Next comes a general statement of the proper classification of the slave staff according to varieties[1021]of function. For departmental foremen you should choose steady honest fellows, watchfulness and skill being needed rather than brute strength. The hind or plowman must be a big man with a big voice, that the oxen may obey him. And the taller he is the better will he throw his weight on the plough-tail. The mere unskilled labourer[1022]only needs to be fit for continuous hard work. For instance, in a vineyard you want a thickset type of labourer to stand the digging etc, and if they are rogues it does not matter much, as they work in a gang under an overseer (monitore[1023]). By the by, a scamp is generally more quick-witted than the average, and vineyard work calls for intelligence: this is why chained hands[1024]are commonly employed there. Of course, he adds, an honest man is more efficient than a rogue, other things being equal: don’t charge me with a preference for criminals. Another piece of advice is to avoid[1025]mixing up the various tasks performed by the staff on the plan of making every labourer do every kind of work. It does not pay in farming. Either what is every one’s business is felt to be nobody’s duty in particular; or the effort of the individual is credited to the whole of the gang. This sets him shirking, and yet you cannot single out the offender; and this sort of thing is constantly happening. Therefore keep plowmen vineyard-hands and unskilled labourers apart. Then he passes to numerical[1026]divisions. Squads (classes) should be of not more than ten men each,decuriaeas the old name was, that the overseer may keep his eye on all. By spreading such squads over different parts of a large farm it is possible to compare results, to detect laziness, and to escape the irritating unfairness of punishing the wrong men.
The general impression left on a reader’s mind by Columella’s principles of slave-management is one of strict control tempered by judicious humanity. It pays not to be harsh and cruel. Whether we can fairly credit him with disinterested sympathy on grounds of a common human nature, such as Seneca was preaching, seems to me very doubtful. That he regarded the slave as a sort of domesticated animal, cannot so far as I know be gathered from direct statements, but may be inferred by just implication from his use of the same language in speaking of slaves and other live stock. Thus we find[1027]the‘labouring herd,’ and ‘draught-cattle when they are putting in a good spell of work.’ So too the steward is to drive home his slave-gang at dusk ‘after the fashion[1028]of a first-rate herdsman,’ and on arrival first of all to attend to their needs ‘like a careful shepherd.’ The motive of this care is to keep the staff in good working order. Both steward and stewardess are required to pay great attention to the health of the staff. Not only are there prescriptions given for treatment of ailments and injuries, but the slave really stale from overwork is to have a rest; of course malingering must be checked. For the sick there is a special[1029]sick-room, always kept clean and aired, and the general sanitation of the farmstead is strictly enforced. This too is dictated by enlightened self-interest, a part of the general rule[1030]that upkeep is as important as acquisition. The position of the female staff of the farm has also a bearing on this subject. They do not appear to be numerous, though perhaps proportionally more so than in the scheme of Varro. Thevilicahas a number of maids under her for doing the various house-work[1031]and spinning and weaving. We have already noted the rewards of fertility on their part. For the production of home-bred slaves (vernae), always a thing welcomed by proprietors, is most formally recognized by Columella. Why it needed encouragement may perhaps receive some illustration from remarks upon the behaviour of certain birds in the matter of breeding. Thus peafowl do well in places where they can run at large, and the hens take more pains to rear their chicks, being so to speak[1032]set free from slavery. And other birds there are that will not breed in captivity. The analogy of these cases to that of human slaves can hardly have escaped the notice of the writer.
The distinction between the slaves who are chained and those who are not appears the more striking from Columella’s references to the lock-up chamber or slave-prison. His predecessors pass lightly over this matter, but he gives it the fullest recognition. Theergastulumshould be a chamber[1033]below ground level, as healthy as you can get, lighted by a number of slits in the wall so high above the floor as to be out of a man’s reach. This dungeon is only for the refractory slaves, chained and constantly inspected. For the more submissive ones cabins (cellae) are provided in healthy spots near their work but not so scattered as to make observation difficult. There is even a bathhouse[1034], which the staff are allowed to use on holidays only: much bathing is weakening. Whether on an average farm the chained or unchained slaves are assumed to be the majority is not quite clear; probably the unchained, to judge by the general tone of the precepts. But that a lock-up is part of the normal establishment is clear enough. And it is to be noted that in one passage[1035]ergastulaare mentioned in ill-omened juxtaposition with citizens enslaved by their creditors. Whether it is implied that unhappy debtors were still liable to be locked up as slaves in creditors’ dungeons as of old, is not easy to say. Columella is capable of rhetorical flourishes now and then. It is safer to suppose that he is referring to two forms of slave-labour; first, the working off arrears of debt[1036]by labour of a servile kind; second, the wholesale slave-gang system suggested by the significant wordergastula. Or are we to read into it a reference to the kidnapping[1037]of wayfarers which Augustus and Tiberius had striven to put down? Before we leave the subject of the slave-staff it is well to note that no prospect of freedom is held out, at least to the males. Fertility, as we have seen, might lead to manumission of females. But we are not told what use they were likely to make of their freedom, when they had got it. My belief is that they stayed on the estate as tolerated humble dependants; for they would have no other home. Some were natives of the place, and the imported ones would have lost all touch with their native lands. Perhaps the care of poultry[1038]is a specimen of the various minor functions in which they could make themselves useful. At all events they were free from fetters and the lash. And the men too may have been occasionally manumitted on the same sort of terms. Silence does not prove a negative. For instance, we hear ofpeculium, the slave’s quasi-property, only incidentally[1039]as being derived frompecus. Yet we are not entitled to say that slaves were not free to make savings under the system of Columella.
Though thevilicusappears in this treatise as the normal head of the management, there are signs that this was not the last word in estate-organization. That he is sometimes[1040]referred to as being the landlord’s agent (actor), but usually not, rather suggests that he could be, and often was, confined to a more restricted sphere of duty, namelythe purely agricultural superintendence of the farm in hand. This would make him a mere farm-bailiff, directing operations on the land, but with little or no responsibility for such matters as finance. And in a few passages we have mention of aprocurator. This term must be taken in its ordinary sense[1041]as signifying the landlord’s ‘attorney’ or full legal representative. He is to keep an eye on the management, for instance[1042]the threshing-floor, if the master is not at hand. The position of his quarters indicates his importance: as the steward’s lodging is to be where he can watch goings-out and comings-in, so that of theprocuratoris to be where[1043]he can have a near view of the steward as well as doings in general. Judging from the common practice of the day, it is probable that he would be a freedman. Now, why does Columella, after referring to him thus early in the treatise, proceed to ignore him afterwards? The only reasonable explanation that occurs to me is that the appointment of such an official would only be necessary in exceptional cases: in short, that in speaking of aprocuratorhe implies an unexpressed reservation ‘supposing such a person to be employed.’ Circumstances that might lead to such an appointment are not far to seek. The landlord might be abroad for a long time on public duty or private business. There might be large transactions pending (purchases, sales, litigation, etc) in connexion with the estate or neighbourhood; in the case of a very large estate this was not unlikely. The estate might be one of several owned by the same lord, and theprocuratorintermittently resident on one or other as from time to time required. Or lastly the services of an agent with full legal powers may have been desirable in dealing with free tenantry. If a landlord had a number of tenant farmers on his estates, it is most unlikely that hisvilici, slaves as they were, would be able to keep a firm hand[1044]on them: and the fact of his letting his farms surely suggests that he would not desire to have much rent-collecting or exaction of services to do himself.
One point in which Columella’s system seems to record a change from earlier usage may be found in the comparative disuse of letting out special jobs to contractors. In one passage[1045], when discussing the trenching-work required inpastinatio, and devices for preventing the disputes arising from bad execution of the same, he refers toconductoras well asdominus. The interests of the two are liable to clash, and he tries to shew a means of ensuring a fair settlement between theparties without going to law. I understand theconductorto be a man who has contracted for the job at an agreed price, andexactor operisjust below to be the landlord, whose business it is to get full value for his money. Thusconductorhere will be the same as theredemptorso often employed in the scheme of Cato. I cannot find further traces of him in Columella. Nor is the sale of a hanging[1046]crop or a season’s lambs to a speculator referred to. But we have other authority for believing that contracts of this kind were not obsolete, and it is probable that the same is true of contracts for special operations. That such arrangements were nevertheless much rarer than in Cato’s time seems to be a fair inference. The manifest reluctance[1047]to hire external labour also points to the desire of getting, so far as possible, all farming operations performed by the actual farm-staff. If I have rightly judged the position of tenant farmers, it is evident that their stipulated services would be an important help in enabling the landlord to dispense with employment of contractors’ gangs on the farm. This was in itself desirable: that the presence of outsiders was unsettling to your own slaves had long been remarked, and in the more elaborate organization of Columella’s day disturbing influences would be more apprehensively regarded than ever.
It is hardly necessary to follow out all the details of this complicated system and enumerate the various special functions assigned to the members of the staff. To get good foremen even at high prices was one of the leading principles: an instance[1048]is seen in the case of vineyards, where we hear of a thoroughly competentvinitor, whose price is reckoned at about £80 of our money, the estimated value of about 4½ acres of land. The main point is that it is a system of slave labour on a large scale, and that Columella, well aware that such labour is in general wasteful, endeavours to make it remunerative by strict order and discipline. He knows very well that current lamentations over the supposed exhaustion[1049]of the earth’s fertility are mere evasions of the true causes of rural decay, neglect and ignorance. He knows that intensive cultivation[1050]pays well, and cites striking instances. But the public for whom he writes is evidently not the men on small holdings, largely market-gardeners[1051], who were able to make a living with or without slave-help, at all events when within reach of urban markets.He addresses men of wealth, most of whom were proud of their position as landlords, but presumably not unwilling to make their estates more remunerative, provided the effort did not give them too much trouble. This condition was the real difficulty; and it is hard to believe that Columella, when insisting on the frequent presence of the master’s eye, was sanguine enough to expect a general response. His attitude towards pastoral industry seems decidedly less enthusiastic than that of his predecessors. Stock[1052]must be kept on the farm, partly to eat off your own fodder-crops, but chiefly for the sake of supplying manure for the arable land. In quoting Cato’s famous saying on the profitableness of grazing, he agrees that nothing pays so quickly as good grazing, and that moderately good grazing pays well enough. But if, as some versions have it, he really said that even bad grazing was the next best thing for a farmer, Columella respectfully dissents. The breeding and fattening of all manner of animals for luxurious tables[1053]remains much the same as in the treatise of Varro. A curious caution is given[1054]in discussing the fattening of thrushes. They are to be fed with ‘dried figs beaten up with fine meal, as much as they can eat or more. Some people chew the figs before giving them to the birds. But it is hardly worth while to do this if you have a large number to feed, for it costs money to hire[1055]persons to do the chewing, and the sweet taste makes them swallow a good deal themselves.’ Now, why hire labour for such a purpose? Is it because slaves would swallow so much of the sweet stuff that your thrushes would never fatten?
It is well known that importation of corn from abroad led to great changes in Italian agriculture in the second centuryBC. The first was the formation of great estates worked by slave-gangs, which seems to have begun as an attempt to compete with foreign large-scale farming in the general production of food-stuffs. If so, it was gradually discovered that it did not pay to grow cereal crops for the market, unscrupulous in slave-driving though the master might be. Therefore attention was turned to the development on a larger scale of the existing culture of the vine and olive and the keeping of great flocks and herds. Food for these last had to be found on the farm in the winter, and more and more it became usual only to grow cereals as fodder for the stock, of course including the slaves. No doubt there was a demand for the better sorts, such as wheat, in all the country towns, but the farms in their immediate neighbourhood would supply the need. That Columella assumes produce of this kind to be normally consumed on the place, is indicated by his recommending[1056]barley as good food for all live-stock, and for slaves when mixed with wheat. Also by histreating the delicate[1057]white wheat, much fancied in Rome, as a degenerate variety, not worth the growing by a practical farmer. His instructions for storage shew the same point of view. The structure and principles of granaries[1058]are discussed at length, and the possibility of long storage[1059]is contemplated. The difficulties of transport by land had certainly been an important influence in the changes of Roman husbandry, telling against movements of bulky produce. Hence the value attached[1060]to situations near the seaboard or a navigable stream (the latter not a condition often to be realized in Italy) by Columella and his predecessors. Military roads served the traveller as well as the armies, but took no regard[1061]of agricultural needs. Moreover they had special[1062]drawbacks. Wayfarers had a knack of pilfering from farms on the route, and someone or other was always turning up to seek lodging and entertainment. Thus it was wise not to plant your villa close to one of these trunk roads, or your pocket was likely to suffer. But to have a decent approach[1063]by a country road was a great convenience, facilitating the landlord’s periodical visits and the carriage of goods to and from the estate.
Certain words call for brief notice. Thusopera, the average day’s work of an average worker, is Columella’s regular labour-unit in terms of which he expresses the labour-cost[1064]of an undertaking. In no other writer is this more marked. Occasionallyoperaeoccurs in the well-known concrete sense[1065]of the ‘hands’ themselves. Themagistrimentioned are not always the foremen spoken of above, but sometimes[1066]directors or teachers in a general sense or even as a sort of synonym forprofessores. To recur once again tocolonus, the word, as in other writers, often means simply ‘cultivator,’ not ‘tenant-farmer.’ The latter special sense occurs in a passage[1067]which would be useful evidence for the history of farm-tenancies, if it were not doubtful whether the text is sound.
There remains a question, much more than a merely literary problem, as to the true relation of Columella to Vergil. That he constantly quotes the poet, and cites him as an authority on agriculture, is a striking fact. One instance will shew the deep veneration with which he regards the great master. In speaking[1068]of the attention to local qualities of climate and soil needed in choosing an estate, hequotes lines from the firstGeorgic, the matter of which is quite traditional, common property. But he speaks of Vergil (to name the poet[1069]was unnecessary) as a most realistic[1070]bard, to be trusted as an oracle. Nay, so irresistible is to him the influence of Vergil, that he must needs cast his own tenth book into hexameter verse: the subject of that book is gardens, a topic on which Vergil had confessedly[1071]not fully said his say. And yet in the treatment of the land-question there is a fundamental difference between the two writers. Columella’s system is based on slave labour organized to ensure the completest efficiency: Vergil practically ignores slavery altogether. Columella advises you to let land to tenant farmers whenever you cannot effectively superintend the working of slave-organizations under stewards: Vergil ignores this solution also, and seems vaguely to contemplate a return to the system of small farms owned and worked by free yeomen in an idealized past. Columella is concerned to see that capital invested in land is so employed as to bring in a good economic return: Vergil dreams of the revival of a failing race, and possible economic success and rustic wellbeing are to him not so much ends as means. The contrast is striking enough. In the chapter onVergilI have already pointed out that the poet had at once captured the adoration of the Roman world. It was not only in quotations or allusions, or in the incense of praise, that his supremacy was held in evidence so long as Latin literature remained alive. His influence affected prose style also, and subtle reminiscences of Vergilian flavour maybe traced in Tacitus. But all this is very different from the practice of citing him as an authority on a special subject, as Columella did and the elder Pliny did after him.
I would venture to connect this practice with the Roman habit of viewing their own literature as inspired by Greek models and so tending to move on parallel lines. Cicero was not content to be a Roman Demosthenes; he must needs try to be a Roman Plato too, if not also a Roman Aristotle. Now citation of the Homeric poems as a recognized authority on all manner of subjects, not to mention casual illustrations, runs through Greek literature. Plato and Aristotle are good instances. It is surely not surprising that we find Roman writers patriotically willing to cite their own great poet, more especially as theGeorgicslay ready to hand. In the next generation after Columella, Quintilian framed his criticism[1072]of the two literatures (as food for oratorical students) on frankly parallel lines. Vergil is the pair to Homer: second to the prince of singers, but a good second: and he is quoted and cited throughout the treatise as Homer is in Aristotle’sRhetoric. True, the cases are not really parallel. Whatever preexistent material may have served to build up the Homeric poems, they are at least not didactic poems, made up of precepts largely derived from technical writers, and refined into poetic form with mature and laborious skill. To quote theGeorgics, not only for personal observation of facts but for guiding precepts, is often to quote a secondary authority in a noble dress, and serves but for adornment. But in such a consideration there would be nothing to discourage Roman literary men. To challenge Vergil’s authority on a rustic subject remained the prerogative of Seneca.
Varrode lingua LatinaVII§ 105 saysliber qui suas operas in servitutem pro pecunia quadam debebat dum solveret nexus vocatur, ut ab aere obaeratus. This antiquarian note is of interest as illustrating the meaning ofoperae, and the former position of the debtor as a temporary slave.