Chapter X: Appendix: Some Byzantine Authorities (9)

And yet in the last days of the Republic, when the fabric of the state was cracking under repeated strains, we are told that, among the various types of men led by financial embarrassments to favour revolutionary schemes, one well-marked group consisted of great landlords. These men, says[626] Cicero, though deep in debt, could quite well pay what they owe by selling their lands. But they will not do this: they are ‘land-proud.’ The income from their estates will not cover the interest on their debts, but they go on foolishly trying to make it do so. In this struggle they are bound to be beaten. In other words, the return on their landed estates is not enough to support a life of extravagance in Rome. So they borrow, at high interest. The creditors of course take good security, with a margin for risks. So, in order to keep the social status of a great landlord, the borrower takes a loan of less than the capital value of his land, while he has to pay for the accommodation more than the income from the land. Ruin is the certain end of such finance, and it is only in a revolution that there is any hope of ‘something turning up’ in favour of the debtor. We must not suppose that all or most of the great landlords of the day had reached the stage of embarrassment described by Cicero. That there were some in that plight, is not to be doubted, even when we have allowed freely for an orator’s overstatements. But it is hardly rash to suppose that there were some landlords who were not in debt, at least to a serious extent, either through good returns from their lands or from other investments, or even from living thriftily. What seems quite clear is that large-scale farming of land was by no means so remunerative financially as other forms of investment; and that though, as pointed out above, it was carried on with not a few points in its favour.

In the same descriptive passage[627] the orator refers to another class of landowners ripe for revolution. These were the veterans of Sulla, settled by him as _coloni_ on lands of farmers dispossessed on pretext of complicity with his Marian opponents. Their estates were no doubt on a smaller scale than those of the class just spoken of above. But they were evidently comfortable allotments. The discharged soldiers made bad farmers. They meant to enjoy the wealth suddenly bestowed, and they had no notion of economy. Their extravagance, one form of which was the keeping of a number[628] of slaves, soon landed them hopelessly in debt. So they also saw their only chance of recovery in a renewal of civil war and fresh confiscations. It was said that a number of necessitous rustics (probably some of the very men ejected from the farms) were ready to join them in a campaign of plunder. Here we have a special picture of the military colonist, one of the most sinister figures in the last age of the Republic. It is no doubt highly coloured, but the group settled in Etruria were probably some of the worst specimens. In such hands agriculture could not flourish, and the true interests of Rome could hardly have suffered a more deadly blow than the transfer of Italian lands from those who could farm them to those who could not. It was not merely that lands were ‘let down.’ Italy was made less able to maintain a native population, fitted and willing to serve the state in peace and war. The effects of this diminution of the free rustic population were most seriously felt under the Empire. Writers of the Augustan age deplore[629] the disappearance of the old races in a large part of Italy, displaced by alien slaves; and their cry is repeated by later generations. The imperial country that had conquered the Mediterranean world became dependent on subjects and foreigners for her own defence.

The evil plight of agriculture in Cicero’s day was merely a continuation and development of the process observable in the second century. Experience had probably moderated some of the crude and blundering methods of the land-grabbers whose doings provoked the agrarian movement of the Gracchi. But in essence the system was the same. And it was a failure, a confessed evil. Why? It is easy to reply that slave-labour is wasteful; and this is I believe an economic truism. But it is well to look a little further. Let me begin by quoting from an excellent book[630] written at a time when this subject was one of immediate practical interest. ‘The profitableness which has been attributed to slavery is profitableness estimated exclusively from the point of view of the proprietor of slaves.... The profits of capitalists may be increased by the same process by which the gross revenue of a country is diminished, and therefore the community as a whole may be impoverished through the very same means by which a portion of its number is enriched. The economic success of slavery therefore is perfectly consistent with the supposition that it is prejudicial to the material wellbeing of the country where it is established.’ These propositions I do not dispute: I had come to the same conclusion long before I read this passage. I further admit that in the case of Rome and Italy the community as a whole was impoverished by the slave-system: it was the constant influx of tributes from the provinces that kept up the appearance of wealth at the centre of empire. But whether, in the case of agriculture, the capitalist landlords were really enriched by the profits of plantation slavery, is surely a question open to doubt.

Those of them whose capital sunk in great estates and gangs of slaves brought in only a moderate return, while they were borrowing at a higher rate of interest, were certainly not the richer for their landed investments. To keep up a fictitious show of solid wealth for the moment, they were marching to ruin. But the man who made his income from landed estates suffice for his needs,—can we say that he was enriched thereby? Hardly, if he was missing the chance of more remunerative investments by having his money locked up in land. He made a sacrifice, in order to gratify a social pride which had in Roman public life a certain political value. Under the Republic, this political value might be realized in the form of provincial or military appointments, profitable through various species of blackmail. But the connexion of such profits with ownership of great plantations is too remote to concern us here. A smart country-place, where influential friends could be luxuriously entertained, was politically more to the point. Now if, as seems certain, the great plantations were not always (perhaps very seldom were) a strictly economic success, though protected against Transalpine competition[631] in wine and oil, can we discern any defects in the system steadily operating to produce failure?

When we admit that slave-labour is wasteful, we mean that its output as compared with that of free labour is not proportionate to the time spent. Having no hope of bettering his condition, the slave does only just enough to escape punishment; having no interest in the profits of the work, he does it carelessly. If, as we know, the free worker paid by time needs constant watching to keep him up to the mark, much more is this true of the slave. Hence a system of piece-work is disliked by the free man and hardly applicable in practice to the case of the slave. But we are not to forget that the slave, having been bought and paid for, draws no money wage. The interest on his prime cost is on the average probably much less than a free man’s wage; but the master cannot pay him off and be rid of him when the job is done. The owned labourer is on his owner’s hands so long as that owner owns him. Against this we must set the very low standard of feeding clothing housing etc allowed in the case of the slave. Nor must we ignore the economic advantage of slavery as ensuring a permanent supply of labour: for the free labourer was (and is) not always to be had when wanted. These were pretty certainly the considerations that underlay the organization described by the Roman writers on _res rustica_; a regular staff of slaves for everyday work, supplemented by hired labour at times of pressure or for special jobs. And the growing difficulty of getting hired help probably furnished the motive for developing the system of _coloni_. By letting parcels of an estate to small tenants a landlord could secure the presence of resident freemen in his neighbourhood. These in their spare time could be employed as labourers. At how early a date stipulation for labour in part payment of their rents placed such tenants on a ‘soccage’ footing is not certain. It has rightly or not, been detected in Columella. At all events it contained the germ of predial serfdom.

Now, so long as slave-labour was the permanent and vital element in agriculture, success or failure depended entirely on the efficiency of direction and control. Accordingly the regular organization of a great estate was a complete hierarchy. At the head was the _vilicus_, having under him foremen skilled in special branches of farm work and head-shepherds and the like. Even among the rank and file of the slaves many had special duties occupying all or part of their time, for it was an object to fix responsibility. But it is clear that the efficiency of the whole organization depended on that of the _vilicus_. And he was a slave, the chattel of a master who could inflict on him any punishment he chose. The temptation to rob his master[632] for his own profit was probably not nearly so strong as we might on first thoughts suppose. If he had contrived to hoard the fruits of his pilferings in portable cash, what was he to do with it? He was not free to abscond with it. He would be well known in the neighbourhood: if any slave could escape detection as a runaway, it would not be he. And detection meant the loss of all his privileges as steward, with severe punishment to boot. His obvious policy was to cling to his stewardship, to induce his master to let him keep a few beasts of his own (as _peculium_)[633] on some corner of the estate, and to wait on events. It might be that he looked forward to manumission after long service. But I cannot find any authority for such a supposition, or any concrete instance of a manumitted _vilicus_. This inclines me to believe that in practice to such a man manumission was no boon. He was in most cases a native of some distant country, where he had long been forgotten. The farm of his lord was the nearest thing he had to a home. I am driven to suppose that as a rule he kept his post as long as he could discharge its duties, and then sank into the position of a quasi-pensioned retainer who could pay for his keep by watching his successor. Ordinary slaves when worn out may have been put to light duties about the farm, care of poultry etc, and he might direct them, so far as the new steward allowed. I am guessing thus only in reference to average cases. The brutal simplicity of selling off worn-out slaves for what they would fetch was apparently not unknown, and is approved[634] by Cato.

It has been briefly hinted above that the steward’s obvious interest lay in preventing his master from expecting too much in the way of returns from the estate. The demand for net income, that is to say the treatment of agriculture as an investment yielding a steady return year in and year out, was economically unsound. A landlord in public life wanted a safe income; interest on good debentures, as we should say. But to guarantee this some capitalist was needed to take the risks of business, of course with the prospect of gaining in good years more than he lost in bad ones. Now the Roman landlord had no such protection. In a business subject to unavoidable fluctuations he was not only entitled to the profits but liable to the losses. Imagine him just arrived from Rome, pledged already to some considerable outlay on shows or simple bribery, and looking for a cash balance larger than that shewn at the last audit. Let the steward meet him with a tale of disaster, and conceive his fury. Situations of this kind must surely have occurred, perhaps not very seldom: and one of the two men was in the absolute power of the other. We need not imagine the immediate[635] sequel. Stewards on estates for miles round would be reminded of their own risks of disgrace and punishment, and would look to their own security. I suggest that the habitual practice of these trusted men was to keep the produce of an estate down to a level at which it could easily be maintained; and, if possible, to represent it as being even less than it really was. Thus they removed a danger from themselves. This policy implied an easygoing management of the staff, but the staff were not likely to resent or betray it. A master like Cato was perhaps not to be taken in by a device of the kind: but Catos were rare, and the old man’s advice to look sharply after your _vilicus_ sounds as if he believed many masters to be habitually fooled by their plausible stewards. If such was indeed the case, here we have at once a manifest cause of the decline of agriculture. The restriction of production would become year by year easier to arrange and conceal, harder and harder to detect. The employment of freemen[636] as stewards seems not to have been tried as a remedy; partly perhaps because they would have insisted on good salaries, partly because they were free to go,—and, if rogues[637], not empty-handed.

The cause to which I have pointed is one that could continue operating from generation to generation, and was likely so to continue until such time as the free farmer should once more occupy the land. The loving care that agriculture needs could only return with him. It was not lack of technical knowledge that did the mischief; Varro’s treatise is enough to prove that. It was the lack of personal devotion in the landlords and motive in the stewards. Principles without practice failed, as they have failed and will fail. Nor must we lay much stress on the disturbances of the revolutionary period. Had these, damaging though they were, been the effective cause of decline, surely the long peace under the early Empire would have led to a solid revival. But, though a court poet might sing of revival to please his master, more serious witnesses tell a different tale. In the middle of the first century AD we have Lucan Columella and the elder Pliny. If Lucan’s pictures of the countryside peopled with slave-gangs, and of the decay of free population, are suspected as rhetorically overdrawn, at least they agree with the evidence of Livy in the time of Augustus, so far as the parts near Rome are concerned. Columella[638] gravely deplores the neglect of agriculture, in particular the delegation of management to slaves. The landlord and his lady have long abdicated their interest in what was once a noble pursuit: it is now a degrading one, and their places are taken by the _vilicus_ and _vilica_. Yet all he can suggest is a more perfect organization of the slave-staff, and the letting of outlying farms to tenants. Pliny tells the same woeful story. And while he vents his righteous indignation on the _latifundia_ that have ruined Italy, he also mentions instances of great profits[639] made by cultivators of vines and olives on estates of quite moderate size. But these successful men were not of the social aristocracy: they were freedmen or other humble folks who themselves looked sharply after their own business.

Therefore, when we are told[640], and rightly, that with establishment of the Empire the political attraction of Rome was lessened, and that the interest of wealthy landlords became more strictly economic in character, we must not be in haste to identify this change with a return of genuine prosperity. That a sort of labour-crisis followed the restoration of peace is reasonably inferred from the fact that the kidnapping[641] of freemen, and their incorporation in the slave-gangs of great estates, was one of the abominations with which the early Principate had to deal. In a more peaceful world the supply of new slaves fell off, and the price doubtless rose. It would seem that at the same time free wage-earners were scarce, as was to be expected after the civil wars. So the highwayman, probably often a discharged soldier, laid hands on the unprotected wayfarer. After taking his purse, he made a profit of his victim’s person by selling him as a slave to some landowner in need of labourers, who asked no questions. Once in the _ergastulum_ the man had small chance of regaining his freedom unless and until an inspection of these private prisons was undertaken by the government. Such phenomena are not likely to be the inventions of sensational writers; for the government, heavily weighted with other responsibilities, was driven to intervene and put down the scandal. But to do this was not to supply the necessary labour. That problem remained, and in the attempt to solve it an important development in the organization of large estates seems to have taken place. While the regular labour was as before furnished by the slave-staff, and greater care taken[642] to avoid losses by sickness, and while even the breeding of slaves under certain restrictions was found worthy of attention, the need of extra hands at certain seasons was met by an arrangement for retaining potential free labourers within easy reach. This was an extension of the system of tenant _coloni_. Parcels of the estate were let to small farmers, whose residence was thereby assured. Columella[643] advises a landlord in dealing with his tenants to be more precise in exacting from them work (_opus_) than rent (_pensiones_), and Weber[644] takes _opus_ to mean not merely the proper cultivation of their several plots but a stipulated amount of labour on the lord’s farm. The practice of exacting labour from debtors[645] in discharge of their debt was not a new one, and this arrangement seems to be the same in a more systematic form. By taking care to keep the little farm sufficiently small, and fixing the rent sufficiently high, the tenant was pretty certain to be often behind with his rent. In such conditions, even if the tenant did not encumber himself by further borrowing, it is clear that he was very liable to sink into a ‘soccage’ tenant, bound to render regular services without wage. Nominally free, he was practically tied to the soil; while the landlord, nominally but the owner of the soil, gradually acquired what was of more value than a money rent,—the ownership of his tenant’s services. In the growing scarcity of slave labour the lord had a strong motive for insisting on his rights, and so the free worker travelled down the road to serfdom.

In reviewing the history of rustic slavery, and its bearing on the labour-question, from the end of the second Punic war to the time of Marcus Aurelius, it is not necessary to refer to every indication of the discontents that were normal in the miserable slave-gangs. A few actual outbreaks of which we have definite records will serve to illustrate the sort of sleeping volcano, ever liable to explode, on which thousands of Italian landlords were sitting. The writers on agriculture were fully conscious of the peril, and among various precepts designed to promote order (and, so far as possible, contentment) none is more significant than the advice[646] not to have too many slaves of the same race. Dictated by the desire to make rebellious combinations difficult, this advice is at least as old as Plato[647] and Aristotle.

So early as 196 BC we hear[648] of a slave-rising in Etruria, put down with great severity by a military force. In 185 there was a great rising[649] of slave-herdsmen (_pastores_) in Apulia, put down by the officer then commanding the SE district. In about another half-century we begin the series of slave-wars which troubled the Roman world for some 60 or 70 years and caused a vast destruction of lives and property. It was the growth of the plantation system under a weak and distracted government that made such horrors possible. In 139 we hear of a rising in Sicily, where the plantation system was in full swing. From 135 there was fierce war[650] in the island, not put down till 131 after fearful bloodshed. The war of Aristonicus[651] in the new province of Asia, from 132 to 130, seems to have been essentially a slave-war. In Sicily the old story[652] was repeated 103-99 with the same phenomena and results. And in the last age of the Republic, 73 to 71 BC, Italy was devastated by the bands of Spartacus, a joint force of gladiators[653] and rustic slaves. For many months the country was at their mercy, and their final destruction was brought about more by their own disunion than by the sword of Roman legions. It is recorded[654] to the credit of Catiline that he refused to enlist rustic slaves in the armed force with which he fought and fell at Pistoria, resisting the less scrupulous advice of his confederates in Rome. During the upheaval of the great civil wars the slaves enjoyed unusual license. Many took arms: probably many others escaped from bondage. But the establishment of the Empire, though the supply of slave labour was not equal to the demand, did not put an end to slave-risings. For instance, in 24 AD a former soldier of the Imperial Guard planned an insurrection[655] in the neighbourhood of Brundisium. By promising freedom to the bold slave-herdsmen scattered about the Apennine forests he got together what was evidently a force of considerable strength. The lucky arrival of a squadron of patrol vessels enabled the local quaestor to break up the conspiracy before it could make head. But Tiberius did not dally with so serious a matter: a detachment of troops carried off the ringleader and his chief accomplices to Rome. Tacitus remarks that there was in the city a widespread uneasiness, owing to the enormous growth of slave-gangs while the freeborn population was declining.

These specimens are enough to illustrate a public danger obvious _a priori_ and hardly needing illustration. The letter of Tiberius[656] to the Senate in 22 AD shews how he had brooded over the social and economic condition of Italy. He saw clearly that the appearance of prosperity in a country where parks and mansions multiplied, and where tillage was still giving way to pasturage, was unsound. He knew no doubt that these signs pointed to the decline of the free rural population as still in progress. As an experienced general he could hardly ignore the value of such a free population for recruiting armies to serve the state, or regard its decline with indifference. He refers to the burden of imperial responsibilities. Now the system inherited from Augustus set Italy in a privileged position as the imperial land. Surely Tiberius cannot have overlooked the corresponding liability of Italy to take a full share in the defence of the empire. Yet in present circumstances her supply of vigorous manhood was visibly failing. If the present tendencies continued to act, the present system would inevitably break down. But, however much Tiberius was inclined to do justice to the Provinces, he could not escape his first duty to Italy without a complete change of system: and for this he was not prepared. Such misgivings of course could not be expressed in a letter to the Senate; but that an Emperor, temperamentally prone to worry, did not foresee the coming debility and degradation of Italy, and fret over the prospect, is to me quite incredible.

The movement for checking luxury, which drew this letter from Tiberius, resulted according to Tacitus in a temporary reduction of extravagance in entertainments. The influence of senators brought in from country towns or the Provinces helped in promoting a simpler life. It was example, not legislation, that effected whatever improvement was made. It was the example of Vespasian that did most to reform domestic economy. But the historian was well aware that reforms depending on the lead of individuals are transient. We have no reason to believe that any lasting improvement of agriculture was produced by these fitful efforts. From stray references in Tacitus, from the letters of the younger Pliny, from notices in Juvenal and Martial, it is evident that in the great plain of the Cisalpine and in the Italian hill country farming of one kind or another went on and prospered. In such districts a real country life might be found. But this was no new development: it had never ceased. Two conditions were necessary, remoteness from Rome and difficulty of access, which often coincided. Estates near the city (_suburbana_) were mostly, if not in all cases, held as resorts for rest or pleasure. If a steward could grow a fair supply of farm-produce, so much the better: but the duty of having all ready for visits of the master and his friends was the first charge on his time and attention. Even at some considerable distance from the city the same condition prevailed, if an estate lay near a main road and thus could be reached without inconvenient exertion.

XXIII. CATO.

The book _de agri cultura_[657] of =M Porcius Cato= (234-149 BC) is a remarkable work by a remarkable man. It is generally agreed that it represents his views, though the form in which it has come down to us has led to differences of opinion as to the degree in which the language has been modified in transmission. We need only consider some of the contemporary facts and movements with which Cato was brought into contact and which affected his mental attitude as a public man. He took part in the second Punic war, and died just as the third war was beginning: thus he missed seeing the destruction of the great city which it had in his later years been his passion to destroy. The success of the highly organized Punic agriculture is said[658] to have been one of the circumstances that alarmed his keen jealousy: but we can hardly doubt that he like others got many a hint from the rustic system of Carthage. Another of his antagonisms was a stubborn opposition to Greek influences. In the first half of the second century BC, the time of his chief activities, these influences were penetrating Roman society more and more deeply as Roman supremacy spread further and further to the East. We need not dwell on his denunciations of Greek corruption in general and warnings against the menace to Roman thrift and simplicity. A good instance may be found in the injunction[659] to his son, to have nothing whatever to do with Greek doctors, a pack of rascals who mean to poison all ‘barbarians,’ who charge fees to enhance the value of their services, and have the impudence to apply the term ‘barbarians’ to us. The leader of the good-old-Roman party was at least thorough in his hates. And his antipathies were not confined to foreigners and foreign ways, but found ample scope at home in opposition to the newer school of politicians, whose views were less narrow and hearty than his own.

In Cato’s time the formation of great landed estates, made easy by the ruin of many peasant farmers in the second Punic war, was in full swing. The effective government of Rome was passing more and more into the hands of the Senate, and the leading nobles did not neglect their opportunities of adding to their own wealth and power. Sharing the military appointments, they enriched themselves with booty and blackmail abroad, particularly in the eastern wars: and, being by law excluded from open participation in commerce, they invested a good part of their gains in Italian land. From what we learn as to the stale of Italy during the last century of the Republic, it seems certain that this land-grabbing process took place chiefly if not wholly in the more accessible parts of the country, so far as arable lands were concerned. Etruria and the districts of central Italy near Rome were especially affected, and also Lucania. Apulia soon became noted for its flocks and herds, which grazed there in winter and were driven in the summer months to the mountain pastures of Samnium. The pasturage of great private ‘runs’ (_saltus_) was thus supplemented by the use of wastes that were still state-property, and the tendency to monopolize these latter on favourable terms was no doubt still growing. With the troubles that arose later out of this system of _possessiones_ we are not here concerned. But the increase of grazing as compared with tillage is an important point; for that it was the most paying sort of farming was one of the facts expressly recognised[660] by Cato. The working of estates on a large scale was promoted by the plentiful supply of slaves in this period. On arable lands they were now employed in large gangs, sometimes working in chains, under slave overseers whose own privileges depended on their getting the utmost labour out of the common hands. In pastoral districts they enjoyed much greater freedom. The time was to come when these _pastores_, hardy ruffians, often armed against wild beasts, would be a public danger. But for the present it is probable that one of their chief recommendations was that they cost next to nothing for their keep.

No man knew better than Cato that it was not on such a land-system as this that Rome had thriven in the past and risen to her present greatness. He was proud[661] of having worked hard with his own hands in youth, and he kept up the practice of simple living on his own estate, sitting down to meals with the slaves[662] whom he ruled with the strictness of a practical farmer. Around him was going on the extension of great ill-managed properties owned by men whom political business and intrigues kept nearly all the year in Rome, and who gave little personal attention to the farming of their estates. When the landlord rebuilt his _villa_, and used his new country mansion mainly for entertaining friends, the real charge of the farm more and more passed to the plausible slave who was always on the spot as steward. Cato knew very well that these _vilici_ did not as a rule do the best for their lords. They had no real interest in getting the most out of the land. The owner, who wanted ready money for his ambitions and pleasures, was hardly the man to spend it on material improvements in hope of an eventual increase of income: thus a steward could easily find excuses for a low standard of production really due to his own slackness. All this demoralizing letting-down of agriculture was anathema to the champion of old-Roman ideas and traditions. It was a grave factor in the luxury and effeminacy that to his alarm were undermining the solid virtues of the Roman people. Above all things, it had what to his intensely Roman nature was the most fatal of defects—it did not pay. Roman nobles were in fact making their chief profits out of plundering abroad, and ceasing to exercise old-fashioned economy at home. With the former evil Cato waged open war as statesman and orator. How he dealt with the latter as a writer on agriculture I proceed to inquire.

We may classify the several points of view from which agriculture could be regarded under a few heads, and see what position in relation to each of these was taken up by Cato. First, as to the scale of farming operations. He does not denounce great estates. He insists on the maintenance of a due proportion[663] between the house and the land. Neither is to be too big for the other. A decent dwelling[664] will induce the landlord to visit his estate more often; a fine mansion will be costly and tempt him to extravagance. Secondly, it is on this frequent personal attention that successful management depends. For your steward needs the presence of the master’s eye to keep him to his duty. Thirdly, he accepts the position that the regular staff of labourers are to be slaves, and some at least of these[665] are in chains (_compediti_). For special work, in time of harvest etc, extra labour is to be hired, and of this some is free labour, perhaps not all. For contractors employing gangs of labourers play a considerable part. Their remuneration may be in cash, or they may receive a share[666] of the produce (_partiario_). Some of their labourers are certainly free: if they do not pay the wages regularly, the _dominus_ is to pay them and recover from the contractor. But it is not clear that contractors employed freemen exclusively, and there is some indication[667] of the contrary. Fourthly, there is no suggestion of a return to quite small peasant holdings, though he opens the treatise with an edifying passage[668] on the social political and military virtues of farmers, and cites the traditional description of _virum bonum_ as being _bonum agricolam bonumque colonum_. For his own scheme is not one for enabling a poor man to win a living for himself and family out of a little patch of ground. It is farming for profit; and, though not designed for a big _latifundium_, it is on a considerable scale. He contemplates[669] an oliveyard of 240 _iugera_ and a vineyard of 100 _iugera_, not to mention all the other departments, and the rigid precepts for preventing waste and getting the most out of everything are the most striking feature of his book. The first business[670] of an owner, he says, is not to buy but to sell. Fifthly, it is important to notice that he does not suggest letting all or part of the estate to tenants. He starts by giving good advice as to the pains and caution[671] needed in buying a landed property. But, once bought, he assumes that the buyer will keep it in hand and farm it for his own account. It has been said on high authority[672] that the plan of letting farms to tenant _coloni_ was ‘as old as Italy.’ I do not venture to deny this. But my inquiry leads me to the conviction that in early times such an arrangement was extremely rare: the granting of a plot of land during pleasure (_precario_) by a patron to a client was a very different thing. Cato only uses the word[673] _colonus_ in the general sense of _cultivator_, and so far as he is concerned we should never guess that free tenant farmers were known in Italy. Sixthly, whereas in Varro and Columella we find the influence of later Greek thought shewn in a desire to treat even rustic slaves as human and to appeal to the lure of reward rather than the fear of punishment, to Cato the human chattel seems on the level of the ox. When past work, both ox and slave are to be sold[674] for what they will fetch. This he himself says, and his doctrine was duly recorded by Plutarch as a mark of his hard character. It is therefore not surprising that he makes no reference to slaves having any quasi-property (_peculium_) of their own, though the custom of allowing this privilege was surely well known to him, and was probably very ancient. If the final fate of the slave was to be sold as rubbish in order to save his keep, there was not much point in letting him keep a few fowls or grow a few vegetables in some waste corner of the farm. But another characteristic story raises some doubt in this matter. We are told that, having remarked that sexual passion was generally the cause of slaves getting into mischief, he allowed them[675] to have intercourse with the female slaves at a fixed tariff. Now, to afford himself this indulgence, a slave must have had a _peculium_. But Cato did not think it worth mentioning,—unless of course we assume that a reference has dropped out of the text. Nor does he refer to manumission: but we hear of his having a freedman—probably not a farm-slave at all.

Cato’s position, taken as a whole, shews no sign of a reactionary aim, no uncompromising desire of reversion to a vanished past. Nor does he fall in with the latest fashion, and treat the huge _latifundium_ as the last word in landowning. His precepts have in view a fairly large estate, and perhaps we may infer that he thought this about as much as a noble landlord, with other calls upon his energies, could farm through a steward without losing effective control. He does not, like the Carthaginian Mago, insist on the landlord residing[676] permanently on the estate. In truth he writes as an opportunist. For this man, who won his fame as the severest critic of his own times, knew very well that contemporary Romans of good station and property would never consent to abdicate their part in public life and settle down to merely rustic interests. Nor indeed would such retirement have been consistent with Roman traditions. But conditions had greatly changed since the days of the farmer-nobles who could easily attend the Senate or Assembly at short notice. The far greater extent of territory over which modern estates were spread made it impossible to assume that they all lay near the city. And yet the attraction of Rome was greater than ever. It was the centre and head of a dominion already great, and in Cato’s day ever growing. The great critic might declaim against the methods and effects of this or that particular conquest and denounce the iniquities of Roman officials: but he himself bore no light hand in advancing the power of Rome, and thereby in making Rome the focus of the intrigues and ambitions of the Mediterranean world. So he accepted the land-system of the new age, and with it the great extension of slave-labour and slave-management, and tried to shew by what devotion and under what conditions it could be made to pay. It must be borne in mind that slave-labour on the land was no new thing. It was there from time immemorial, ready for organization on a large scale; and it was this extension of an existing institution that was new. Agriculture had once been to the ordinary Roman citizen the means of livelihood. It was now, in great part of the most strictly Roman districts of Italy, becoming industrialized as a field for investment of capital by the senatorial class, who practically controlled the government and were debarred from openly engaging in commerce. The exploitation of rustic properties as income-producing securities was merely a new phase of the grasping hard-fisted greed characteristic of the average Roman. Polybius, observing Roman life in this very age with Greek eyes, was deeply impressed[677] by this almost universal quality. And Cato himself was a Roman of Romans. Plutarch[678] has preserved for us the tradition of his economic career. As a young man of small means he led the hard life of a farmer, as he was not shy of boasting[679] in later years, and was a strict master of slaves. But he did not find farming sufficiently remunerative, so he embarked on other enterprises. Farming remained rather as a pastime than a source of income: but he took to safe and steady investments, such as rights over lakes, hot springs, fullers’ premises, and land that could be turned to profit[680] through the presence of natural pasture and woodland. From these properties he drew large returns not dependent on the weather. By employing a freedman as his agent, he lent money on bottomry, eluding the legal restriction on senators; and by combining with partners in the transaction he distributed and so minimized the risks of a most profitable business. And all through life he dealt in slaves[681], buying them young, training them, and selling at an enhanced price any that he did not want himself. He bred some on his estate, probably not many. It is said that, in addition to her own children, his wife would suckle[682] slave-babies, as a means of promoting good feeling in the household towards her son.

In these details, of the general truth of which there is no reasonable doubt, we have a picture of a man of astounding versatility and force: for of his political and military activities I have said nothing. But as a writer on agriculture how are we to regard him? Surely not as a thoroughgoing reformer. His experience had taught him that, if you must have a good income (a point on which he and his contemporaries were agreed), you had better not look to get it from farming. But if for land-pride or other reasons you must needs farm, Cato is ready to give you the best practical advice. That many (if indeed any) men of property would take the infinite trouble and pains that his system requires from a landlord, he was probably too wise to believe. But that was their business. He spoke[683] as an oracle; as in public life ‘take it or leave it’ was the spirit of his utterances. The evidence of his life and of his book, taken together, is more clear as shewing the unsatisfactory position of rustic enterprise than from any other point of view.

A few details relative to the staff employed on the estate are worthy of a brief notice. Cato is keenly alive to the importance of the labour-question. In choosing an estate you must ascertain that there is a sufficient local supply[684] of labour. On the face of it this seems to mean free wage-earning labour, though the word _operarius_ is neutral. But in a notable passage, in which he sets forth the advantage of being on friendly terms with neighbours (neighbouring landlords), he says ‘Don’t let your household (_familiam_) do damage: if you are in favour with the neighbourhood, you will find it easier to sell your stock, easier[685] to get employment for your own staff at a wage, easier to hire hands: and if you are engaged in building they (the _vicini_) will give you help in the way of human and animal labour and timber.’ Here we seem to come upon the hiring, not of free labourers, but of a neighbour’s slave hands on payment of a rent to their owner. The case would arise only when some special rough job called for a temporary supply of more labour. It would be the landlord’s interest to keep his neighbours inclined to oblige him. Thus by mutual accommodation in times of pressure it was possible to do with a less total of slaves than if each farm had had to be provided with enough labour for emergencies. We may also remark that it made the slaveowner less dependent on free wage-earners, who would probably have raised their demands when they saw the landlord at their mercy. It must always be borne in mind that Cato is writing solely from the landlord’s point of view.

The leading fact relative to the staff is that the steward or head man (_vilicus_) under whom the various workers, slave or free, are employed is himself a slave. So too the _vilica_, usually his consort. Their position is made quite clear by liability to punishment and by their disqualification[686] from performance of all save the most ordinary and trivial religious ceremonies. Their duties are defined by jealous regulations. But in order to keep the steward up to the mark the master must often visit the estate. It is significant that he is advised on arrival to make a round of the place[687] without delay, and not to question his steward until he has thus formed his own impressions independently. Then he can audit accounts, check stores, listen to excuses, give orders, and reprimand failure or neglect. That the master needed to be a man of knowledge and energy in order to make his estate a source of profit when in charge of a steward, is evident. It may well be that Cato insists so strongly on the need of these qualities because they were becoming rare among the nobles of his day. But, though he knew that the efficiency of a slave steward could only be maintained by constant and expert watching, he never suggests the employment of a free man in that capacity. The truth seems to be that the ‘Manager,’ a man paid by salary or percentage and kept up to the mark by fear of ‘losing his place,’ is a comparatively modern figure. In antiquity the employment of Freedmen in positions of trust was a move in that direction, though patrons kept a considerable hold, beyond the purely economic one, on their freedmen. But for charge of a farm Cato does not suggest employment of a freedman.

The blending of free and slave labour might well have been brought out more clearly than it is: but to the author writing for his own contemporaries it would seem needless to enlarge upon a condition which everyone took for granted. Yet there are passages where it is indicated plainly enough. Thus in the olive-press room a bed is provided[688] for two free _custodes_ (apparently foremen) out of three: the third, a slave, is put to sleep with the _factores_, who seem to be the hands employed[689] to work the press, probably slaves, whose labour is merely bodily exertion. The _leguli_ who gather up the olives are probably free, for they are interested[690] in making the amount so gathered as large as possible. Strippers, _strictores_, who pluck the olives from the tree, are also mentioned[691] in the chapter dealing with the harvesting of a hanging crop by a contractor. As the need of care to avoid damaging the trees is insisted on, and all the workers are to take a solemn oath[692] that they have stolen none of the crop, we may fairly infer that they are freemen. When the process of manufacture is let to a contractor, his _factores_ are to take a similar oath, and are probably free. So too when a crop is sold hanging: if the buyer neglects to pay[693] his _leguli_ and _factores_ (which would cause delay) the landlord may pay them himself and recover the amount from the buyer. On the other hand in the grazing department the underlings are slaves. In case of the sale of winter grazing, provision is made[694] for an arbitration for settlement of damages done by the _emptor aut pastores aut pecus emptoris_ to the _dominus_, or by the _dominus aut familia aut pecus_ to the _emptor_. And, until the compensation awarded is paid, the _pecus aut familia_ on the ground is to be held in pledge by the party to whom compensation is due. This would generally be the landlord, and the _familia_ of the _emptor_ would be his _pastores_. Even so, when a speculator buys the season’s lambs, he provides a _pastor_ for two months, and the man is held in pledge[695] by the landlord until the account is finally settled.

There are casual references to other persons employed on the estate whose condition has to be inferred from various indications with more or less certainty. Thus the _capulator_, who draws off the oil from the press into vessels, is connected with the _custos_[696] and is not clearly distinct from him. He may be a slave, but the call for strict cleanliness and care at this stage of the operations rather suggests the free wage-earner. An _epistates_ is mentioned[697] in a chapter on food-rations (_familiae cibaria_), and grouped with the _vilicus_ and _vilica_ and the _opilio_. They receive less food than the common hands engaged in rough manual labour. They are probably all slaves, the _epistates_ being a foreman of some sort, and the _opilio_ the head shepherd, the _magister pecoris_ of whom we often hear later. In the estimates[698] of the equipment required for a farm with oliveyard or vineyard the human staff is included with the other live and dead stock. The _operarii_ mentioned in this connexion are evidently slave hands, and the _bubulcus[699] subulcus asinarius opilio_ and _salictarius_ are the same, only specialized in function. For an oliveyard of 240 _iugera_ the human staff is put at 13 (_summa homines xiii_), for a vineyard of 100 _iugera_ it is 16, and the _operarii_ in particular are 10 as against 5. The greater amount of digging[700] needed on a farm chiefly devoted to vines is the reason of the difference. These estimates are for the permanent staff, the _familia_, owned by the landlords in the same way as the oxen asses mules sheep goats or pigs. So far as common daily labour is concerned, this staff should make the farm self-sufficing.

But there were many operations, connected with the life of the farm, for performing which it was either not desirable or not possible to rely on the regular staff. It would never have paid to maintain men skilled in the work of special trades only needed on rare occasions. Thus for erecting buildings the _faber_[701] is called in: the landlord finds materials, the builder uses them and is paid for his work. Lime is needed for various purposes, and it may be worth while[702] to have a kiln on the estate and do the burning there. But even so it is well to employ a regular limeburner (_calcarius_) for the job. The landlord finds limestone and fuel, and a way of payment is to work on shares (_partiario_) each party taking his share of the lime. The same share-system (according to Keil’s text) is proposed for the operation known as _politio_, which seems to include[703] weeding and ‘cleaning’ of the land, at least for cereal crops, and also is prescribed for the skilled tending of a vineyard. For such works as these it is fairly certain that the persons employed were assumed to be living in the neighbourhood. In the case of the blacksmith[704] (_faber ferrarius_) there can be no doubt, for his forge is spoken of as a fit place for drying grapes, hung presumably in the smoke of his wood fire. Now all these skilled men are evidently free, and work on agreed terms. Some of them are certainly not singlehanded, but whether their underlings are freemen or slaves or both we are left to guess. In all cases their work is such as calls not only for skill and industry but also for good faith, which cannot be expected from slaves. It is in short contract-work, whether the bargain be made in a formal agreement or not.

The employment of contractors, each with his own staff, at times of pressure such as the getting in and disposal of crops, has been referred to above, and it has been remarked that some at least of this emergency-labour was performed by freemen. We must therefore conclude that in Cato’s time there was a considerable supply of casual labourers in country districts, on whose services landlords could rely. The contractor would seem to have been either a ‘ganger’ who bargained for terms with the landlord on behalf of his work-party, or a capitalist owning a gang of slaves. What made the difference would be the nature of the job in hand, according as skill or mere brute strength was chiefly required. But that slave labour was the essential factor, on which Catonian agriculture normally depended, is beyond all doubt. The slave steward is not only responsible[705] for the control of the slave staff (_familia_) and their wellbeing and profitable employment. He is authorized to employ other labour, even free labour, at need; only he must not keep such persons hanging about the place. He is to pay them off and discharge them without delay, no doubt in order to prevent them from unsettling the slaves by their presence. And slaves must never be idle. When a master calls his steward to account for insufficient results on the farm, the latter is expected to plead in excuse not only the weather but shortage of hands; slaves have been sick or have run away; or they have been employed[706] on state-work (_opus publicum effecisse_),—probably in mending the roads, for this is recognized below.

XXIV. AGRICULTURE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.