Noun
colonus (plural coloni)
(historical) A sharecropping tenant farmer of the late Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages.
In addition to being in a clearly more powerful position in Oedipus at Colonus, Eteocles and Polynices are also culpable: they consent (l. 429, Theodoridis, tr.) to their father's going to exile, which is one of his bitterest charges against them. Source: Internet
Lucas 1964, p. 128. According to some accounts, however, his own sons tried to have him declared incompetent near the end of his life; he is said to have refuted their charge in court by reading from his as yet unproduced Oedipus at Colonus. Source: Internet
Finally Oedipus departs to a mysterious death; he is apparently swallowed into the earth of Colonus, where he will become a power and a mysterious source of defense to the land that has given him final refuge. Source: Internet
Philoctetes is known to have been written in 409 BC, and Oedipus at Colonus is known to have only been performed in 401 BC, posthumously, at the initiation of Sophocles' grandson. Source: Internet
Sophocles In Sophocles 's play, Oedipus at Colonus, it is significant that he comes to his final resting place in the grove dedicated to the Erinyes. Source: Internet
Several factors conspired to merge the status of former slaves and former free farmers into a dependent class of such coloni: it was possible to be described as servus et colonus, "both slave and colonus". Source: Internet