It has been necessary to dwell upon this subject because it is needful for the present purpose that it should be fully understood that throughout the German provinces of _Rhætia_, the _Agri Decumates_, _Upper and Lower Germany_, in _Belgic Gaul_, and in _Britain_, there were large numbers of German semi-servile settlers upon the _Ager Publicus_ interspersed among the free coloni and veterans; and that most of the settlers, whether free coloni, veterans, or læti, were engaged in agriculture. Some of them, no doubt, especially since the encouragement said to have been given by Probus to vine culture, may have occupied vineyards in Southern Gaul, or in the valleys of the Rhine and its tributaries. Lastly, it must also be remembered that there may have been intermixed among the privileged veterans and the overburdened 'læti,' on the public lands, dwindling remains of original Gallic inhabitants, and other free coloni or tenants, not privileged like the veterans, but subject to the various public burdens. Some of these were scarcely to be distinguished, perhaps, in point of law and right from the owners of villas. They may have been holders of slaves, and have had possibly sometimes even free coloni of their own, though varying very much in the size of their holdings, and falling far below the owners of latifundia in social importance. Be this as it may, we shall presently find the free class of landholders, whoever they might be, sinking steadily into a semi-servile condition under the oppression of the Imperial fiscal officers and the burden of the taxation and services [p289] imposed upon them--the _tributum_ and _sordida munera_--the oppressive exaction of which during the later empire was forcing them gradually to surrender their freedom, and to seek the shelter of a semi-servile position under the _patrocinium_, sometimes of the fiscal officer himself, sometimes of the lord of a neighbouring 'villa.' VI. THE 'TRIBUTUM' OF THE LATER EMPIRE. Passing now to the system of taxation and forced services during the later empire, it will be found to be of peculiar importance, not only because of its connexion with the growing manorial tendencies, but also because the taxation resembled so closely the system of '_hidation_' prevalent afterwards in Saxon England, and some of the forced services actually survived in the manorial system. The system of taxation was modified by the Emperor Diocletian at the very time when the policy of forced colonisation described in the last chapter was being carried out. «The _jugatio_ or assessment by the _jugum_ or _caput_.» It was known as the taxation '_jugatione vel capitatione_'--the tribute or stipendium of so much for every _jugum_ or _caput_. 'Jugum' and 'caput' were names for a hypothetically equal, if not always the same, unit of taxation.[420]