nicipal areas. This domain land
was divided into large districts (_tractus_, _regiones_) which were
directly administered by imperial procurators. Each district comprised a
number of estates (_saltus_, _fundi_). Whatever slave labor had at one
time been used in African agricultural operations was, by the early
principate, largely displaced by free laborers, called _coloni_. These
_coloni_ were either Italian immigrants or tributary native holders of the
public land.

The estates were usually managed as follows. The procurators leased them
to tenant contractors (_conductores_), who retained a part of their lease
holds under their own supervision, and sublet the remainder to tenant
farmers (_coloni_). The relation of these _coloni_ to the contractors as
well as to the owners of private estates or their bailiffs (_vilici_), was
regulated by an edict of a certain Mancia, apparently a procurator under
the Flavians. By this edict the _coloni_ were obliged to pay a definite
proportion of their crop as rental, and in addition to render a certain
number of days' work, personally and with their teams, on the land of the
person from whom they held their lease. The _coloni_ comprised both
landless residents on the estates and small landholders from neighboring
villages. They were encouraged to occupy vacant domain land and bring it
under cultivation. Over plough land thus cultivated they obtained the
right of occupation for life, but orchard land became an hereditary
possession, while in both cases the occupant was required to pay rental in
kind to the state. Hadrian also tried to further the development of
peasant landholders by permitting the _coloni_ to occupy any lands not
tilled by the middlemen, and giving them rights of possession over all
types of land. However, the forced services still remained and these
constituted the chief grievance of the _coloni_. And here the government
was on the horns of a dilemma, for if the middlemen were restrained from
undue exactions often large areas remained untilled, and if the _coloni_
were oppressed they absconded and left their holdings without tenants.

It was in the course of the third century that the failure to create an
adequate class of independent small farmers caused the state to fall back
upon the development of large private estates as the only way of keeping
the land under cultivation and maintaining the public revenues. As a
result of this change of policy the middlemen were