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132 On the Roman Coloni. examination however will convince us that these expressions are not to be taken literally. In fact the coloiii were capable of holding property; and they were only prohibited from alienating their property without the consent of their land- lord ' it being unquestionably more advantageous both for the estate itself and for its master to have a wealthy colonics than a poor one. This incapacity of alienating pro- perty is all that is meant by the abovementioned inaccurate expressions; so that the difference between the colonics and the slave in this point was very great. For a slave actually had nothing of his own; and, as the most important conse- quence of this principle, his master could take away everything that he possest : a colonics had property of his own, which could not be taken away from him, and he was only de- barred from alienating it at discretion. That this was really the state of things is set beyond a doubt by the following instances. If a colonics was a Donatist, he was to lose a third part of his peculium as a punishment for his heresy ^^, a penalty which evidently assumes that he had property of his own. Moreover it was a general rule that^ if a priest or monk died without a will, and left no heirs, his property went to his church or convent. To this rule how- ever there were three exceptions : if the deceast was a freed- man, or a colonics^ or a member of a curia^ his property was to go to his patron, or landlord, or curia^^. The object of this rule, as well as the mention of the colonus alongside of the freedman and the curialis^ shews that the coloni must have had heritable property of their own. This limited power in disposing of their property was all indeed that the colonic generally speaking, possest : but there were two exceptions to this, which have already been mentioned above. For such coloni as had become so by prescription were to have a perfectly free command of their property ^'^ : and so were those who sprang from the marriage of a colonus with a fi'ee woman ^ One may therefore assume, with reference ^* L. un. C. Theod. ne colonus (v. 11). L. 2. C J. in quib. cans, coloni (xi. 49). ^2 L. 54. C. Theod. de haereticis (xvi. 5). ^3 L. un. C. Theod. de bonis clericovum (v. 3). L. 20. C. J. de episcopis (i. 3). s** L. 18. L. 23. § 1. C. J. de agric. (xi. 47). 6ee a.bovc p. 121, ^' Nov. 162. C. 2. See above p. 120.