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117 ON THE ROMAN COLONI, FROM THE GERMAN OF SAVIGNY, The cultivation of the earth has led, in ages and nations the most different from each other, to the growth of peculiar social relations. In a large part of Europe these relations in our days have undergone a change, brought about by violence in some places, in others peaceably ; and thus they have become the object of general attention. In the Roman state under the Christian emperors such relations are also found very widely diffused, alongside of the class of slaves, which was gradually circumscribed and supplanted by them. An account of these relations of the peasantry among the later Romans will not be a waste of labour, since hardly any notice has of late years been taken of them. The sources for such an enquiry are to be found partly in the Theodosian code, and the Novellae belonging to it ^, partly, and much more abundantly, in the Codex and the Novellae of Justinian ^ Important assistance may also be drawn from several letters of Gregory the Great ^. In mo- dern times the authors of systematic treatises on Roman law have scarcely paid the slightest regard to this subject, the 1 Cod. Theod. Lib. v. Tit. 9, 10, 11, and above all the passage lately discovered by Peyron, Lib. v. Tit. 4. Const. 3. p. 284 in Wenck's edition. 2 Cod. Just. Lib. XI. Tit. 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 63, 67. Nov. 54, 156, 157, 162. Jus- tiniani const, de adscriptitiis, p. 671 ed. Gotting. Justini const, de filiis liberarum, p. 672. Tiberii const, de filiis colonorum, p. 672. 3 Lib. I. ep. 44. Lib. iv. ep. 21. Lib. viii. ep. 32. Lib. ix. ep. 19. The first of these four letters contains the most information. The fourth, which orders the JSyracunan coloni of the Roman church to pay obedience to a newly appomted defensor^ is incorporated almost word for word, with merely slight alterations, in the Liher diur- nus Romanoriim ponf'ijicum, cap. 6. Tit. 5. I am indebted to Niebuhr^s friendship for my acquaintance with these instructive passages.