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JASON BLOCKLEY THE COLONATE IN AFRICA A LEGAL & ECONOMIC HISTORY OF COLONI IN LATE ANTIQUE AFRICA FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY 2021 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The Colonate in Africa iii Acknowledgements I express my deepest and sincerest appreciation for the innumerable people who helped make this thesis a reality. Firstly, I must thank Mr John Whitehouse, whose inestimable generosity and confidence made this project possible. Earning a doctorate in ancient history became a personal ambition soon after beginning my undergraduate studies, and I cannot properly express how grateful I am that I was entrusted with this opportunity. John not only provided the means for me to pursue this project; his personal insights, advice, and his own scholarship were vital in establishing, growing, and ultimately completing this study. John offered a scholarship in the hopes of perpetuating his love of ancient North Africa and the scholarship thereof, and I am pleased to say he has succeeded. Secondly, I must express my sincere gratitude to Mr Jeffrey Hilton and Ms Suzanne Coleman, whose remarkable generosity and enduring love of ancient Rome afforded me the opportunity to live and study at the British School at Rome for six months. It was at the British School that this study matured, and I cannot imagine how this project would have turned out without my sojourn in Rome. Thirdly, I am incredibly thankful to Prof Richard Miles, and to Dr Jelle Stoop, my supervisors without whom this project would not be possible. Their advice and forbearance was invaluable, and I will always be thankful to Prof Miles for entrusting me with this opportunity in the first place, and for his particular style of academic and personal advice along the way. Next, I must thank my partner Roxanna, whose endless patience and support not only meant that could I pursue this project but also made sure that it reached completion. Her encouragement, love, and support can never be adequately repaid. My parents, Graham and Fiona, my (for all intents and purposes) mother-in-law Adriana, and my brother Matthew, all deserve thanks as they each, in their own way, ensured I stayed disciplined and focused. Finally, with any complex project that spans many years it is impossible to properly thank everyone who helped see it to completion. I offer my sincerest gratitude to all my friends and family, iv my overgenerous benefactors, academic advisors and colleagues, and to everyone who listened to or challenged my ideas. I will never forget the generosity, kindness, and support offered to me throughout my doctorate. v Abstract Roman Africa was a grouping of eminently wealthy and populous provinces. Across Africa wealthy and middling landowners turned over their land to coloni – tenant farmers. These coloni, in conjunction with the regular freeholding plebeii farmers, generated immense agricultural wealth. Africa, Rome, and the empire prospered on the back of this wealth. In Late Antiquity the enigmatic and hotly debated colonate appeared. The colonate has been an integral aspect of Late Antique Roman historiography for centuries. Fundamentally, the different theories describe a variety of processes wherein legislative, fiscal, and seigneurial pressures gradually reduced the status of coloni from free citizens to something resembling slaves or medieval serfs. Far from assigning coloni to a proto-feudal status, the colonate in Africa appears pragmatic and conservative. This thesis contributes to the ongoing reconsideration of the colonate as a historiographical concept by providing a sustained legal analysis focusing on the region of Roman Africa. Chiefly, the legal analysis accounts for fundamental flaws with colonate models that exaggerate the universalism of Late Roman law and the ability of the imperial state to enforce said law. Moreover, the traditional colonate model does not consider regional circumstances, which are crucial. At an empire-wide level coloni were subject to general, but not inflexible, rules regarding compulsory and hereditary professions. In Africa, imperial legal interventions were primarily directed at alleviating fiscal and administrative impediments to coloni cultivation and generally safeguarding an ancient and successful system. vi Contents Acknowledgements iv Abstract vi List of Maps, Tables, & Figures viii Notes on the Translations & Maps ix Weights & Measures x List of Abbreviations xi 1. Introduction 1 2. The Provinces & Demographics of Roman Africa 21 3. The Legal Fundamentals of Colonus Tenancies 79 4. Coloni & the Imperial Taxation System 142 5. Coloni in Africa 182 6. Conclusions 255 7. Appendices 261 8. Bibliography 269 vii List of Maps, Tables, & Figures Maps Roman Africa in Late Antiquity 28 Isohyets of North Africa 30 Average summer & winter temperatures in North Africa 33 The relationship between climatic conditions and the position of the limites 39 Centuriated land in Africa 65 Named fundus, praedium, saltus, and villa estates in Africa 72 Villas in Africa from the Pleiades dataset 73 Mancian tenure epigraphic finds 187 Tables African provinces and land area 25 Roman military strength in Africa 58 Named imperial estates in Africa 72 Imperial estates across Africa, catalogued by Demsiri-Laadoua 75 Imperial estates in Proconsularis and Byzacium 77 Mancian Tenure epigraphic discoveries 187 Standard yields and prices 246 Fl. Donatus rent balance sheet 248 Aurelius Felix rent balance sheet 249 Wheat prices 261 Wine prices 262 Olive oil prices 262 Figures Demographic trends in Roman Africa (c. 150-400) 47 Land use estimates for growing African wheat 62 Imperial taxation in Numidia per NVal 13 236 Estimated coloni income over a five-year period 250 viii Notes on the Maps & Translations All in-text translations in this study are the author’s own. The maps used throughout this study were drafted specifically for this thesis and combine data from a variety of authorities and datasets. Topographic data is adapted from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Global Multi-Resolution Terrain Elevation Data (GMTED), and ancient shoreline and bathymetric data are courtesy of the Ancient World Mapping Center. The locations and names of ancient places are sourced from the Pleiades project’s open access database, which itself amalgamates data from a number of sources and authorities. Specific data sources for individual maps are cited in a note appended to said map. ix Ancient Weights & Measures Mille = 8 Stadia = 1,000 Passus = 5,000 Pedes = 1.48km Stadium = 125 Passus = 625 Pedes = 184.81m Passus = 5 Pedes = 1.47m Pes = 29.6cm Culleus = 20 Amphorae = 960 Sextarii = 517.1L Amphora = 48 Sextarii = 25.85L = Sextarius = 538.6mL Saltus = 4 Centuriae = 800 Iugera = 2.014km 2 Centuria = 200 Iugera = 503,645m 2 = Iugerum = 2,518m 2 Medimnos = ~4 Modii = ~6 Modii = 96 Sextarii = 51.7L Castrenses Italici Modius = 1.5 Modii = 24 Sextarii = 19.93L Castrensis Italici Modius = 16 Sextarii = 8.618L Italicus Sextarius = 538.6mL x List of Abbreviations ACD Appendix Constitutionum Dispersarum AE L’Année Épigraphique Brev. Breviary of Alaric CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum CJ Code of Justinian CLE Carmina Latina Epigraphica CTh Code of Theodosius Dig. Iust. Digest of Justinian EJ Edicts of Justinian Exp. Mund. Expositio Totius Mundi et Gentium ILTun Inscriptions Latines de la Tunisie Inst. Iust. Institutes of Justinian LSA Last Statues of Antiquity NJ Novels of Justinian NMaj Novels of Majorian Not. Afr. Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum Africae Not. Dig. Occ. Notitia Dignitatum (Western section) Not. Dig. Or. Notitia Dignitatum (Eastern section) NTh Novels of Theodosius NVal Novels of Valentinian III PLRE Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae Sirm. Sirmondian Constitutions SIG Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum Tab. Alb. Albertini Tablets xi xii I Introduction The Colonate is among the most important and enduring concepts in Late Antique historiography. The colonate purports to explain the tendency of post-Diocletianic laws and economic conditions to subject coloni – tenant farmers – to serf-like conditions, which culminated in, perhaps, a formal quasi-caste like institution.1 The colonate thus provides a theoretical framework for explaining the impacts and impetus of social, economic, and legal change for millions of peasant labourers and their landlords within the Late Empire, and a longue durée explanation connecting the social, economic, and legal conditions of agrarian life under the Principate through to the emergence of feudal serfdom in the early Middle Ages.2 Within the general rubric of colonate scholarship there is a considerable diversity of thought and theory, with a history that dates to the sixteenth century.3 For a time in the early to mid-twentieth century was a general consensus, though not without it detractors, that the colonate was a Late Antique innovation that placed coloni in a quasi-caste institution, that the colonate was instituted primarily through law, and that it was buttressed by the empire’s tax system and the willingness of landlords. By the late twentieth century this fragile consensus began to fracture, as did many long-held beliefs about the nature of the Late Roman state and the Late Antique era generally.4 Carriè struck a convincing intellectual blow in 1982 with his paper ‘Le "colonat du Bas- Empire": un mythe historiographique?’, wherein he argued, as the title suggests, that the colonate and the scholarship underpinning it was a modern myth, one that was incompatible with the evidence and coloured by modern political sensibilities. In Carriè’s view the colonate was purely a fiscal instrument designed to ensure the imperial treasury received taxes for land worked by coloni; it did not create 1 A rich catalogue of relevant scholars and scholarship will be provided in the following section. 2 Sarris 2006, 131–33; contemporary scholars are less likely to emphasise feudalisation in their arguments for the colonate, but it remains an important part of the colonate’s intellectual history.
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