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139 On the Roman Coloni 139 it ; the value in money however may be demanded, if such was the testator's intention ^^~. This passage may unquestion- ably be explained with great ease in reference to the coloni of the later empire as described above : but it will also admit of an application to common leases, the right to which, or their profits, may have been bequeathed. This is decidedly the case with a passage of Ulpian on returns to the census, that whoever did not return his inquilini or coloni made him- self answerable for them ^. This passage must be interpreted with reference to common renters or farmers, whom the land- owner was to return, because they might otherwise escape the notice of the collector, and thereby avoid paying their poUtax : indeed it w^ould hardly be applicable to the heredi- tary coloni of later times, since these must already have been entered in the taxrolls, and so would have been known to the collector without the landlord'^s returning: them. If how- ever these passages of the Pandects are actually to be regarded as traces of the order of coloni at an earlier date, it cannot at that time have spread at the utmost be- yond a very narrow circle. This is proved partly by the circumstance that the old jurists do not speak more fully and unequivocally about it, partly by the want of any settled technical name for the class : for these very words, coloni and inquilini^ which were subsequently used so de- terminately for it, meant at that time in common use some- thing totally different, that is to say, ordinary free farmers and renters, who stood in no state of personal dependence. In a still earlier age our attention is arrested by the following passage of Varro : Omnes agri coluntur hominibus servis^ aut liberis^ aut utrisque. Liheris^ aut cum ipsi co- lunt, ut plerique pauperculi cum sua progenie ; aut mer- cenariisy cum conducticiis liberorum operis res majores^ ut ^^"^ L. 112. pr. D. de leg. 1. (30) : Si quis inquilinos, sine praediis quibus adhae- rent, legaverit, est inutile legatum. Sed an aestimatio debeatur, ex voluntate defuncti statuendum esse, Divi Marcus et Commodus rescripserunt. Far less can any evidence be drawn from L. 17. § 7- de excus. (Callistratus) : Inquilini castrorum a tutelis excu- sari Solent : nisi eorum, qui et ipsi inquilini sunt, et in eodem castro eademque con- dition e sunt. There is nothing in this passage referring to the relation of a hereditarily dependent peasantry. « L. 4. § 8. D. de censibus : Si quis inquilinum vel colonum non fuerit professus, vinculis censualibus teneatur. See the Dissertation on the Eoman Finances, Sect. 3.