matter of the later Comedy has reached us in the Latin versions and
adaptations of =Plautus= and =Terence=. It is necessary to speak of their
evidence separately, in particular where slavery is in question, for the
relative passages are liable to be touched with Roman colouring. In the
case of manumission this is especially clear, but to pursue the topic in
detail is beyond my present purpose. The passages of =Plautus= bearing
on rustic life are not many, but the picture so far as it goes is clear
and consistent. In general the master is represented as a man of means
with a house in town and a country estate outside. The latter is worked
by slaves under a slave-bailiff or steward (_vilicus_). The town-house is
staffed by slaves, but the headman is less absolute than the steward on
the farm: departmental chiefs, such as the cook, are important parts of
the household. This is natural enough, for the master generally resides
there himself, and only pays occasional[545] visits to the farm. The two
sets of slaves are kept apart. If the steward[546] or some other trusted
farm-slave has to come to town, he is practically a stranger, and a
quarrel is apt to arise with leading domestics: for his rustic appearance
and manners are despised by the pampered menials. But he is aware that
his turn may come: some day the master in wrath may consign the offending
town-slave to farm-labour, and then—. Apart from slavery, rustic life
is regarded[547] as favourable to good morals: honest labour, frugal
habits, freedom from urban temptations, commend it to fathers who desire
to preserve their sons from corrupting debauchery. In short, the urban
moralist idealizes the farm. Whether he would by choice reside there, is
quite another thing. Clearly the average young citizen would not. That
the farm is occasionally used[548] as a retreat, is no more than a point
of dramatic convenience. In one passage[549] we have a picture of a small
farm, with slave-labour employed on it. Freemen as agricultural labourers
hardly appear at all. But a significant dialogue[550] between an old
freeman and a young one runs thus: ‘Country life is a life of toil.’
‘Aye, but city indigence is far more so.’ The youth, who has offered to
do farm-work, is representative of that class of urban poor, whose lot
was doubtless a very miserable one. Very seldom do we hear anything of
them, for our records in general only take account of the master and the
slave. In the play just referred to[551] there occur certain terms more
or less technical. The neutral _operarius_ seems equivalent to ἐργάτης,
and _mercennarius_ to μισθωτός, distinct from[552] _servus_. But these
terms are not specially connected with agriculture.
The references in =Terence= give us the same picture. An old man of 60
or more is blamed[553] by a friend. ‘You have a first-rate farm and a
number of slaves: why will you persist in working yourself to make up
for their laziness? Your labour would be better spent in keeping them
to their tasks.’ The old man explains[554] that he is punishing himself
for his treatment of his only son. In order to detach the youth from
an undesirable amour, he had used the stock reproaches of fathers to
erring sons. He had said ‘At your time of life I wasn’t hanging about a
mistress: I went soldiering in Asia for a living, and there I won both
money and glory.’ At length the young man could stand it no longer: he
went off to Asia and entered the service of one of the kings. The old
man cannot forgive himself, and is now busy tormenting himself for his
conduct. He has sold off[555] all his slaves, male or female, save those
whose labour on the farm pays for its cost, and is wearing himself out
as a mere farm hand. Another[556] old farmer, a man of small means who
makes his living by farming, is evidently not the owner but a tenant.
Another[557] has gone to reside on his farm, to make it pay; otherwise
the expenses at home cannot be met. In general country life is held up as
a model[558] of frugality and industry. In one passage[559] we hear of
a hired wage-earner employed on a farm (_a villa mercennarium_) whom I
take to be a free man, probably employed for some special service. Such
are the gleanings to be got from these Roman echoes of the later Attic
comedy. I see no reason to believe that they are modified by intrusion of
details drawn from Italy. The period in which Plautus and Terence wrote
(about 230-160 BC) included many changes in Roman life, particularly
in agriculture. In large parts of Italy the peasant farmers were being
superseded by great landlords whose estates were worked by slave-labour,
and the conditions of farm life as shewn by the Attic playwrights were
not so strange to a Roman audience as to need recasting. And we can only
remark that the evidence drawn from the passages above referred to is in
full agreement with that taken from other sources.
A very interesting sidelight on conditions in Greece, agriculture
included, towards the end of the third century BC, is thrown by the
correspondence[560] of =Philip V of Macedon= with the authorities of
Larisa. An inscription found at Larisa preserves this important record.
Two points must first be noted, to give the historical setting of the
whole affair. Thessaly was under Macedonian overlordship, and its
economic and military strength a matter of concern to Philip, who had
succeeded to the throne of Macedon in 220 BC. Moreover, the defeat of
Carthage in the first Punic war (264-41), the Roman occupation of the
greater part of Sicily and Sardinia, the Gallic wars and extension of
Roman dominion in Italy, the Illyrian war (230-29) and intervention
of Rome beyond the Adriatic, had attracted the attention of all the
Greek powers. The western Republic had for some years been carefully
watched, and the admission of Corcyra Epidamnus and Apollonia to the
Roman alliance was especially disquieting to the Macedonian king. So
in 219 BC, just before the second Punic war, Philip sent =a letter
to Larisa=, pointing out that the number of their citizens had been
reduced by losses in recent wars and urging them to include in their
franchise the Thessalians and other Greeks resident in the city. Among
other advantages, the country[561] would be more fully cultivated. The
Larisaeans obeyed his injunctions. In 217 the war in Greece was ended by
his concluding peace with the Aetolians, his chief antagonists. Hannibal
was now in Italy, and the victory of Cannae in 216 raised hopes in Philip
of using the disasters of the Romans to drive them out of Illyria. In
215 he concluded an alliance with Hannibal. The Romans replied by naval
activity in the Adriatic and later by stirring up Greek powers, above
all the Aetolians, to renew the war against him. Meanwhile things had
not gone on quietly at Larisa. The old Thessalian noble families had
given way to the king’s pressure unwillingly for the moment, but internal
troubles soon broke out. The nobles regained control and annulled the
recent concessions. Philip therefore addressed to them a =second letter=
in 214, censuring their conduct, and calling upon them to give effect to
the enfranchisement-policy previously agreed to. Thus they would not only
conform to his decision as their overlord, but would best serve their
own interests. Their city would gain strength by increasing the number
of citizens, and they would not have their territory disgracefully[562]
lying waste (καὶ τὴν χώραν μὴ ὥσπερ νῦν αἰσχρῶς χερσεύεσθαι). He went on
to refer to the advantageous results of such incorporations elsewhere:
citing in particular the experience of Rome, whose growth and colonial
expansion were the fruits of a franchise-policy so generous as to grant
citizenship even to manumitted slaves. He called upon the Larisaeans to
face the question without aristocratic prejudice (ἀφιλοτίμως). And the
Larisaeans again complied.
Now here we have a glimpse of agricultural decline in one of the most
fertile parts of Greece. The stress laid upon it by Philip shews that
to him it seemed a very serious matter. He saw trouble coming, and
wished to keep his dependent allies strong. That his difficulty lay
in controlling the aristocratic families, who still retained much
of their former power, is clear. After his defeat in 197 the Romans
restored[563] the aristocratic governments in Thessalian cities; indeed
all through the wars of this period in Greece the popular parties
inclined to Macedon, while the propertied classes favoured Rome. In
Thessaly the private estates of the nobles were cultivated by serfs.
How would an incorporation of more citizens tend to promote a fuller
cultivation of the land? I think we may take it for granted that the new
citizens were not expected to till the soil in person. That they were
to have unemployed serfs assigned to them, and so to enter the ranks of
cultivating landlords, is a bold assumption: for we do not know that
there were any unemployed serfs or that any distribution of land was
contemplated. I can only suggest that the effect of receiving citizenship
would be to acquire the right of holding real estate. Then, if we
suppose that there were at the time landed estates left vacant by the
war-casualties to which the king refers, and that each of these carried
with it a right to a certain supply of serf labour, we do get some sort
of answer to the question. But so far as I know this is nothing but
guesswork. More owners interested in the profits of farming would tend,
if labour were available, to employ more labour on the farms. In short,
we have evidence of the decay of agriculture in a particular district and
period, but as to the exact causes of this decay, and the exact nature of
the means proposed for checking it, we are sadly in the dark.
The garden or orchard had always been a favourite institution in Greek
life, and the growth of cities did not make it less popular. The land
immediately beyond the city walls was often laid out in this manner.
When Aratus in 251 BC took Sicyon and attached it to the Achaean League,
the surprise was effected by way of a suburban[564] garden. And we have
no reason to suppose that holdings near a city lacked cultivators.
Even in the horrible period of confusion and bloodshed at Syracuse,
from the death of Dionysius the elder to the victory of Timoleon, we
hear[565] of Syracusans living in the country, and of the usual clamour
for redistribution of lands. In the endeavour to repopulate the city an
invitation to settlers was issued, with offer[566] of land-allotments,
and apparently the promise was kept. These notices suggest that there
was a demand for suburban holdings, but tell us nothing as to the
state of things in the districts further afield, or as to the class of
labour employed on the land. In any case Syracuse was a seaport, and
accustomed to get a good part of its supplies by sea. Very different was
the situation in Peloponnesus, where the up-country towns had to depend
chiefly on the produce of their own territories. There land-hunger was
ever present. The estates of men driven out in civil broils were seized
by the victorious party, and restoration of exiles at once led to a
fresh conflict over claims to restitution of estates. One of the most
difficult problems[567] with which Aratus had to deal at Sicyon was this;
and in the end he only solved it by the use of a large sum of money, the
gift of Ptolemy Philadelphus. The restored exiles on this occasion are
said to have been not less than 580 in all. They had been expelled by
tyrants who had in recent years ruled the city, and whose policy it had
evidently been to drive out the men of property—sworn foes of tyrants—and
to reward their own adherents out of confiscated lands. To reverse this
policy was the lifelong aim of Aratus. In the generation following, the
life of his successor Philopoemen gives us a little light on agriculture
from another point of view, that of the soldier. He was resolved to make
the army of the Achaean League an efficient force. As a young man he
concluded[568] that the Greek athletic training was not consistent with
military life, in which the endurance of hardship and ability to subsist
on any diet were primary necessities. Therefore he devoted his spare time
to agriculture, working[569] in person on his farm, about 2½ miles from
Megalopolis, sharing the labour and habits of the labourers (ἐργατῶν).
The use of the neutral word leaves a doubt as to whether freemen or
slaves are meant: taken in connexion with the passages cited from
Polybius, it is perhaps more likely that the reference is to slaves. But
the chief interest of the story as preserved by =Plutarch= lies in the
discovery that, compared with athletes, husbandmen are better military
material.
The conclusions of Beloch[570] as to the population of Peloponnesus in
this period call for serious consideration. His opinion is that the
number capable of bearing arms declined somewhat since the middle of the
fourth century, though the wholesale emancipation of Spartan Helots must
be reckoned as an addition. But on the whole the free population was
at the beginning of the second century about equal to the joint total
of free and Helot population at the end of the fifth century. On the
other hand, the slave population had in the interval greatly increased.
He points to the importance of a slave corps[571] in the defence of
Megalopolis when besieged in 318 BC: to the Roman and Italian[572] slaves
(prisoners sold by Hannibal) in Achaean territory, found and released
in 194 BC, some 1200 in number: and to the levy[573] of manumitted
home-born slaves in the last struggle of the League against Rome. I must
say that this evidence, taken by itself, hardly seems enough to sustain
the great historian’s broad conclusion. But many of the passages cited
in preceding sections lend it support, and I am therefore not disposed
to challenge its general probability. It may be added that increase in
the number of slaves suggests an increase of large holdings cultivated
by slave labour; and that the breeding of home-born (οἰκογενεῖς) slaves
could be more easily practised by owners of a large staff than on a small
scale. Moreover the loss of slaves levied for war purposes would fall
chiefly on their wealthy owners. The men of property were rightly or
wrongly suspected of leaning to Rome, and were not likely to be spared by
the demagogues who presided over the last frantic efforts of ‘freedom’
in Greece. The truth seems to be that circumstances were more and more
unfavourable to the existence of free husbandmen on small farms, the very
class of whose solid merits statesmen and philosophers had shewn warm
appreciation. The division between the Rich, who wanted to keep what they
had and get more, and the Poor, who wanted to take the property of the
Rich, was the one ever-significant fact. And the establishment of Roman
supremacy settled the question for centuries to come. Roman capitalism,
hastening to exploit the world for its own ends, had no mercy for the
small independent worker in any department of life. In Greece under the
sway of Rome there is no doubt that free population declined, and the
state of agriculture went from bad to worse.
At this point, when the Greek world passes under the sway of Rome, it is
necessary to pause and turn back to consider the fragmentary record of
early Italian agriculture. This one great staple industry is represented
as the economic foundation of Roman political and military greatness.
No small part of the surviving Latin literature glorifies the soundness
of the Roman farmer-folk and the exploits of farmer-heroes in the good
old days, and laments the rottenness that attended their decay. How far
this tradition is to be accepted as it stands, or what reservations on
its acceptance should be made, and in particular the introduction or
extension of slave-labour, are the questions with which it will be our
main business to deal.
ROME—EARLY PERIOD
XX. THE TRADITIONS COMBINED AND DISCUSSED.
When we turn to Roman agriculture, and agricultural labour in particular,
we have to deal with evidence very different in character from that
presented by the Greek world. This will be most clearly seen if we accept
the very reasonable division of periods made by Wallon in his _History
of Slavery_—the first down to 201 BC, the end of the second Punic war,
the second to the age of the Antonine emperors, 200 BC to the death of
Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD, and the third that of the later Empire. For
of the first we have no contemporary or nearly contemporary pictures
surviving. Traditions preserved by later writers, notes of antiquaries
on words and customs long obscured by time and change, are the staple
material at hand. Even with the help of a few survivals in law, inference
from such material is unavoidably timid and incomplete. In collecting
what the later Romans believed of their past we get vivid impressions
of the opinions and prejudices that went to form the Roman spirit. But
it does not follow that we can rely on these opinions as solid evidence
of facts. An instance may be found in the assertion[574] that a clause
requiring the employment of a certain proportion of free labourers to
slaves was included in the Licinian laws of 367 BC. This used to be
taken as a fact, and inferences were drawn from it, but it is now with
reason regarded as an ‘anticipation,’ transferring the fact of a later
attempt of the kind to an age in which the slave-gangs were not as yet an
evident economic and social danger. In the second period, that of Roman
greatness, we have not only contemporary witness for much of the time in
the form of references and allusions in literature, but the works of the
great writers on agriculture, Cato Varro and Columella, not to mention
the great compiler Pliny, fall within it, and give us on the whole a
picture exceptionally complete. We know more of the farm-management and
labour-conditions in this period than we do of most matters of antiquity.
The last period sees the development of a change the germs of which are
no doubt to be detected in the preceding one. The great strain on the
Empire, owing to the internal decay and the growing pressure of financial
necessities, made the change inevitable; economic freedom and proprietary
slavery died down, and we have before us the transition to predial
serfdom, the system of the unfree tenant bound to the soil. The record of
this change is chiefly preserved in the later Roman Law.
My first business is therefore to inquire what the tradition of early
times amounts to, and how far it may reasonably be taken as evidence of
fact. And it must be borne in mind that my subject is not the technical
details of agriculture in general, but the nature of the labour employed
in agriculture. In ages when voluntary peace between empires and peoples
on _bona fide_ equal terms was never a realized fact, and as yet hardly a
dream, the stability of a state depended on the strength of its military
forces,—their number, efficiency, and means of renewal. Mere numbers[575]
were tried and failed. The hire of professional soldiers of fortune[576]
might furnish technical skill, but it was politically dangerous. Their
leaders had no personal sentiment in favour of the state employing them,
and their interest or ambition disposed them rather to support a tyrant,
or to become tyrants themselves, than to act as loyal defenders of the
freedom of the state. Mercenaries[577] hired in the mass, barbarians,
were less skilled but not less dangerous. That a well-trained army of
citizens was the most trustworthy organ of state-protection, was not
disputed: the combination of loyalty with skill made it a most efficient
weapon. The ratio of citizen enthusiasm to the confidence created by
exact discipline varied greatly in the Greek republics of the fifth
century BC. But these two elements were normally present, though in
various proportions. The common defect, most serious in those states that
played an active part, was the smallness of scale that made it difficult
to keep up the strength of citizen armies exposed to the wastage of
war. A single great disaster might and did turn a struggle for empire
into a desperate fight for existence. The constrained transition to
employment of mercenary troops as the principal armed force of states
was both a symptom and a further cause of decay in the Greek republics.
For the sturdy soldiers of fortune were generally drawn from the rustic
population of districts in which agriculture filled a more important
place than political life. There is little doubt that a decline of
food-production in Greece was the result: and scarcity of food had long
been a persistent difficulty underlying and explaining most of the doings
of the Greeks. The rise of Macedon and the conquests of Alexander proved
the military value of a national army of trained rustics, and reasserted
the superiority of such troops to the armed multitudes of the East. But
Alexander’s career did not leave the world at peace. His empire broke
up in a period of dynastic wars; for to supply an imperial army strong
enough to support a single control and guarantee internal peace was
beyond the resources of Macedonia.
If an army of considerable strength, easily maintained and recruited,
loyal, the servant of the state and not its master, was necessary for
defence and as an instrument of foreign politics, there was room for a
better solution of the problem than had been found in Greece or the East.
It was found in Italy on the following lines. An increase of scale could
only be attained by growth. Growth, to be effective, must not consist
in mere conquest: it must be true expansion, in other words it must
imply permanent occupation. And permanent occupation implied settlement
of the conquering people on the conquered lands. A growing population
of rustic citizens, self-supporting, bound by ties of sentiment and
interest to the state of which they were citizens, conscious of a duty
to uphold the state to which they owed their homesteads and their
security, supplied automatically in response to growing needs the
growing raw material of power. Nor was Roman expansion confined to the
assignation of land-allotments to individuals (_viritim_). Old towns
were remodelled, and new ones founded, under various conditions as
settlements (_coloniae_). Each settler in one of these towns received an
allotment of land in the territory of the township, and was officially
speaking a tiller of the soil (_colonus_). The effect of these Colonies
was twofold. Their territories added to the sum of land in occupation of
Romans or Roman Allies: so far the gain was chiefly material. But they
were all bound to Rome and subjected to Roman influences. In their turn
they influenced the conquered peoples among whom they were planted, and
promoted slowly and steadily the Romanizing of Italy. Being fortified,
they had a military value from the first, as commanding roads and as
bases of campaigns. But their moral effect in accustoming Italians to
regard Rome as the controlling centre of Italy was perhaps of even
greater importance.