Almost any statement that one might wish to make about the colonate as an institution of the Late Roman Empire is contestable. It would probably be widely agreed that evidence begins to appear in the ...
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Almost any statement that one might wish to make about the colonate as an institution of the Late Roman Empire is contestable. It would probably be widely agreed that evidence begins to appear in the 4th cent. ce for coloni who are not simply tenants, but who are adscripti (assigned), adscripticii (characterized by their being assigned), originarii (characterized by reference to their origo), inquilini (inhabitants of a place); that the term coloni, tout court, is sometimes used to refer to these categories; and that the three distinguishing features of these categories are (1) that their agreement with the landowner included a provision that made him liable for the payment of their taxes, which is not the same as to say that he collected them, (2) that they were registered accordingly in the census, and (3) that they owed services to the landowner. By way of contrast, ‘free’ coloni, who co-existed with the categories just described, owed no such services. A necessary condition for the existence of the categories in question is the possibility for an estate to be the origo of someone, as well as a city or village; it cannot be determined when this possibility emerged, but presumably during the 3rd cent.Less
Indictio under the Principate meant the compulsory purchase of food, clothing, and other goods for the army and the court. Owing to the inflation of the mid-3rd cent. ce the ...
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Indictio under the Principate meant the compulsory purchase of food, clothing, and other goods for the army and the court. Owing to the inflation of the mid-3rd cent. ce the payments made for such purchases became derisory and were finally abandoned. From the time of *Diocletian the term indictio was applied to the annual assessment of all levies in kind made by the praetorian prefects: the indictio declared the amount of each item (wheat, barley, wine, oil, clothing, etc. ) payable on each fiscal unit (caput, iugum, etc. ). From 287, indictions were numbered serially in cycles of five years, from 312 in cycles of fifteen years. The number of the indiction was regularly used for dating financial years (which began on 1 September) and sometimes for dating other documents. See finance, roman.
