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Free-Born and Manumitted Bailiffs in the Graeco-Roman World*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Walter Scheidel
Walter Scheidel
Affiliation:
University of Vienna
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Extract

Several times in the past the question has been raised whether in Greece or in Rome there were any free-born citizens who would have been prepared to take over the management of a farm, a business thought to have usually been entrusted to slaves. In this connection the number of sources testifying to the manumission of Roman slave bailiffs has also attracted some attention. It must be said, however, that notwithstanding previous scholarly efforts to assemble the relevant testimonia, important evidence has been disregarded or simply overlooked; in addition, in one instance at any rate, a source was not yet available.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 591 - 593
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

1 On Xen, . Mem. 28.1–4Google Scholar cf. Bolkestein, H., Economic Life in Greece's Golden Age (Leiden, 1958), p. 29Google Scholar; contra Audring, G., ‘Über den Gutsverwalter (epitropos) in der attischen Landwirtschaft des 5. und des.Jh.v.u.Z.’ Klio 55 (1973), 109–16, p. 114Google Scholar; Croix, G. E. M. de Ste, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (London, 1981), p. 505Google Scholar. The latter's views were in turn rejected by Wood, E. M., Peasant-Citizen and Slave. The Foundations of Athenian Democracy (London and New York, 1988), p. 69Google Scholar(who also adduced Xen. Por. 4.22 as possible relevant evidence). Another text whose exact meaning is open to debate is Xen. Oecon. 1.3–4: cf. Audring, , art. cit., p. 115Google Scholar; Croix, Ste, op. cit., p. 182Google Scholar. A new interpretation of this passage (as referring to farm-tenancy) was recently put forward by Wood, , op. cit., pp. 75–7Google Scholar.

2 Although this may be a function of the nature of our evidence; cf. Audring, , art. cit., p. 115Google Scholar.

3 The evidence is conveniently collected in Croix, Ste, op. cit., p. 576 n. 16Google Scholar.

4 We cannot know how far the gap of 250 years separating the two works and the different geographical settings of the authors account for their discordant views. Though there may have been developments in the rules and procedures governing the appointment of bailiffs it must be borne in mind that Philodemos still aligned himself with the authorities of the fourth century B.C.

5 Beare, R., ‘Were Bailiffs Ever Free Born?’, CQ 28 (1978), 398–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 399ad Colum. 1 pr. 12 ('mediarum facultatium dominus, ex mercennariis aliquem iam recusantem cotidianum illud tributum, quia vectigali esse non possit, ignarum rei, cui praefuturus est, magistrum fieri iubet’).

7 Beare, , art. cit., pp. 400 and 401, respectivelyGoogle Scholar.

8 Cf. ibid., p. 398, citing CIL III 7147 and ILS 7372 (thus correcting the earlier view of Heitland, W. E., Agricola (Cambridge, 1921), p. 158, who had been ignorant of any such evidence)Google Scholar.

9 CIL VIII 25817 =AE 1978.880. The fact that ingenuus is not part of the actor's name but the declaration of hisstatus is corroborated by an analogous North African inscription, AE 1906.11, line 5: ‘Vitalis ser(vi) act(oris)’ (which, as the context shows, does not refer to a servus of the actor, but to the servus actor himself).

10 CIL in 5616 =IBR 437.

11 Cf. along these lines Wolff, H., Führer durch das Lapidahum im Römermuseum ‘Kastell Boiotro’ (Munich, 1987), p. 30Google Scholar: ‘Die fünf Personen der Grabinschrift waren anscheinend freie Nichtrömer.’

12 AE 1980.229 (Capua).

13 Even though the specific cases quoted below may have been fictional, the underlying motif - the manumission of farm-stewards - must have reflected social realities.

14 Other manumitted adores referred to in the Digest are not clearly characterised as running rural enterprises: cf. Scaev.Dig. 40.7.40.3, 7, 8. But see also Gsell, S., ‘Esclaves ruraux dans l'Afrique romaine’, in Melanges Gustave Glotz I (Paris, 1932), pp. 397–415, p. 410 and n. 10 on the actor in Nov. Valent. 6.1.1 (A.D. 440)Google Scholar.