The provincial country landowner and the small farmer were almost taxed out of existence by this monstrous system. Every ten or fifteen years, it is true, a revision of the assessments took place, and there were certain officials, with the significant name of _defensores_, whose duty it was to prevent the provincials from being fleeced too flagrantly. But a man might easily be reduced to beggary by a succession of bad harvests before the year of revision came round, and the _defensor’s_ office was a sinecure except in the rare occasions when he knew that he would be backed at the headquarters of the diocese. During Constantine’s reign, or at least during its closing years, there is overpowering evidence that the provincial governors were allowed to plunder at discretion. They imitated the reckless prodigality of their sovereign, who, in 331, was compelled to issue an edict to restrain the peculation of his officers. There is a very striking phrase in Ammianus Marcellinus who says that while Constantine started the practice of opening the greedy jaws of his favourites, his son, Constantius, fattened them up on the very marrow of the provinces.[147] Evidently, the incidence of this land tax inflicted great hardships and had the mischievous result of draining the province of capital, and of dragging down to ruin the independent cultivator of the land. Hence districts were constantly in arrears of payment, and the remission of outstanding debt to the treasury was usually the first step taken by an Emperor to court popularity with his subjects. ----- Footnote 147: _Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Consiantinus sed eos medullis provinciarum saginavit Constantius_ (xvi., c. 8, 12). ----- In short, the fiscal system of the Empire, so far as its most important item, the land tax, was concerned, seemed expressly designed to exhaust the wealth of the provinces. It helped to introduce a system of caste, which became more rigid and cramping as the years passed by and the necessities of the treasury became more urgent. It also powerfully contributed to crush out of existence the yeoman farmer, whose insolvency was followed, if not by slavery, at any rate by a serfdom which just as effectually robbed him of freedom of movement. The _colonus_ having lost the title-deeds of his own land became the hireling of another, paying in kind a fixed proportion of his stock and crops, and obliged to give personal service for so many days on that part of the estate where his master resided. The position of the poor _colonus_, in fact, became precisely similar to that of a slave who had not obtained full freedom but had reached the intermediate state of serfdom, in which he was permanently attached to a certain estate as, so to speak, part of the fixtures. He was said to be “ascribed to the land” (_ascripticius_), and he had no opportunity of bettering his social position or enabling his sons to better theirs, unless they were recruited for the legions.