It will be admitted that all writers are, as sources of evidence, at their best when they feel free to say or to leave unsaid this or that according to their own judgment. If there is in the background some other person whom it is necessary to please, it is very hard to divine the reason of an author’s frankness, and still more of his reticence. For instance, the omission of a topic naturally connected with a subject need not imply that a patron forbade its introduction. I cannot believe that such a man as Maecenas[909]banned the free mention of slavery in theGeorgics. But, if a whole subject is proposed for treatment under conditions of a well-understood tendency, the writer is not unlikely to discover that artistic loyalty to that tendency will operate to render the introduction of this or that particular topic a matter of extreme difficulty. If the task of Vergil was to recommend a return to a more wholesome system of agriculture, reference to the labour-question or to land-tenure bristled with difficulties. My belief is that the poet shirked these topics, relevant though they surely were, because he did not see how to treat them without provoking controversy or ill-feeling; a result which Maecenas and the Emperor were undoubtedly anxious to avoid. It was simpler and safer not to refer to these things. True, the omission was a restraint on full-blooded realism. An indistinct picture was produced, and modern critics have some reason to complain of the difficulty of understanding many places of theGeorgics.
Whether chronological considerations may throw any light on the influences to which this indistinctness is due, and, if so, what is their exact significance, are very difficult questions, to which I cannot offer a definite answer. The completion of theGeorgicsis placed in the year 30BC, after seven years more or less spent on composition and revision. Now it was in that year that the new ruler, supreme since the overthrow of Antony, organized the great disbandment of armies of which he speaks in the famous inscription[910]recording the events ofhis career. He tells us that he rewarded all the discharged men, either with assignations of land or with sums of money in lieu thereof. The lands were bought by him (not confiscated) and the money-payments also were at his cost (a me dedi). Below he refers to the matter again, and adds that to pay for lands taken and assigned to soldiers was a thing no one had ever done before. That he paid in all cases, and paid the full market value, he does not expressly say; Mommsen shews cause for doubting it. The only remark I have to make is that in the years between Philippi and Aetium there was plenty of fighting and negotiations. Maecenas was for most of the time in a position of great trust, and pretty certainly in touch with all that went on. The fact that a wholesale discharge of soldiers was surely coming, and that the future of agriculture in Italy was doubtful, was perhaps not likely to escape the forecast of so far-sighted a man. Is it just possible that Vergil may have had a hint from him, to stick to generalities and avoid controversial topics? We are credibly informed[911]that Maecenas was well rewarded by his master for his valuable services, and it has been pointed out[912]that his position of authority offered many opportunities of profitable transactions on his own account. There is even an express tradition that he was concerned in the liquidation of one estate. In short, he was one of the land-speculators of the time. To such a man it would seem not untimely to praise the virtues of the rustic Romans of old and to recommend their revival in the coming age; but to call attention to the uncertainties of the present, involving many awkward problems, would seem imprudent. In suggesting, doubtfully, that a patron’s restraining hand may have had something to do with the poet’s reticence, I may be exaggerating the pressure exercised by the one on the other. But that Maecenas interested himself in the slowly-growing poem is hardly to be doubted. Early in each of the four books he is addressed by name. Hishaud mollia iussa(III41) may imply nothing more than the general difficulty of Vergil’s task: but may it not faintly indicate just the least little restiveness under a guidance that could not be refused openly?
To reject the suggestion of actual interference on Maecenas’ part is not to say that theGeorgicsexhibits no deference to his wishes. That many a veiled hint could be given by a patron in conversation is obvious. That Maecenas would be a master of that judicious art, is probable from what we know of his character and career. But, while it is plain that questions of land-tenure would from his point of view be better ignored, how would his likes and dislikes affect the mentionof slavery and the labour-question? Here I must refer to the three great writers on agriculture. Cato, about 150 years earlier, and Columella, about 80 years later, both contemplate the actual buying of land, and insist on the care necessary in selection. The contemporary Varro seems certainly to assume purchase. All three deal with slave-labour, Cato like a hard-fisteddominusof an old-Roman generation just become consciously imperial and bent on gain, Columella as a skilful organizer of the only regular supply of labour practically available: Varro, who makes more allowance[913]for free labour beside that of slaves, reserves the free man for important jobs, where he may be trusted to use his wits, or for unhealthy work, in which to risk slaves is to risk your own property. All the ordinary work in his system is done by slaves. The contemporary Livy[914]tells us that in his time large districts near Rome had scarce any free inhabitants left. The elder Pliny, reckoning up the advantages of Italy for the practice of agriculture, includes[915]among them the supply ofservitia, though no man knew better than he what fatal results had issued from the plantation-system. It is to be borne in mind that this evidence relates to the plains and the lower slopes of hills, that is to the main agricultural districts. It is to these parts that Gardthausen[916]rightly confines his remarks on the desolation of Italy, which began before the civil wars and was accelerated by them. Other labour was scarce, and gangs of slaves, generally chained, were almost the only practicable means of tillage for profit. Speaking broadly, I think the truth of this picture is not to be denied. If then the word had gone forth that a return to smaller-scale farming was to be advocated as a cure for present evils, it was hardly possible to touch on slavery without some unfavourable reference to the plantation-system. Now surely it is most unlikely that Maecenas, a cool observer and a thorough child of the age, sincerely believed in the possibility of setting back the clock. The economic problem could not be solved so simply, by creating a wave of ‘back-to-the-land’ enthusiasm. I suggest that he saw no good to be got by openly endeavouring to recreate the race of small working farmers by artificial means. Would it be wise to renew an attempt in which the Gracchi had failed? Now to Vergil, who had passed his youth in a district of more humane agriculture, the mere praise of farming, with its rich compensations for never-ending toil and care, would be a congenial theme. The outcome of their combination was that a topic not easily idealized in treatment was omitted. The realistic value of the picture was impaired to the relief of both poet and patron. But what the poem gained as a beautiful aspiration it lost as a practical authority.
Can we suppose that Vergil did not know how important a place in contemporary agriculture was filled by slave-labour? I think not: surely it is inconceivable. What meets us at every turn in other writers cannot have been unknown to him. Macrobius[917]has preserved for us a curious record belonging to 43BC, when the great confiscations and assignations of land were being carried out in the Cisalpine by order of the Triumvirs. Money and arms, needed for the coming campaign of Philippi, were being requisitioned at the same time. The men of property threatened by these exactions hid themselves. Their slaves were offered rewards and freedom if they would betray their masters’ hiding-places, but not one of them yielded to the temptation. The commander who made the offer was Pollio. No doubt domestics are chiefly meant, but there were rustic slaves, and we have reason to think that they were humanely treated in those parts. Dion Cassius[918]tells us that in 41BCOctavian, under great pressure from the clamorous armies, saw nothing to be done but to take all Italian lands from present owners and hand them over to the soldiers μετά τε τῆς δουλείας καὶ μετὰ τῆς ἄλλης κατασκευῆς. Circumstances necessitated compromise, which does not concern us here. But it is well to remember that it was just the best land that the soldiers wanted, and with it slaves and other farm-stock. For it was a pension after service, not a hard life of bodily drudgery, that was in view. The plan of letting the former owner stay on as a tenant has been referred to above.
I hold then that Vergil’s silence on the topics to which I have called attention, however congenial it may have been to him, was intentional: and that the poem, publishedin honorem Maecenatis[919], was limited as to its practical outlook with the approval, if not at the suggestion, of the patron. It is essentially a literary work. In it Vergil’s power of gathering materials from all quarters and fusing them into a whole of his own creation is exemplified to a wonderful degree. His own deep love of the country, with its homely sights and sounds, phenomena of a Nature whose laws he felt unable to explore, helped him to execute the task of recommending a social and economic reform through the medium of poetry. By ignoring topics deemed unsuitable, he left his sympathies and enthusiasm free course, and without sympathies and enthusiasm theGeorgicswould not have been immortal. Even when digressing from agriculture, as in his opening address to the Emperor, there is more sincerity than we are at first disposed to grant. He had not been a Republican, like Horace, and probably had been from the first attached to the cause of the Caesars.
I can discover no ground for thinking[920]that Vergil was ever himself a farmer. That Pliny and Columella cite him as an authority is in my opinion due to the predominance of his works in the literary world. As writers of prose dealing with facts often of an uninspiring kind, it would seem to raise the artistic tone of heavy paragraphs if the first name in Latin literature could be introduced with an apposite quotation in agreement with their own context. Vergil-worship began early and lasted long; and indeed his admirers in the present day are sometimes so absorbed in finding[921]more and more in what he said that they do not trouble themselves to ask whether there may not be some significance[922]in his silences. Rightly or wrongly, I am persuaded that this question ought at least to be asked in connexion with theGeorgics. I have reserved till the last a passage[923]of Seneca, in which he challenges the authority of Vergil in some points connected with trees, speaking of him asVergilius noster, qui non quid verissime sed quid decentissime diceretur aspexit, nec agricolas docere voluit sed legentes delectare. Now Seneca was devoted to the works of Vergil, and is constantly quoting them. He has no prejudice against the poet. The view of theGeorgicsset forth in these words implies no literary dispraise, but a refusal to let poetic excellence give currency to technical errors. Seneca is often tiresome, but in this matter his criticism is in my opinion sound. In the matter of labour my contention is not that the poet has inadvertently erred, but that he has for some reason deliberately dissembled.
The comparatively silent interval, between the Augustan circle and the new group of writers under Claudius and Nero, furnishes little of importance. The one writer who stands out as giving us a few scraps of evidence is theelder Seneca, the earliest of the natives of Spain who made their mark in Latin literature. But the character of his work, which consists of examples of the treatment of problem-cases in the schools of rhetoric, makes him a very peculiar witness. When he tells us how this or that pleader of note made some point neatly, the words have their appropriate place in the texture of a particular argument. Often they contain a fallacious suggestion or a misstatement useful for the purpose ofex parteadvocacy, but having as statements no authoritywhatever. Still there are a few references of significance and value. Thus, when the poor man’s son refuses the rich man’s offer to adopt him, and his own father approves the proposal, one rhetorician made the young man[924]say ‘Great troops of slaves whom their lord does not know by sight, and the farm-prisons echoing to the sound of the lash, have no charm for me: my love for my father is an unbought love.’ Again, a poor man, whose property has been outrageously damaged by a rich neighbour, protests[925]against the whims of modern luxury. ‘Country districts’ he says ‘that once were the plough-lands of whole communities are now each worked by a single slave-gang, and the sway of stewards is wider than the realms of kings.’ Now, we cannot cite the old rhetorician as an authority on agriculture directly: but he gives us proof positive that references to estates worked by gangs[926]of slaves, and theergastulain which the poor wretches were shut up after the hours of labour, would not in his time sound strange to Roman audiences. Another passage[927]touches on a very typical lecture-room theme, an unnatural son. A father is banished for unintentional homicide. The law forbids the sheltering and feeding of an exile. But the father contrives to return and haunt an estate adjoining the main property, now controlled by his son. The son hears of these visits, flogs thevilicusfor connivance, and compels him to exclude the old man. The piece is one of which only a brief abstract remains, but there is enough to shew that, while the gist of it was a casuistic discussion of a moral problem, it assumes as a matter of course the liability of a trusted slave to the lash. The faithful and kindly slave is contrasted with the unnatural son. There are in these curious collections other utterances indicative of the spread of humanitarian notions. Thus in the piece first cited[928]above, the poor man’s son in refusing the rich man’s offer of adoption, as a situation to which he could never accommodate himself, is made to add ‘If you were selling a favourite slave, you would inquire whether the buyer was a cruel man.’ Such ideas come from the later Greek philosophies, chiefly Stoic, the system on which Seneca brought up his more famous son. In one place[929]we find an echo of an earlier Greek sentiment, when a rhetorician propounds the doctrine that Fortune only, not Nature, distinguishes freemen from slaves.
Indeed it is evident, from the many passages that touch on slavery and expose some of its worst horrors, that the subject was at this time beginning to attract more general attention than heretofore. And therelations of patron and freedman, also discussed in these artificial school-debates, are a further illustration of this tendency. Milder and more humane principles were germinating, though as yet they had not found expression in law. In arguing on a peculiarly revolting case (the deliberate mutilation of child-beggars) a speaker incidentally refers[930]to wealthy landowners recruiting their slave-gangs by seizing freemen. The hearers are supposed to receive this reference to kidnapping as no exceptional thing extravagantly suggested. We have seen that both Augustus and Tiberius had to intervene to put down thissuppressio. One little note of interest deserves passing mention. In a discussion on unequal marriages the question is raised whether even the very highest desert on a slave’s part could justify a father in taking him as a son-in-law. A speaker cites the case[931]of Old Cato, who married the daughter of his owncolonus. Here we clearly have the tenant farmer in the second centuryBCIn Plutarch the man appears as a client. Neither writer makes him a freedman in so many words. But it is probably the underlying fact. That the daughter wasingenuadoes not rule out this supposition.
VelleiusandValerius Maximusalso belong to the reign of Tiberius. The former in what remains of his history supplies nothing to my purpose. Valerius made a collection of anecdotes from Roman and foreign histories illustrating various virtues and vices, classifying the examples of good and bad action under heads. They are ‘lifted’ from the works of earlier writers: many are taken from Livy, already used as a classic quarry. The book is pervaded by tiresome moralizing, and points of interest are few. There is the story of the farm[932]of Regulus, of the patriotic refusal[933]of M’ Curius to take more than the normal seveniugeraof land as a reward from the state, of the horny-handed rustic voter[934]being asked whether he walked on his hands; also reference to the simple habits of the famous Catos, and a passing remark that the men of old had few slaves. Those of the above passages that are of any value at all have been noticed in earlier sections. The freedmanPhaedrusgives us next to nothing in his fables, unless we care to note the items[935]of a farm-property,agellos pecora villam operarios boves iumenta et instrumentum rusticum, and a fable specially illustrating the fact that a master’s eye sees what escapes the notice of the slave-staff, even of thevilicus.
The chief literary figure of the reigns of Claudius and Nero wasL Annaeus Seneca, a son of the rhetorician above referred to, and like his father born in Spain. His life extended from 4BCto 65AD. For the purpose of the present inquiry his surviving works are mainly of interest as giving us in unmistakeable tones the point of view from which a man of Stoic principles regarded slavery as a social institution. The society of imperial Rome, in which he spent most of his life, was politically dead. To meddle with public affairs was dangerous. Even a senator needed to walk warily, for activity was liable to be misinterpreted by the Emperor and by his powerful freedmen[936], who were in effect Imperial Ministers. To keep on good terms with these departmental magnates, who had sprung from the slave-market to be courted as the virtual rulers of freeborn Roman citizens, was necessary for all men of note. Under such conditions it is not wonderful that the wealthy were tempted to assert themselves in ostentatious luxury and dissipation: for a life of careless debauchery was on the face of it hardly compatible with treasonable conspiracy. The immense slave-households of Rome were a part and an expression of this extravagance; and the fashion of these domestic armies was perhaps at its height in this period. Now, nothing kept the richer Romans in subjection more efficiently than this habit of living constantly exposed to the eyes and ears of their menials. Cruel laws might protect the master from assassination by presuming[937]the guilt of all slaves who might have prevented it. They could not protect him from the danger of criminal charges, such as treason[938], supported by servile evidence: indeed the slave was a potential informer, and a hated master was at the mercy of his slaves. Under some Emperors this possibility was a grim reality, and no higher or more heartfelt praise could be bestowed[939]on an Emperor than that he refused to allow masters to be done to death by the tongue of their slaves.
Meanwhile the slave was still legally[940]his (or her) master’s chattel, and cases of revolting cruelty[941]and other abominations occurred from time to time. Yet more humane and sympathetic views were already affecting public sentiment, chiefly owing to the spread of Stoic doctrines among the cultivated classes. Of these doctrines as adapted to Romanminds Seneca was the leading preacher. Thus he cites the definition of ‘slave’ as ‘wage-earner for life,’ propounded[942]by Chrysippus: he insists on the human quality common to slave and free alike: he reasserts the equality of human rights, only upset by Fortune, who has made one man master of another: he sees that the vices of slaves are very often simply the result of the misgovernment of their owners: he reckons them as humble members[943]of the family circle, perhaps even the former playmates of boyhood: he recommends a kindly consideration for a slave’s feelings, and admits[944]that some sensitive natures would prefer a flogging to a box on the ear or a harsh and contemptuous scolding. We need not follow up his doctrines in more detail. The general tone is evident and significant enough. But it is the relations of the domestic circle that he has primarily in view. His references to agriculture and rustic labour are few, as we might expect from the circumstances of his life. But we are in a better position to judge their value having considered his attitude towards slavery in general. It should be noted, as a specimen of his tendency to Romanize Greek doctrine, that he lays great stress on the more wholesome relations[945]of master and slave in the good old times of early Rome,—here too without special reference to the rustic households of the rude forefathers round which tradition centred.
Judged by a modern standard, a defect in Stoic principles was the philosophic aloofness from the common interests and occupations of ordinary workaday life. To the Wise Man all things save Virtue are more or less indifferent, and in the practice of professions and trades there is little or no direct connexion with Virtue. Contempt for manual labour, normal in the ancient world and indeed in all slaveowning societies, took a loftier position under the influence of Stoicism. Hence that system, in spite of its harsh and tiresome features, appealed to many of the better Romans of the upper class, seeming as it did to justify their habitual disdain. Seneca’s attitude towards handicrafts is much the same as Cicero’s, only with a touch of Stoic priggishness added. Wisdom, he says[946], is not a mere handworker (opifex) turning out appliances for necessary uses. Her function is more important: her craft is the art of living, and over other arts she is supreme. The quality of an artist’s action[947]depends on his motive: the sculptor may make a statue for money or to win fame or as a pious offering. Arts, as Posidonius[948]said, range from the ‘liberal’ ones to the ‘common and mean’ ones practised by handworkers: the latter have no pretence of moraldignity. Indeed many of these trades are quite unnecessary, the outcome of modern[949]extravagance. We could do without them, and be all the better for it: man’s real needs are small. But to work for a living is not in itself a degradation: did not the Stoic master Cleanthes draw water[950]for hire? In short, the Wise Man may be a king or a slave, millionaire or pauper. The externals cannot change his true quality, though they may be a help or a hindrance in his growth to perfect wisdom.
In his references to agriculture and country matters it is to be remarked that Seneca confirms the impression derived from other sources, that the letting of land to tenant farmers was on the increase. Discoursing on the greedy luxury of the rich, their monstrous kitchens and cellars, and the toiling of many to gratify the desires of one, he continues ‘Look at all the places where the earth is being tilled, and at all the thousands[951]of farmers (colonorum) ploughing and digging; is this, think you, to be reckoned one man’s belly, for whose service crops are being raised in Sicily and in Africa too?’ Thecolonihere mentioned may be merely ‘cultivators’ in a general sense. But I think they are more probably tenants of holdings on great estates. In speaking of his arrival at his Alban villa, and finding nothing ready for a meal, he philosophically refuses to let so small an inconvenience make him angry with his cook and his baker. ‘My baker[952]has got no bread; but the steward has some, and so have the porter and the farmer.’ A coarse sort of bread, no doubt, but you have only got to wait, and you will enjoy it when you are really hungry. Here we seem to have an instance of what was now probably an ordinary arrangement: thevilla, homestead with some land round it, kept as a country ‘box’ for the master by his steward, who would see to the garden and other appurtenances, while the rest of the land is let to a humble tenant farmer. In another passage we have an interesting glimpse of a tenant’s legal position[953]as against his landlord. ‘If a landlord tramples down growing crops or cuts down plantations, he cannot keep his tenant, though the lease may be still in being: this is not because he has recovered what was due to him as lessor, but because he has made it impossible for him to recover it. Even so it often happens that a creditor is cast in damages to his debtor, when he has on other grounds taken from him more than the amount of the debt claimed.’ I gather from this passagethat damage done by the lessor to the lessee’s interest in the farm deprived him of right of action against the lessee, in case he wanted to enforce some claim (for rent or for some special service) under the terms of the existing contract[954]of lease. If this inference be just, the evidence is important. For thecolonusis conceived as a humble person, whose interest a brutal inconsiderate landlord would be not unlikely to disregard, and to whom a resort to litigation would seem a course to be if possible avoided.
To this question of the rights of landlord and tenant Seneca returns later, when engaged in reconciling the Stoic thesis that ‘all things belong to the Wise Man’ with the facts of actual life. The Wise Man is in the position of a King to whom belongs the general right of sovranty (imperium) while his subjects have the particular right of ownership (dominium). Illustrating the point he proceeds[955]thus. ‘Say I have hired a house from you. Of its contents some belong to you and some to me. The thing (res) is your property, but the right of user (usus) of your property is mine. Just so you must not meddle with crops, though grown on your own estate, if your tenant forbids it; and in a season of dearness or dearth you will be like the man in Vergil wistfully gazing at another’s plenteous store, though the land where it grew, the yard where it is stacked, and the granary it is meant to fill, are all your own property. Nor, when I have hired a lodging, have you a right to enter it, owner though you be: when a slave of yours is hired for service by me, you have no right to withdraw him: and, if I hire a trap from you and give you a lift, it will be a good turn on my part, though the conveyance belongs to you.’ I have quoted this at some length, in order to make the farm-tenant’s position quite clear. His rights are presumed to be easily ascertainable, and his assertion of them will be protected by the law. His contract, whether a formal lease or not, is also presumed to guarantee him complete control of the subject for the agreed term. Whether encroachments by landlords and legal proceedings for redress by tenants were common events in rural Italy, Seneca need not and does not say. I suspect that personal interest on both sides was in practice a more effective restraint than appeals to law.
There are other references to agricultural conditions, which though of less importance are interesting as confirming other evidence as to thelatifundiaof this period. A good specimen is found in his denunciation of human greed as the cause of poverty, by bringing to an endthe happy age of primitive communism, when all shared the ownership of all. Cramped and unsatisfied, thisavaritiacan never find the way back to the old state of plenty and happiness. ‘Hence, though she now endeavour to make good[956]what she has wasted; though she add field to field by buying out her neighbours or wrongfully ejecting them; though she expand her country estates on the scale of provinces, and enjoy the sense of landlordism in the power of touring mile after mile without leaving her own domains; still no enlargement of bounds will bring us back to the point from whence we started.’ Again, in protesting against the luxurious ostentation of travellers and others, he shews that they are really in debt. ‘So-and-so is, you fancy, a rich man ... because he has arable estates[957]in all provinces of the empire ... because his holding of land near Rome is on a scale one would grudge him even in the wilds of Apulia.’ Such a man is in debt to Fortune. In these as in other passages the preacher illustrates his sermon by references calculated to bring home his points. Naturally he selects for the purpose matters familiar to his audience; and it is this alone that makes the passages worth quoting. The same may be said of his sympathetic reference[958]to the hard lot of a slave transferred from the easy duties of urban service to the severe toil of farm labour. In general it may be remarked that the evidence of Seneca and other literary men of this period is to be taken in connexion with the treatise of Columella, who is the contemporary specialist on agriculture. The prevalence of slave labour and the growth of the tenant-farmer class are attested by both lines of evidence.
Lucan, Seneca’s nephew, has a few interesting references in his poem on the great civil war. Thus, in the eloquent passage[959]lamenting the decay of Roman vital strength, a long process to be disastrously completed in the great Pharsalian battle, he dwells on the shrinkage of free Roman population in Italy. The towns and the countryside alike are empty, houses deserted, and it is by the labour of chained[960]slaves that Italian crops are raised. Elsewhere[961]he looks further back,and traces this decay to the effect of luxury and corruption caused by the influx of vast wealth, the spoils of Roman conquests. Among the symptoms of disease he notes thelatifundia, which it was now becoming the fashion to denounce, the land-grabbing passion that prompted men to monopolize great tracts of land and incorporate in huge estates, worked by cultivators unknown[962]to them, farms that once had been ploughed and hoed by the rustic heroes of old. But all such utterances are merely a part of a declaimer’s stock-in-trade. We may fairly guess that they are echoes of talk heard in the literary circle of his uncle Seneca. That they are nevertheless consistent with the land-system of this period, is to be gathered from other sources, such as Petronius and Columella. It remains to note that the wordcolonusis used by Lucan in the senses of ‘cultivator’ and ‘farmer,’ rather suggesting ownership, and of ‘military colonist,’ clearly implying it. That of ‘tenant’ does not occur: there was no need for it in the poem. Again, he hasservire servilisandservitium, butservusoccurs only in a suspected[963]line, and as an adjective. His regular word for ‘slave’ isfamulus.
The bucolic poems of this period are too manifestly artificial to serve as evidence of value. For instance, whenCalpurniusdeclares[964]that in this blessed age of peace and prosperity thefossoris not afraid to profit by the treasure he may chance to dig up, we cannot infer that a free digger is meant, though it is hardly likely that a slave would be suffered to keep treasure-trove.
Petronius, in the curious mixed prose-verse satire of which part has come down to us, naturally says very little bearing directly on agriculture. But in depicting the vulgar freedman-millionaire Trimalchio he refers pointedly to the vast landed estates belonging to this typical figure of the period. He owns estates ‘far as the kites[965]can fly.’ This impression is confirmed in detail by a report delivered by the agent for his properties. It is a statement[966]of the occurrences in a domain of almost imperial proportions during a single day. So many children, male and female, were born: so many thousand bushels of wheat were stocked in the granary: so many hundred oxen broken in: a slave was crucified for disloyalty to his lord: so many million sesterces were paid in to the chest, no opening for investment presenting itself. On one park-estate (hortis) there was a great fire, which began in the steward’s house. Trimalchio cannot recall the purchase of this estate, which on inquiryturns out to be a recent acquisition not yet on the books. Then comes the reading of notices issued by officials[967]of the manors, of wills[968]made by rangers, of the names of his stewards; of a freedwoman’s divorce, the banishment of anatriensis, the committal of a cashier for trial, and the proceedings in court in an action between some chamberlains. Of course all this is not to be taken seriously, but we can form some notion of the state of things that the satirist has in mind. Too gross an exaggeration would have defeated his purpose. The book is full of passages bearing on the history of slavery, but it is domestic slavery, and that often of the most degrading character.
The great interest taken in agriculture after the establishment of the Roman peace by Augustus is shewn by the continued appearance of works on the subject. The treatise ofCelsus, who wrote in the time of Tiberius, was part of a great encyclopaedic work. It was probably one of the most important books of its kind: but it is lost, and we only know it as cited by other writers, such as Columella and the elder Pliny. It is from the treatise ofColumella, composed probably under Nero, that we get most of our information as to Roman husbandry (rusticatio, as he often calls it) in the period of the earlier Empire. The writer was a native of Spain, deeply interested, like other Spanish Romans, in the past present and future of Italy. It is evident that in comparing the present with the past he could not avoid turning an uneasy eye to the future. Like others, he could see that agriculture, once the core of Roman strength, the nurse of a vigorous free population, was in a bad way. It was still the case that the choicest farm-lands of Italy were largely occupied by mansions and parks, the property of non-resident owners who seldom visited their estates, and hardly ever qualified themselves to superintend their management intelligently. The general result was hideous waste. In modern language, those who had command of capital took no pains to employ it in business-like farming: while the remaining free rustics lacked capital. Agriculture was likely to go from bad to worse under such conditions. The Empire would thus be weakened at its centre, and to a loyal Provincial, whose native land was part of a subject world grouped round that centre, the prospect might well seem bewildering. Columella was from the first interested in agriculture, on which his uncle[969]at Gades(Cadiz) was a recognized authority, and his treatisede re rusticais his contribution to the service of Rome.
The serious consequences of the decay of practical farming, and the disappearance of the small landowners tilling their own land, had long been recognized by thoughtful men. But the settlement of discharged soldiers on allotted holdings had not repopulated the countryside with free farmers. The old lamentations continued, but no means was found for solving the problem how to recreate a patient and prosperous yeoman class, firmly planted on the soil. Technical knowledge had gone on accumulating to some extent, though the authorities on agriculture, Greek Carthaginian or Roman, appealed to by Columella are mainly the same as those cited by Varro some eighty years before. The difficulty at both epochs was not the absence of knowledge but the neglect of its practical application. Columella, like his forerunners, insists on the folly[970]of buying more land than you can profitably manage. But it seems that the average wealthy landowner could not resist the temptation to round off[971]a growing estate by buying up more land when a favourable opportunity occurred. It is even hinted that ill-treatment[972]of a neighbour, to quicken the process by driving him to give up his land, was not obsolete. Moreover, great estates often consisted of separate holdings in different parts of the country. For owners of vast, and sometimes[973]scattered, estates to keep effective control over them was an occupation calling for qualities never too common, technical skill and indefatigable industry. The former could, if combined with perfect honesty, be found in an ideal deputy; but the deputy, to be under complete control, must be a slave: and, the more skilled the slave, the better able he was to conceal dishonesty. Therefore, the more knowledge and watchful attentiveness was needed in the master. Now it is just this genuine and painstaking interest in the management of their estates that Columella finds lacking in Roman landlords. They will not live[974]in the country, where they are quickly bored and miss the excitements of the city, and My Lady detests country life even more than My Lord. But they will not even take the trouble to procure good[975]Stewards, let alone watching them so as to keep them industrious and honest. Thus the management of estates has generally passed from masters tovilici, and the domestic part of the duties even more completely from house-mistresses tovilicae. As to the disastrous effect of the change upon rustic economy, the writer entertains no doubt. But the evil was no new phenomenon. Itmay well be that it was now more widespread than in Varro’s time; but in both writers we may perhaps suspect some degree of overstatement, to which reformers are apt to resort in depicting the abuses they are wishing to reform. I do not allow much for this consideration, for the picture, confirmed by general literary evidence, is in the main unquestionably true.
So much for the case of estates administered by slave stewards for the account of their masters. But this was not the only way of dealing with landed properties. We have already noted the system of letting farms to cultivating tenants, and commented on the fewness of the references to it in literature. This plan may have been very ancient in origin, but it was probably an exceptional arrangement even in the time of Cicero. The very slight notice of it by Varro indicates that it was not normal, indeed not even common. In Columella we find a remarkable change. In setting out the main principles[976]of estate management, and insisting on the prime importance of the owner’s attention (cura domini), he adds that this is necessary above all things in relation to the persons concerned (in hominibus). Now thehominesarecoloniorservi, and are unchained or chained. After this division and subdivision he goes on to discuss briefly but thoroughly the proper relations between landlord and tenant-farmer, the care needed in the selection of satisfactory tenants, and the considerations that must guide a landlord in deciding whether to let a piece of land to a tenant or to farm it for his own account. He advises him to be obliging and easy in his dealings with tenants, and more insistent in requiring their work or service (opus)[977]than their rent (pensiones): this plan is less irritating, and after all it pays better in the long run. For, barring risks of storms or brigands, good farming nearly always leaves a profit, so that the tenant has not the face to claim[978]a reduction of rent. A landlord should not be a stickler for trifles or mean in the matter of little perquisites, such as cutting firewood, worrying his tenant unprofitably. But, while waiving the full rigour of the law, he should not omit to claim his dues in order to keep alive his rights: wholesale remission is a mistake. It was well said by a great landowner that the greatest blessing for an estate is when the tenants are natives[979]of the place, a sort of hereditary occupiers, attached to it by the associations of their childhood’s home. Columella agrees that frequent changes of tenantare a bad business. But there is a worse; namely the town-bred[980]tenant, who prefers farming with a slave staff to turning farmer himself. It was a saying of Saserna, that out of a fellow of this sort you generally get not your rent but a lawsuit. His advice then was, take pains to get country-bred farmers[981]and keep them in permanent tenancy: that is, when you are not free to farm your own land, or when it does not suit your interest to farm it with a slave staff. This last condition, says Columella, only refers to the case of lands derelict[982]through malaria or barren soil.
There are however farms on which it is the landlord’s own interest to place tenants rather than work them by slaves for his own account. Such are distant holdings, too out-of-the-way for the proprietor to visit them easily. Slaves out of reach of constant inspection will play havoc with any farm, particularly one on which corn is grown. They let out the oxen for hire, neglect the proper feeding of live stock, shirk the thorough turning of the earth, and in sowing tending harvesting and threshing the crop they waste and cheat you to any extent. No wonder the farm gets a bad name thanks to your steward and staff. If you do not see your way to attend in person to an estate of this kind, you had better let it to a tenant. From these remarks it seems clear that the writer looks upon letting land to tenant farmers as no more than an unwelcome alternative, to be adopted only in the case of farms bad in quality or out of easy reach. Indeed he says frankly that, given fair average conditions, the owner can always get better returns by managing a farm himself than by letting it to a tenant: he may even do better by leaving the charge to a steward, unless of course that steward happens to be an utterly careless or thievish fellow. Taking this in connexion with his remarks about stewards elsewhere, the net result seems to be that a landlord must choose in any given case what he judges to be the less of two evils.
A few points here call for special consideration. In speaking of the work or service (opus) that a landlord may require of a tenant, as distinct from rent, what does Columella precisely mean? It has been held[983]that he refers to the landlord’s right of insisting that his land shall be well farmed. This presumably implies a clause in the lease under which such a right could be enforced. But there are difficulties. In the case of a distant farm, let to a tenant because it has ‘to do without the presence[984]of the landlord,’ the right would surely beinoperative in practice. In the case of a neighbouring farm, why has the landlord not kept it in hand, putting in a steward to manage it? This interpretation leaves us with no clear picture of a practical arrangement. But this objection is perhaps not fatal. The right to enforce proper cultivation is plainly guaranteed to landlords in Roman Law, as the jurists constantly assert in discussing tenancies. Andopusis a term employed[985]by them in this connexion. It is therefore the safer course to take it here in this sense, and to allow for a certain want of clearness in Columella’s phrase. At the same time it is tempting to accept another[986]view, namely this, that the writer has in mind service rendered in the form of a stipulated amount of auxiliary labour on the landlord’s ‘Home Farm’ at certain seasons. That acorvéearrangement of this kind existed as a matter of course on some estates, we have direct evidence[987]in the second century, evidence that suggests an earlier origin for the custom. True, it implies that landlords were in practice able to impose the burden of such task-work on their free tenants, in short that they had the upper hand in the bargain between the parties. But this is not surprising: for we read[988]of a great landlord calling up hiscolonito serve on his private fleet in the great civil war, a hundred years before Columella. Still, it is perhaps rash to see in this passage a direct reference to the custom of making the supply of auxiliary labour at certain seasons a part of tenant’s obligations. Granting this, it is nevertheless reasonable to believe that the first beginnings of the custom may belong to a date at least as early as the treatise of Columella. For it is quite incredible that such a practice should spring up and become prevalent suddenly. It has all the marks of gradual growth.
Another point of interest is the criticism of the town-bredcolonus. He prefers to work the farm with a slave staff, rather than undertake the job himself. I gather from this that he is a man with capital, also that he means to get a good return on his capital. He fears to make a loss on a rustic venture, being well aware of his own inexperience. So he will put in a steward with a staff of slaves. The position of the steward will in such a case be peculiarly strong. If he is slack and thievish and lets down the farm, he can stave off his master’s anger by finding fault with the soil or buildings, and involve the tenant and landlord in a quarrel over the rent. To devise pretexts would be easy for a rogue, and a quarrel might end in a lawsuit. That Saserna, writingprobably about 100BC, laid his finger on this possible source of trouble, is significant. It is evidence that there were tenant-farmers in his time, and bad ones among them: but not that they were then numerous, or that their general character was such as to make landlords let their estates in preference to managing them through their own stewards for their own account. And this agrees with Columella’s own opinion some 150 years later. If you are to let farms to tenants, local men who are familiar with local conditions are to be preferred, but he gives no hint that such tenants could readily be found. His words seem rather to imply that they were rare.
One point is hardly open to misunderstanding. In Columella’s system the typical tenant-farmer, thecolonusto be desired by a wise landlord, is a humble person, to whom small perquisites are things of some importance. He is not a restless or ambitious being, ever on the watch for a chance of putting his landlord in the wrong or a pretext for going to law. Such as we see him in the references of Seneca, and later in those of the younger Pliny and Martial, such he appears in Columella. For the landlord it is an important object to keep him—when he has got him—and to have his son ready as successor in the tenancy. From other sources we know[989]that the value of long undisturbed tenancies are generally recognized. But we have little or nothing to shew whether the tenant-farmers of this age usually worked with their own hands or not. That they employed slave labour is not onlya prioriprobable, but practically certain. We have evidence that at a somewhat later date it was customary[990]for the landlord to provide land farmstead (villa) and equipment (instrumentum), and we know that under this last head slaves could be and were concluded. It is evident that the arrangement belongs to the decisive development of the tenancy system as a regular alternative to that of farming by a steward for landlord’s own account. The desirable country-bred tenant would not be a man[991]of substantial capital, and things had to be made easy for him. It is not clear that a tenant bringing his own staff of slaves would have been welcomed as lessee: from the instance of the town-bredcolonusjust referred to it seems likely that he would not.
While Columella prescribes letting to tenants as the best way of solving the difficulties in dealing with outlying farms, he does not say that this plan should not be adopted in the case of farms near the main estate or ‘Home Farm.’ I think this silence is intentional. It is hardto believe that there were no instances of landlords either wholly non-resident or who so seldom visited their estates that they could not possibly keep an eye on the doings of stewards. In such cases there would be strong inducement to adopt the plan by which they could simply draw rents and have no stewards to look after. That stewards needed to be carefully watched was as clear to Columella as to Cato or Varro. True, letting to tenants was a policy liable to bring troubles of its own. We shall see in the case of the younger Pliny what they were and how he met them. Meanwhile he may serve as an example of the system. It is also plain that a large continuous property could be divided[992]into smaller parcels for convenience of letting to tenants. Whether the later plan of keeping a considerable Home Farm in hand under a steward, and letting off the outer parcels of the same estate to tenants, was in vogue already and contemplated by Columella, is not easy to say. In connexion with this question it is to be noted that he hardly refers at all to free hired labour[993]as generally available. The migratory gangs of wage-earners, still known to Varro, do not appear, nor do the itinerantmedici. When he speaks of hiring hands at any price, or of times when labour is cheap, he may mean hiring somebody’s slaves, and probably does. Slave labour is undoubtedly the basis of his farm-system, and its elaborate organization fills an important part of his book. Yet two marked consequences of the Roman Peace had to be taken into account. Fewer wars meant fewer slaves in the market, and a rise of prices: peace and law in Italy meant that big landowners could add field to field more securely than ever, while great numbers of citizens were settling in the Provinces, taking advantage of better openings[994]there. To keep some free labour within call as an occasional resource was an undeniable convenience for a large owner with a farm in hand. Small tenants[995]under obligation to render stipulated service at certain seasons would obviously supply the labour needed. And, if we picture to ourselves a Home Farm round the lord’s mansion, worked by steward and slave staff, with outlying ‘soccage’ tenants on holdings near, we are already in presence of a rudimentary Manor. As time went by, and the system got into regular working order, the landlord had an opportunity of strengthening his hold on the tenants. By not pressing them too severely for arrears of rent, and occasionally granting abatements, he could gradually increase their services. What he thussaved on his own labour-bill might well be more than a set-off against the loss of money-rents. More and more the tenants would become dependent on him. Nominally free, they were becoming tied to the soil on onerous terms, and the foundation was laid of the later relation of Lord and Serf.
Such I conceive to be the rustic situation the beginnings of which are probably to be placed as early as Columella’s time, though we do not find him referring to it. He says nothing of another point, which was of importance[996]later, namely the admission of slaves or freedmen as tenants of farms. It has all the appearance of a subsequent step, taken when the convenience of services rendered by resident tenants had been demonstrated by experience. It is no great stretch of imagination to suggest that, as the supply of slaves fell off, it was the policy of owners to turn their slave-property to the best possible account. When a steward or a gang-foreman was no longer in his prime, able (as Columella enjoins) to turn to and shew the common hands how work should be done, how could he best be utilized? A simple plan was to put him on a small farm with a few slave labourers. This would secure the presence of a tenant whose dependence was certain from the first, while a younger man could be promoted to the arduous duties of the big Home Farm. Be this as it may, it is certain that problems arising from shortage of slaves were presenting themselves in the middle of the first centuryAD. For slave-breeding, casual in Cato’s day and incidentally mentioned by Varro, is openly recognized by Columella, who allows for a larger female element in his farm staff and provides rewards for their realized fertility.
If the system of farm-tenancies was already becoming a part of land-management so important as the above remarks may seem to imply, why does the management of a landed estate for landlord’s account under a steward occupy almost the whole of Columella’s long treatise? I think there are several reasons. First, it is management of tillage-crops and gardens and live stock with which he is chiefly concerned, not tenures and labour-questions: and technical skill in agriculture is of interest to all connected with it, though the book is primarily addressed to landlords. Secondly, the desirable tenant was (and is) a man not much in need of being taught his business: as for an undesirable one, the sooner he is got rid of the better. Thirdly, the plan of steward-management was still the normal one: the only pity was that the indolence of owners led to appointment of bad stewards and left them too much power. Only sound knowledge can enable landlords to choose good stewards and check bad management. Seeing agriculture in a bad way, Columella writes to supply this knowledge,as Cato Varro and others had done before him. Accordingly he begins with the general organization of the normal large estate, and first discusses the choice and duties of thevilicus, on whose character and competence everything depends. To this subject he returns in a later part of the treatise, and the two passages[997]enforce the same doctrine with very slight variations in detail.
The steward[998]must not be a fancy-slave, a domestic from the master’s town house, but a well-tried hardy rustic, or at the very least one used to hard labour. He must not be too old, or he may break down under the strain; nor too young, or the elder slaves will not respect him. He must be a skilled farmer (this is most important)[999], or at least thoroughly painstaking, so as to pick up the business quickly: for the functions of teaching and giving orders cannot be separated. He need not be able to read and write, if his memory be very retentive. It is a remark of Celsus, that a steward of this sort brings his master cash more often than a book: for he cannot make up false accounts himself, and fears to trust an accomplice. But, good bad or indifferent, a steward must have a female partner[1000]allotted him, to be a restraining influence on him and in some respects a help. Being[1001]his master’s agent, he must be enjoined not to live on terms of intimacy with any of the staff, and still less with any outsider. Yet he may now and then invite a deserving worker to his table on a feast-day. He must not do sacrifice[1002]without orders, or meddle with divination. He must attend markets only on strict business, and not gad about, unless it be to pick up wrinkles[1003]for the farm, and then only if the place visited be close at hand. He must not allow new pathways to be made on the farm, or admit as guests any but his master’s intimate friends. He must be instructed to attend carefully[1004]to the stock of implements and tools, keeping everything in duplicate and in good repair, so that there need be no borrowing from neighbours: for the waste of working time thus caused is a more serious item than the cost of such articles. He is to see to the clothing[1005]of the staff (familiam) in practical garments that will stand wet and cold: this done, some work in the open is possible in almost any weather. He should be not only an expert in farm labour, but a man of thehighest mental and moral character[1006]compatible with a slave-temperament. For his rule should be sympathetic but firm: he should not be too hard[1007]upon the worse hands, while he encourages the better ones, but aim at being feared for his strictness rather than loathed for harshness. The way to achieve this is to watch and prevent, not to overlook and then punish. Even the most inveterate rogues are most effectively controlled by insisting on performance[1008]of their tasks, ensuring them their due rights, and by the steward being always on the spot. Under these conditions the various foremen[1009]will take pains to carry out their several duties, while the common hands, tired out, will be more inclined to go to sleep than to get into mischief. Some good old usages tending to promote content and good feeling are unhappily gone beyond recall, for instance[1010]the rule that a steward must not employ a fellow-slave’s services on any business save that of his master. But he must not suffer them to stray off the estate unless he sends them on errands; and this only if absolutely necessary. He must not do any trading[1011]on his own account, or employ his master’s cash in purchase of beasts etc. For this distracts a steward’s attention, and prevents the correct balancing of his accounts at the audit, when he can only produce goods instead of money. In general, the first[1012]requisite is that he should be free from conceit and eager to learn. For in farming mistakes can never be redeemed: time lost is never regained: each thing must be done right, once for all.
The above is almost a verbal rendering of Columella’s words. At this point we may fairly pause to ask whether he seriously thought that an ordinary landlord had much chance of securing such a paragon of virtue as this pattern steward. That all these high bodily mental and moral qualities combined in one individual could be bought in one lot at an auction[1013]must surely have been a chance so rare as to be hardly worth considering as a means of agricultural development. I take it that the importance of extreme care in selecting the right man, and in keeping him to his duties, is insisted on as a protest against the culpable carelessness of contemporary landlords, of which he has spoken severely above. If, as I believe, in the great majority of cases a new steward required much instruction as to the details of his duties and as to the spirit in which he was both to rule the farm-staff and to serve his master,surely the part to be played by the master himself[1014]was of fundamental importance: indeed little less so than in the scheme of old Cato. To Columella I am convinced that his recommendations stood for an ideal seldom, if ever, likely to be realized. To say this is not to blame the good man, but rather to hint that his precepts in general must not be taken as evidence of a state of things then normally to be found existing on farms. To express aspirations confesses the shortcomings of achievement.
To return to our author’s precepts. He goes on to tell us of his own way of treating[1015]his farm-hands, remarking that he has not regretted his kindness. He talks to a rustic slave (provided he is a decent worker) more often, and more as man to man (familiarius) than he does to a town slave. It relieves the round of their toil. He even exchanges pleasantries with them. He discusses new work-projects with the skilled hands and so tests their abilities: this flatters them, and they are more ready to work on a job on which they have been consulted. There are other points of management on which all prudent masters are agreed, for instance the inspection[1016]of the slaves in the lock-up. This is to ascertain whether they are carefully chained, and the chamber thoroughly secured, and whether the steward has chained or released any of them without his master’s knowledge. For he must not be permitted to release the chained on his own responsibility. Thepaterfamiliasshould be all the more particular in his inquiries as to slaves of this class, to see that they are dealt with fairly in matters of clothing and rations, inasmuch as they are under the control[1017]of several superiors, stewards foremen and warders. This position exposes them to unfair treatment, and they are apt to be more dangerous through resenting harshness and stinginess. So a careful master should question them as to whether they are getting[1018]their due allowance. He should taste their food and examine their clothes etc. He should hear and redress grievances, punish the mutinous, and reward the deserving. Columella then relates[1019]his own policy in dealing with female slaves. When one of them had reared three or more children she was rewarded: for 3 she was granted a holiday, for 4 she was manumitted. This is only fair, and it is a substantial increment[1020]to your property. In general, a landlord is enjoined to observe religious duties, and to inspect the whole estate immediatelyon his arrival from Town, checking all items carefully. This done regularly year after year, he will enjoy order and obedience on his estate in his old age.