The Farmer, the Landlord, and the Law in the Fifth Century

Abstract

Abstract Sometime about the beginning of the fifth century CE a landowner-let us call him Possessor-in North Africa, in present day Tunisia, wrote an elegant and literary letter to another landowner, Salvius, who lived in the town of Mactaris.1 After an introduction, Possessor reminded Salvius of the time they had spent together as law students and barristers in Rome, and then said: I do not know at all why you want to scare poor farmers, and I cannot understand why you want to press upon my farmers the fear of a production in court. As if I could not comfort them, release them from fear, tell them there is less to fear than you claim. I concede I was often frightened by the weapons of your eloquence in the days when we fought each other in the courts, but often I returned the blows.

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