Debate over the ‘colonate of the Late Roman Empire’ dates back at least as far as the sixteenth century. The origins of this phenomenon, the motivations behind its implementation, its geographical extension and further implications for participants remain hotly contested. S., a key protagonist in this debate for the past four decades, sums up the problem succinctly: ‘From the fourth century onwards we dispose of imperial constitutions which were issued with the purpose of tying agricultural workers (coloni) to the land. Precisely when this began, we do not know, neither do we know precisely why, but it clearly had to do with guaranteeing the cultivation of land and payment of taxes. This system of binding those people to an estate or plot of land is called the (Roman) colonate’ (p. 5). For S. the colonate is to be found in the nexus of agricultural labour, taxation, debt and obligation. His treatment of the evidence in supporting this interpretation is exemplary. It is also provocative.

S. describes this monograph-length study of the subject as ‘a legal-historical work’ whose ‘first aim is to look for legal rules’ (p. 1). Grounded, as all of S.’s scholarship, in an unparalleled knowledge of the primary source material and an intimate familiarity with the currents of modern scholarly opinion, it introduces a novel ‘retrograde’ reading strategy aimed at shining new light on key questions in this debate. While unapologetically written for the specialist, this book has methodological implications for any scholar engaging with the texts contained in the two great legal codifications of the late Roman period, namely the Codex Justinianus of 534 and the Codex Theodosianus of 438. Most fundamentally, it advocates approaching those codifications in the first instance as codifications, rather than as assemblages of individual texts that can be extracted piecemeal and read in isolation. S.’s insistence on this point will push scholars whose primary interest lies in the historical trajectories of agricultural exploitation and economic relationships in the period to reconsider their strategies for employing these legal sources in pursuit of their aims.

The ‘retrograde’ reading strategy is baked into the structure of the book. S. begins, traditionally enough, with an introduction that provides a historiographical survey, explores the relevant sources, and lays out and defends his methodology. The remainder of the book proceeds in reverse chronological order, from ‘The Colonate in the East under Justinian, 527/534–565/642’ (Chapter 1) through ‘The Colonate in the Year 438 in Theodosius’ Code’ (Chapter 2), ‘The Colonate in the East, 438–527’ (Chapter 3) and ‘The Colonate in the West, 438–ca. 506’ (Chapter 4) to conclude with ‘The Colonate between Theodosius’ Code and Diocletian and the Third Century, 438–293/268/249’ (Chapter 5). At 116 pages and 92 pages, respectively, Chapters 1 and 2 comprise over half of the book’s page count – unsurprisingly, of course, given the stated aim to establish a methodology for reading codifications in their particular moments. S. begins by tendering a systematic construction of the legal framework that, he argues, underpinned the organisational decision-making of Justinian’s codifiers when they assembled the scattered, disparate references to the colonate. He suggests: ‘Since Justinian codified the existing law on the colonate … we may assume that they [sc. the laws preserved in his codification] present a consistent picture of the legal side of the colonate in as far as it is incorporated in legislation’ (p. 31). This moment of cogency and comprehensiveness then serves as the standard against which he measures the evidence from earlier periods.

The increasingly patchy nature of that evidence makes it increasingly difficult to draw firm conclusions about the nature, coherence, even the existence of this institution as we move through the book – and back in time. This is a well-known challenge, and it is precisely the problem that S. seeks to solve by adopting this methodology. He is scrupulous throughout to remind readers that his primary interest lies in establishing the most detailed expression of the legal institution of the colonate. Only then can he explore the deep, diffuse and diverse strands of legal thinking that were, ultimately, combined into this institution. He encapsulates the tension that this project produces in the final pages: ‘Was there a colonate? Yes, already for the reason that legal texts of the fourth to sixth century speak of a ius colonatus and a condicio coloniaria, thus of a complex of legal rules around a phenomenon called the colonatus … Was there a colonate? No, not in the sense that it was a sharply outlined legal or social status which was at a certain moment in its entirety introduced, or that it was a phase in the agrarian production mode of Antiquity, succeeding the slave economy and being a precursor of the serfs of the early Middle Ages’ (pp. 308–9).

This is both a measured and a pointed conclusion, and it perfectly encapsulates the delicate path that S. treads through the debate. Scholars steeped in that debate will appreciate the care with which he proffers his positions on many of its enduring questions. He emphasises that the colonate was not universal, nor was it a tenancy arrangement tout court. Rather, it was an agreement concerning labour and debt. The debt pertained specifically to the capitatio humana or head-tax of the farmer, which a large landowner agreed to guarantee, including ultimately paying if necessary. In exchange, the farmer agreed to provide certain labour services to his guarantor. In the first instance, this agreement was entered into voluntarily – even at the time of Justinian. By means of registration in the estate’s census (which consequently became the colonus’s origo), this private agreement became a matter of public law and a legal status (condicio) that entailed falling under the potestas of another. The property of the colonus was understood to act as security for his debt to his dominus (a term that S. chooses to translate throughout as ‘master’), with the result that his capacity to alienate that property was severely limited: indeed, it came to be treated analogously to the peculium of a slave or a son in the potestas of his father.

Of course, not all of S.’s intended interlocutors will agree with all of these positions. Some will raise their eyebrows at the retrograde reading strategy adopted, and the hints of a teleological project that attend it. It is, in addition, not always clear what S. means when he speaks of the colonate, the ius colonatus and the condicio coloniaria. At times, especially in the latter chapters, these three phenomena seem to blend into one another, with the result that the institution labelled in modern scholarship the colonate, the scattered references in the legal sources to a specific ius concerning this institution and the collection of socio-legal consequences in terms of status (condicio) that attended it acquire the feel of a mutually reinforcing tautology.

But these are quibbles. Judged by the criteria it sets for itself, namely to chart and interpret the legal rules that together constituted the colonate, this is a remarkable achievement. Moreover, in setting out those rules so carefully and cogently, the book prompts a new collection of questions, which bring scholarship on the colonate into closer alignment with recent explorations of the consequences and impacts of law in everyday lived practice in this world: who is going to the law to initiate or enforce this legally constituted institution, and how much legal knowledge do they possess when they do so? What room for slippage or subjective interpretation existed in documenting the mutual obligations of participants, and how might those slippages be exploited by all parties? What role(s), simply put, did the law play in the quotidian transaction of economic life and power relations in this world?