071 the Roman Colonic 127 parents ^^ It deserves notice that the abovementioned super- intending care for agriculture, as well as the humane regard for the preservation of family ties, was not confined to the colonic but even embraced the slaves, when they were em- ployed in husbandry, and as such were enrolled in the regis- ters^^. This assimilation of the two classes is a further proof that the coloni were not supposed to have any personal right in the soil, since any such right vested in a slave was utterly inconceivable. Such being the origin of the inseparable connexion be- tween the colonus and the soil, we easily get to a very natural limitation of it. If a higher public interest pleaded in behalf of its dissolution, and the landowner was disposed to allow it, there would be no scruple about the matter. But this would happen in the following important and frequent case. The charge of recruiting the army was imposed on the land- holders, in proportion to the value of their property ^^ Now as no slaves were enlisted % it must without doubt have been calculated that the recruits furnisht by the landholders would consist mainly of their coloni. In such a case the land- owner's consent was already procured ; and with regard to the state the care for agriculture and for the revenue ^^ was outweighed by the still more important care for the army. The passages quoted above (note 45), which authorize the redemanding a colonus even when he has become a soldier, speak only of runaway colonic that is, such as have left the estate against the will of the owner. ^9 L. 13. § 1. C. J. de agric. (xi. 47). Thus permission was granted even in earlier times, when claim was laid to a colonus^ to avert the separation of a married couple or of parents and children by the production of substitutes. L. un. C. Theod. de inquil. (v. 10). Nov. Valentin. Tit. 9. ^° L. 7. C J. de agric. (xi. 47) ; Quemadmodum originarios absque terra, ita rusticos censitosque servos vendi omnifariam non licebit. L. 11. C. J. comm. utr. jud. (hi. 38). Previously there had only been a prohibition against their being sold out of their province : L. 2. C. Theod. sine censu (xi. 3). 6" Vegetius i. 7- L.7. C. Th. de tironibus (vii. 13). Nov. Theod. Tit. 44. C. 1. 62 L. 8. C. Th. de tironibus (vii. 13). 63 For as soon as the recruit was supplied, his poUtax was beyond a doubt taken ofF from the estate. Properly speaking he would now have had to pay his polltax himself: but he belonged to the number of those who had a special exemption ; and it was laid down with great precision in what cases he alone, and in what cases his family also were to benefit by the exemption.
