Note 65 — THE ORIGIN OF PROPERTY IN LAND

We have shown elsewhere (Recherches sur quelques problèmes d’histoire, pp. 269-289) the mistakes which have been committed as to the words agri, occupantur, cultores, arva, mutant, superest ager. On the special meaning of occupare agrum, to put land to account by placing slaves upon it, see Columella, ii. 9; ii. 10; ii. 11; ii. 13; v. 5; v. 10; notice especially these two passages, Columella, i. 3: occupatos nexu civium aut ergastulis, and Code of Justinian, ix. 49, 7: quot mancipia in prædiis occupatis teneantur. As to the meaning of cultores, we must remember the coloni of whom Tacitus has spoken in the previous chapter. For the meaning of arva, see Varro, De re rustica, i. 29: arvum est quod aratum est; ibid., i. 13: boves ex arvo reducti; i. 19: ad jugera ducenta arvi, boum jugo duo; cf. Cicero, De republ., v. 2, and especially Digest, L., 15, 4. Mutare does not mean to exchange among themselves; to express that meaning inter se would have been needed: mutare by itself is the frequentative of movere, and means to shift. The Germans shifted their tillage, and tilled now one part, now another of the estate. If we translate each of the words of Tacitus literally, especially if we pay attention to the context and read the entire chapter, nec pomaria, nec hortos, ... sola seges, etc., we see that Tacitus is describing the method of cultivation among the Germans, and that it does not occur to him to say whether they were or were not acquainted with the system of private ownership. Do not forget, moreover, that chapter xxvi. follows chapter xxv., where Tacitus has said that the soil is cultivated by slaves, each paying certain dues to his master. After a sort of parenthesis on the freedmen, he returns to these cultores. He shows how they farm, and he blames their method. The chapter ought to be closely scanned and translated word for word with the meaning each word had in the time of Tacitus, and not hastily rendered to suit some preconceived idea.