Migrant Workers in Late Antiquity

[Lothia]

In her book, Daily Life in Late Antiquity, Kristina Sessa mentions Migrant Farm Workers.

Her book is a unique look at life in the Later Roman Empire.  Unlike the books, Working IX to V by Vicki Leon, or Invisible Romans by Robert Knapp, this looks at the forces that moulded the life of the aristocrat and the peasant.

However, I have a question about something she mentioned.  Migrant Farm Workers.  All I had read before seemed to indicate that all peasants were bound to the land for tax purposes.  How then, does a migrant worker fit in and why had I not read of this before?

[Robert Vermaat]

I think that, as in every agrarian society, Roman farmers also needed extra workers to harvest their crops. Therefore, in order to gain these extra hands, there must have been workers that travelled from region to region to follow the harvesttime.

[Sean Manning]

If you can get to a library, see "Bringing in the Sheaves: Economy and Metaphor in the Roman World" by Brent Shaw

[Lothia]

Bringing in the Sheaves

Thanks. Now that the library here is open again, I will do an Inter-Library loan and see if I can find it.

Tom

[Till_When?]

Do we have any information regarding where these migrant workers came from? Were they landless countryside dwellers, impoverished urbanites, freed slaves without resources, "actual" immigrants?

[Lothia]

Ave, Till_When,

No, I don't. I just ran across that information in the book and wondered how it worked.