Economics of Agriculture on Roman Imperial Estates in North Africa : No. 89

A series of inscriptions found in northern Tunisia near the turn of the century document the terms of cultivation on Imperial estates in the Bagradas valley in the second century A.D. They show that tenants cultivating marginal land (' subsecivae' or 'rudis ager') could expect an initial tax-holiday to allow for the start-up period for young olives and young vines. There are obvious echoes of this practice elsewhere. An initial respite from tax appears in the proposal for reviving cultivation on municipal lands in Dio Chrysostom's Euboean Oration, and in a later inscription from Thisbe (K. pp. 110-11), as well as in Pertina's scheme for cultivation of vacant land (K. 63 n.). In the Bagradas valley, in a payment which subsumed rent and tax into one, tenants gave the conductor or lessee one-third of their wine and oil, and paid a third of the grain after the first five years direct to the tax-authorities....

Second Hand. Good condition - light wear to corners of boards.