THE SOCIAL HIERARCHY 135from the production of essential foodstuffs. Slaves had made up a large part
of the work- force of the wealthy in Italy and Sicily ever since the period of
overseas expansion began at the end of the third century BC. The evidence
for the status of labour in the provinces is less satisfactory. Agricultural
slavery certainly existed in pockets of the empire, as in Tripolitania, where
Apuleius’ wife Pudentilla gave her sons 400 slaves, together with other
property. Elsewhere in Africa, the agricultural workforce was largely free, as
it was in Egypt, the other main grain- producing province of the empire.
Dependent non- slave labour systems of one kind or another existed in Gaul
and Asia. There seems little doubt that across the empire humble free men
constituted the majority of farm- workers, but the scanty evidence frustrates
generalizations concerning their legal and customary position in the relations
of production.^11
The brutal effi ciency of slavery as a form of exploitation needs no special
emphasis,^12 though as we shall see shortly, some slaves fared better than
others. The situation of non- slave labour ranged very widely, from debt-
bondage on the one hand, to relative independence on the other. Debt-
bondage persisted, even after the abolition of one of its forms, nexum, in the
early Republic. The ‘many’ obaerarii associated by Varro with Asia, Egypt
and Illyricum ( Rust. 1.17.2), and the nexi of citizen status who, together
with slaves, worked the vast holdings of the rich (presumably in Italy),
according to Columella (1.3.12), were certainly bondsmen.^13
Other labourers were ‘free’ tenants, but many were unable to escape
intense exploitation on account of their economic circumstances or lack of
power. Pliny described the condition of tenants on an estate he intended to
buy: ‘The previous owner quite often sold off the tenants’ pledges for their
debts; and while he reduced the debt of the tenants ( coloni ) for a time, he
depleted their resources for the future, on account of the loss of which they
began to run up their debts again’ ( Ep. 3.19.6). Though juridically free,
these tenants were apparently unable to break away from their grasping
landlord and their debts to him, and to overcome their impoverishment by
establishing themselves on economically viable farms. On an imperial estate
in north Africa ( saltus Burunitanus ), the emperor’s procurator provided
force to maintain the exploitation of the subtenants at the hands of the
wealthy lessees. When the humble subtenants protested that more than the
agreed rent and days of labour were being demanded of them, the procurator
sent in soldiers, ‘ordering some of us to be seized and tortured, others
fettered, and some, including even Roman citizens, beaten with rods and
cudgels’.^14 Clearly, freedom and citizenship did not always protect tenants
against oppressive landlords.
Peasants who owned their land had a better chance of establishing their
independence. There were various pressures pushing them toward dependence
on richer, more powerful neighbours: the need for loans, for protection and
for temporary jobs to supplement their income. The government burdened
them with demands for taxes, army service and corvée labour. Nevertheless,