like those of the slaves. The colonists were the prototypes
of the medieval serfs.

The ancient slavery had lost its vitality. Neither in the country in
large scale agriculture, nor in the manufactories of the towns did it
yield any more returns--the market for its products had disappeared. And
small scale production and artisanship, to which the gigantic production
of the flourishing time of the empire was now reduced, did not leave any
room for numerous slaves. Only house and luxury slaves of the rich were
still retained by society. But this declining slavery was as yet
sufficiently strong to brand productive labor as slave work, as below
the dignity of free Romans; and everybody was now a free Roman. An
increasing number of superfluous slaves who had become a drug on their
owners were dismissed, while on the other hand the number of colonists
and of beggared free men (similar to the poor whites in the slave states
of America) grew continuously. Christianity is perfectly innocent of
this gradual decline of ancient slavery. For it had taken part in the
slavery of the Roman empire for centuries. It never prevented the slave
trade of Christians later on, neither of the Germans in the North, nor
of the Venetians on the Mediterranean, nor the negro traffic of later
years.[34] Slavery died, because it did not pay any longer. But it left
behind its poisonous sting by branding as ignoble the productive labor
of free men. This brought the Roman world into a closed alley from
which it could not escape. Slave labor was economically impossible and
the labor of free men was under a moral ban. The one could exist no
longer, the other could not yet be the fundamental form of social
production. There was no other help but a complete revolution.

The provinces were not any better off. The most complete reports on this
subject are from Gaul. By the side of the colonists, free farmers still
existed there. In order to protect themselves against the brutal
blackmail of the officials, judges and usurers, they frequently placed
themselves under the protectorate of a man of influence and power. Not
only single individuals did so, but whole communities, so that the
emperors of the fourth century often issued decrees prohibiting this
practice. But what good did protection do to the clients? The patron
imposed the condition that they should transfer the title of their lots
to him, and in return he assured them of the free enjoyment of their
la