Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/350

 292 Outlines of European History Contrast for what reasons we do not know. When a slave was freed he freedman was Called 2. freedman, but he was by no means in the position and free men q£ ^^^ ^^j^^ ]^^^ )^Qn bom free. It was true that he was no longer a mere thing that could be bought and sold, but he had still to serve his former master — who had now become his patron — for a certain number of days in the year. He was obliged to pay him a part of his earnings and could not marry without his patron's consent. Decline of But as the condition of the slaves improved and many of citizen — in them became freedmen, the state of the poor free man only be- the towns ^^.m^ worse. In the towns (Fig. 128), if he tried to earn his living, he was forced to mingle with those slaves who were permitted to work for wages and with the freedman, but he naturally tended to sink to their level. In the In the country the small farmer and the free laborer for hire ^S^coioni could not survivc long in competition with the great villas. As the burden of taxes became unbearable the farmer finally gave up the struggle. He entered upon an arrangement which made him the colonus of some wealthy landholder. As such the farrr er and his descendants were forever attached to the land they worked, and passed with it from owner to owner when it changed hands. While not actually slaves, they were not free to leave or go where they pleased, and they were hardly as favorably sit- Resemblance uated as many slaves. Like the medieval serf,^ they could not between the . coloni and the DC depnved 01 their nelds so long as they paid the owner a cer- aterse s ^^-^ p^^.^ ^£ ^^^^ ^^^p ^^^ worked for him during a period fixed by the customs of the estate upon which they lived. This system made it impossible for the farmer to become really in- dependent, or for his son to become better off than he. The great villas once worked by slaves were now cultivated chiefly by these colofii. Country Multitudes turned to the city for relief, just as at the present to the city; day in Europe and America there is a large and steady move- popSion "'^^^^ ^^ country population toward the cities. The large families, 1 See below, section 67.