyteutic” land leases.12 Emphyteutic leases required the landowner to

make improvements to the property,13 which would be a disincentive to maintain

these leases as rents paid by coloni were fixed. Landowners would be more easily

9 Ibid, page 168-173.
Online (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), page 288, accessed November 27,
2011, doi:1017/CHOL9780521302005.010.
11 Ibid, 289.
12 Ibid, 288-290.
13 Merriam-Webster Online, s.v. "Emphyteutic," accessed November 27, 2011.

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persuaded to adopt the system if they had more control over the lessees.

Additionally, according to Pliny, short-term contracts were becoming overwhelming

and complicated from debt. Legislation restricting coloni was further supported by

the actions of wealthy landowners who took in fugitive coloni. This violation harmed

either the previous landlord of the colonus or the state by tangling the chain of labor

and revenues.14

In Justinian’s codes, clear differences are named between the “free” colonate

and the adscripticii, which was a lower class of coloni with many less rights. The

“free” coloni were obligated to live on their leased land and farm it, paying their own

taxes. They were tied to the land, but had few other restrictions. The adscripticii, in

contrast, were in a position of involuntary servitude, nearly slaves. Besides

performing duties on the estate and remaining on and working the land, an

adscripticius also could not litigate against his landlord or hold a peculium, meaning

that his property was not his own. Rather, it was the property of his estate owner.

He and his family also had to be under the potestas of his landlord.15

The landlord’s power over the coloni was unlimited in that the coloni had to

work the land, but also limited in that he was not their master. If a landowner

wished to sell his estate, he would relinquish control over the coloni, who stayed on

the land. Even when it was not profitable for the landlord, he was required by law to

keep the coloni on his land. In addition, when land was sold, the new owner had to

27, 2011, doi:1017/CHOL9780521302005.010.
15 A.J.B. Sirks, "The Colonate in Justinian's Reign," Journal of Roman Studies, no. 98: page 134,

accessed November 27, 2011, doi:10.3815/007543508786238987.

7

accept all coloni already residing there. These laws provided a benefit for the

colonate in that they could not be taken away from their land at the owner’s will, as

a slave could be. The rent the coloni had to pay also could not be raised by the

owner, which irritated colonus-landowner relations. Landowners did not see a

reason to improve their properties, as they could not gain more income from doing

so. They tried to force the coloni to work harder, but the coloni would gain nothing

from cooperating and would lose nothing by not cooperating. The coloni could,

essentially, use the land as they saw fit as long as their taxes were paid. The

deteriorated relationship of the colonus and landowner was probably a reason it

was necessary for the state to create a large amount of legislation on what would

happen if coloni left the land to which they were bound. Because the original

landowner could be held responsible for capitatio taxes on the coloni, if these

workers left the land the landowner may have no way of paying the tax. In turn,

whoever the coloni left to work for would not have to pay the tax but would be

gaining laborers, and the entire system would be compromised. With so many faults

in the coordination and enforcement of the colonate, the state had to improve

conditions for all drastically. In 419, for example, the law under Honorius created a

thirty-year statute of limitations for penalties against fugitive coloni and their new

landlords.16 In a pessimistic view, the conditions created by the state, landlord, and

colonate reacted against each other with tension evident of the declining economic

landscape of the Roman Empire.


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If the colonate had certain rights, but were limited in others, how similar

were they to slaves of late antiquity? Several important differences separate the

colonate from slaves, both figuratively and in practice. Kyle Harper calls Roman

society “a society familiar with slavery as a matter not only of commodification, but

also of dishonor and domination.”17 The sale of a slave defines slavery for some; sale

of a slave is taking action that requires the belief that a human body is property.

Originally the rationalization for slavery was that military conquests allowed

masters to “save” slaves instead of killing them, but this façade was not a permanent

justification as masters continued to sell human bodies. In Rome and its empire,

commercial markets were a natural, matter-of-fact place for slavery to take place.

The slave’s body was not his own; it belonged to his master.18

The sale of slaves and the conversion of a human being to property was a

place of dishonor in Roman society. Honor was incredibly important in Roman

culture. Slaves were subject to a position even below dishonor; they were

considered outside the entire hierarchy of honor. The core symbol of identity, a

name, was taken away and replaced. Both genders experienced dishonor, but in

different ways. A male slave was not allowed to be seen as masculine, and a female

slave could not keep her body for herself, the ultimate dishonor.19 Daily life was

saddled with moments of involuntary inferiority, constantly reminding the slave

that he or she had no honor.

University Press, 2011), page 36.
18 Ibid, page 34-36.
19 Ibid, page 36.

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Domination was a third major part of the identity of a slave. The Roman jurist

Florentinus defined slavery for the law as “an institution of the law of nations, by

which one person is subjected against nature to the dominium of another.”20

Florentinus admitted that slavery was against nature, but accepted it as part of

Roman society. A Roman master had complete and utter control over his slave’s life,

peculium, family relationships, and work duties. The slave, in a master’s eye, solely

served the purposes of the master. Whether the slave was an important figure in

working the land, running a master’s business, or simply as a symbol of wealth, the

slave was dominated. Rome and its empire became a total slave society, with

complete control over slaves’ lives.21

There is often debate over the status of helots as a category of slaves. This is

not the case for the colonate. Coloni have attributes very distinct from the

characteristics of slaves. Taking into consideration the three traits of

commodification, dishonor, and domination, the only one that may be borderline for

coloni is domination. The colonate was certainly not viewed as a commodity in itself.

While coloni had restricted mobility for the reason of raising revenue for the state,

unlike slaves they could not be bought or sold. The “master” of a colonus, the land,

was even permanently attached to the colonus; land to which a colonus was bound

could not be sold away from the colonus. The colonate was also not innately

dishonorable, as slaves were. Coloni could definitely commit acts that would make

them dishonorable, but legislators speak of them of as a class completely above

slaves. Except for the later antiquity adscripticii, there was a significant gap between

20 Ibid, page 34.

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the honor of slaves and the colonate. Much of the dishonor of slaves also had to do

with their inability to control their sale; again, the colonate was not subject to that

commodification. In terms of domination, the coloni did have to adhere to some

limitations. They were restricted to the land, and they had to pay taxes to the state

as well as paying rent to the landlord, whether this was in cash or in kind. However,

the few kinds of control the landlord did have are compared to those of a creditor

over a debtor.22 The landowner did not have the right to physically punish the

colonus as he could a slave, could not separate the colonus from his family, and

ultimately did not have the absolute control masters had over slaves. The only

master a colonus may have had was the land, but the land is unable to dominate a

human laborer both mentally and physically as a master could a slave.

Another characteristic worth considering is the origo of a coloni. The origo

was a binding region for all Romans, not simply the colonate. Although modern

scholars may interpret “bound to the land” as a harsh restriction on the freedom of

the colonate, the term is relatively understood. Romans of every class were

considered part of their hometown, or patria, for public tasks. The local government

could call Romans back to their origo for certain duties or for the legal system. Even

wealthy landowners had a specific place of registration.23 So although in the

contemporary world such a constraint appears overly severe for someone not a

slave, it was simply a part of the world of Rome.

of Michigan Press, 2007), page 171.
23 A.J.B. Sirks, "The Colonate in Justinian's Reign," Journal of Roman Studies, no. 98: page

126, accessed November 27, 2011, doi:10.3815/007543508786238987.

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Therefore the colonate was a group distinct from slaves, but what was their

interaction with slavery? Several historians see the colonate as a type of

replacement for slavery as slavery in the empire declined in late antiquity. However,

the evidence does not show that the absolute number of slaves decreased. Slavery

on farms, where the colonate worked, was most prevalent in Italy itself, but not very

common in the surrounding Roman Empire. Frequently slaves were used as

business managers for the wealthy and as domestic workers in more urban areas. In

Italy, slaves did perform farm labor. Sources such as Symmachus’s letters and the

Edict of Theodoric imply that the prevalence of slavery in Italy was still strong in the

later empire, without hint of decline at all, much less a decline due to the rise of the

colonate. However, slaves were beginning to be used in different ways. They became

more like the colonate in that many were used as tenants. Some had families and

lived in their own homes, paying rent instead of being worked as hard as the master

desired. The slaveowners with the largest holdings, such as Melania and Pinarius,

had enormous amounts of slaves spread over many different villulae. In an extreme

view, Palladius is thought to have believed that slaves and coloni performed the

same kind of work and were treated in the same way as tenants. Whittaker and

Garnsey do believe, however, that the centralized villa system of working slaves as

existed in earlier Rome still had many participants in the late empire. They cede that

the general tendencies shifted to a more tenant-focused structure of slavery.24

24C.R. Whittaker and Peter Garnsey, "Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire," in The Late
27, 2011, doi:1017/CHOL9780521302005.010.

12

The existence of the colonate in the late empire necessarily brought about

changes in how landowners sought to work their land. Harper distinguishes the

three kinds of labor available: slavery, tenancy (including the colonate), and wage

labor. While slavery allowed intense control over the labor force, it was costly for

owners to buy the slaves and maintain the kind of control needed. Tenancy did not

afford some owners enough control, while wage labor was also expensive.25 . Harper

believes that many estate owners found slavery the most beneficial, leading to a

peak of agricultural slavery in the fourth century.26 His desire to leave the colonate

out of his argument (due to its supposed overexposure in academia) left gaping

holes in his model for the rural labor force.

How did the Roman Empire’s creation of the colonate as a juridical class

affect the empire as a whole, then? Numerous theories have been proposed and

subsequently discarded. We have already seen how Harper refutes the hypothesis

that the colonate grew as slavery declined, forming a replacement in labor for the

institution of slavery. Other scholars believed that the colonate represented a

transition to medieval serfdom, caught between the slave society of Rome and the

feudal systems of the Middle Ages. Today, however, nearly all agree that Jean-Michel

Carrie significantly undermined these concepts.27 Whether one takes a pessimistic

or optimistic view of the colonate’s role in late antiquity is now vital. On the surface,

the colonate can certainly be seen as just one way in which Rome over-governed its

citizens. Too frequent restrictions may have led to increasing tension that the

University Press, 2011), page 153-155.
27 Ibid, page 154.

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empire simply could not overcome. However, the way Dennis Kehoe explains the

state’s actions portrays Rome in a much better light. If the restrictions on the

colonate did not exist, the taxation system would be compromised. In order for the

government to run smoothly, the requirement that landlords pay taxes for their

tenants must be feasible. In a period of decline, the state had to create new ways of

maintaining government. If it had not, the empire may have imploded much more

quickly. The Roman emperors, in binding coloni to the land, were not entangling the

empire in red tape, but smartly adapting legislation to very real changes in the rural

system.28

28 Dennis P. Kehoe, Law and the Rural Economy in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University

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