On the Roman Coloni. vifidemias ac foenificia, administrant ; iique quos obaerarios nostri vocitarunt^ et etiam nunc sunt in Asia^ et Aegypto^ et in Illyrico complures^^^ Many manuscripts instead of ohaerarios read ohaeratos ; and it has been suggested that this means the debtor-slaves, neoci obaerati. These however in Varro's time were assuredly so few and insignificant^ that there could not possibly be any occasion for mentioning them in a treatise on agriculture: besides Varro is not speaking of a third class, distinct from the pauper culi and the mercenarii^ but only of a peculiar denomination of the latter — iique for iique stent etc. The most natural explanation therefore is, that Varro is merely mentioning ope- rarius as another name for mercenarius^ whether we suppose that by writing ohaerarios he meant to point out what he con- ceived to be the etymology of operarios^ or whether we intro- duce operarios into the text itself. So that this passage does not contain a word about any hereditary coloni. Cujacius indeed is of a different opinion, since he makes the following express assertion — founded no doubt on nothing more than an arbitrary combination of this passage with those above quoted from the Pandects — that the Romans in all ages had a peasantry in a state of hereditary dependence, who in earlier times were called operarii^ then inquilini or colonic and finally adscriptitii ^°. On the other hand we certainly do find a class in a similar condition at a much earlier period. The clients under the original Roman constitution were also peasants without pro- perty ; and they too lived in a state of hereditary dependence. But it is not likely that anybody will maintain that there was any historical connexion between the ancient clients and the later coloni. They are separated by a period of many centuries, during which slavery in its simple strict form had occupied the place of almost every other kind of personal dependence. Even the cultivation of the soil was carried on almost exclusively by slaves : and although other institutions, analogous to the ancient ones, were subsequently introduced with regard to this class of slaves, yet assuredly this was '09 De re rustica i. 17- "^ Ad. L. 112. pr. de. leg. L Opp. T. vii. p. 10/7.
