8/11/2019 Agri Deserti Per EAH
2/3
F o r P e e r R e v i e w
Agri deserti
Gianluca Soricelli
Universit del Molise
[email protected]
Word count: 691
Agri deserti , deserted lands, are a recurrent topic in late
Roman literary and legal sources.From as early as the third century
Christian and Pagan writers wrote about the flight of thepeasants
from the countryside and the loss of productivity of the land but
these witnessesmay be affected by their ideological sentiments.
Bishop Cyprian, amongst his other woes,complained about the
infertility of the countryside and the flight of the peasants (
adDemetrianum , 3-5). He wrote about the rich province of Africa,
one of the main productiveareas of the empire. Some decades later
Libanius claimed that heavy taxation hadresulted in the abandonment
of the land ( Or . 2, 32): he was writing from the region
ofAntiochia where archaeology suggests an important economic boom
destined to continuethrough to the half of the 6 th century
(Whittaker 1976; Tate 1992).According to legal sources (Jaillette
1996), agri deserti were intended as agricultural areassubjected to
taxation from which it was no longer possible receive the tax. The
firstprovision known on such land dates back to the Emperor
Aurelianus, but it is possible thatthere were measures passed
previously (cfr. Herod., 2, 4, 6 regarding a measure ofPertinax).
Aurelian stated that the members of the city councils took on the
responsibilityfor abandoned land and estates ( fundi ) for which it
was impossible to trace the owners.Constantine renewed this law,
adding that such land would be exempt from taxes for thefirst three
years and, where city councils were unable to maintain it, the tax
obligations ofabandoned land should be distributed among all
landowners ( Cod. Iust . 11.59.1). The
subsequent laws seem to point in the same direction and reflect
more the Emperors wishto guarantee his fiscal revenue than to boost
the productivity of the land.
The archaeological evidence (Duncan Jones 2004) suggests a
decrease in ruralsettlement in Italy (cfr. Cod. Theod . 11.28.2
[395 CE] that measures in 528,042 iugera about 1,320 km sq, equal
to 10-15% of presumable arable areas deserted land in theprovince
of Campania) and in the Rhine provinces, but an increase in Africa
and in theeastern provinces. It is important to note that the
number of settlements continued to growin Africa at least until the
end of the fifth century. This seems inconsistent with Cod. Theod
.11.28.13 (CE 422), a measure concerning imperial lands in Africa
Proconsularis andByzacena, according to which almost half of the
land was deserted and excluded from
taxation. This is a dramatic figure but the ratio of cropland to
fallow land is very close tomodern agricultural statistics for the
region corresponding to the two Roman provinces(Lepelley 1967).
The elusive nature of the sources available explains the deep
division among modernscholars regarding the exact meaning of agri
deserti. In the past they were often believedto be proof of a long
and deep crisis of late imperial agriculture, determined by
multiplefactors (see Jones 1964: 816-823). In order to remedy the
crisis and encourage onceagain the cultivation of abandoned land,
the central government took a series of legislativemeasures (of
which also the institution of the COLONATE and, with respect to
imperialproperty, the EMPHYTEUSIS ). These measures did not produce
concrete results as thelaw was frequently proposed again (Jaillette
1996: 334-338). Without denying that thecentral decades of the
third century were years of crisis, a different interpretation of
thephenomenon states that the depopulation of the countryside was
less dramatic thaninitially thought. Archaeology also suggests that
the fourth century, far from being the
age 1 of 2 Encyclopedia of Ancient History
8/11/2019 Agri Deserti Per EAH
3/3
F o r P e e r R e v i e w
culmination of the crisis, saw in many provincial areas a
growing rural landscape. Agrideserti in this context represent the
marginal land, scarcely fertile, periodically unused and,depending
on circumstances, undervalued by its owners or abandoned in order
toconcentrate on more fertile soils (this must be the case in Italy
where the new fiscal regimeimposed by Diocletian drove marginal
land out of use) (Whittaker & Garnsey 1998: 281-
285). They therefore represented a fiscal rather than an
agricultural problem (Grey 2007:363) as the efforts of the Emperor
to guarantee the taxes would demonstrate.
SEE ALSO: Agriculture, Roman Empire; Finance, Roman; Landscapes,
Roman; Taxation,Roman
References and Suggested Readings Duncan-Jones, R. (2004)
Economic Change and the Transition to Late Antiquity. In S.
Swain and M. Edwards, eds., Approaching Late Antiquity: The
Transformation fromEarly to Late Empire : 20-49. Oxford and New
York.
Grey, C. (2007) Revisiting the problem of agri deserti in Late
Roman Empire. Journal ofRoman Archaeology 20: 362-376.
Jaillette, P. (1996) Les dispositions du Code Thodosien sur les
terres abbandonnes. InJ.-L. Fiches, ed., Le IIIe sicle en Gaule
Narbonnaise : donnes rgionales sur lacrise de l'Empire : 333-404.
Aix-en-Provence.
Jones, A. H. M. (1964), The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A
Social, Economic, andAdministrative Survey. Oxford.
Lepelley, Cl. (1967) Dclin ou stabilit de l'agriculture
africaine au Bas-Empire? A proposd'une loi de l'empereur Honorius.
Antiquits Africaines 1:135-144 (reprinted inAspects de lAfrique
romaine. Les cits, la vie rurale, le christianisme, coll.
Munera
Studi storici sulla Tarda Antichit 15 : 217-232. Bari,
2001).Tate, G. (1992) Les campagnes de la Syrie du Nord di IIe au
VIIe sicle : un example
dexpansion dmographique et conomique dans les campagnes la fin
delantiquit . Paris.
Whittaker, C. R. (1976) Agri deserti. In M. I. Finley, ed.,
Studies in Roman Property, 137-165;193-200. Cambridge (reprinted in
Land, City and Trade in the Roman Empire :000-000. Aldershot).
Whittaker, C. R. and P. Garnsey. (1998) Rural Life in the Later
Roman Empire. In A.Cameron and P. Garnsey, eds., The Cambridge
Ancient History. Vol. XIII. The LateEmpire, A.D. 337-425 : 277-311.
Cambridge and New York.
Page 2 of 2Encyclopedia of Ancient History
