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144 On the Roman Coloni. out of this nation for his estates ; but these labourers are to be placed on the foot of colonic and in no respect to be treated as slaves. They are not however to be carried into any but the transmarine provinces, not for instance into Thrace or Illyricum. Thus we have here a very remarkable, indeed the only known example, clearly pointing out the manner in which bodies of coloni on a large scale originated. The emperors might have sold the barbarians who had fallen into their power, as slaves, but preferred (without doubt from politico-economical grounds) giving them away as coloni. Now one might conjecture that the whole class sprang up ori- ginally after the same manner, so that this single instance should be only a repetition of similar previous ones^^^ I cannot however by any means allow that this is at all a neces- sary consequence : on the contrary it is just as conceivable that the first origin of the coloni was totally different, and that the emperors on this occasion merely placed a great number of barbarians by their own arbitrary edict in a class which had grown up and been wellknown long before. In conclusion I must still speak of the relation between the Roman coloni and the villeins of modern Europe, a class which appears from very early times under a great variety of modifications. The general resemblance between the two in- stitutions strikes us at first sight : but I cannot see the slightest ground for supposing that there was any historical connexion between them. Thus I do not believe that the origin of the coloni can be accounted for by assuming that they were in- stituted in imitation of the German serfs, although the existence of such a class among the Germans was known to the Romans in the time of Tacitus ^^ Still less reason however is there for imagining that the German serfs arose out of the Roman colonic although, from the use of the Latin language in the drawing up of the codes of the Teutonic nations, the technical terms of the Romans were taken in this, as in other matters, to futuros. It is true however that the passage stands under the title de bonis militum ; and so it is possible that the soldiers who possest land were the only persons to whom this great advantage was offered. '2=^ This is the way the passage is explained by Wenck, p. 286. note x. 2^ Germania c. 25. Ceteris servis, non in nostrum morem descriptis per familiam ministeriis, utuntur. Suam quisque sedem, suos penates regit. Frumefiti modum dominus, aut pecoris, aut vestis, ut colono, injungit : et servus hactenus paret.