century BC, and particularly of the labour question, we must never
lose sight of the fact that military service was still obligatory[623]
on the Roman citizen, and that this was a period of many wars. The
farmer-soldier, liable to be called up at any time until his forty-sixth
year, might have to break off important work which could not without
risk of loss be left in other hands. At the worst, a sudden call might
mean ruin. Pauper wage-earners, landless men, were not reached by the
military levy in the ordinary way. How soon they began to be enrolled
as volunteers, and to what extent, is uncertain. But conscription of
qualified citizens remained the staple method of filling the legions[624]
until the famous levy held by Marius in 107. Conscription had for a long
time been becoming more and more unpopular and difficult to enforce,
save in cases where easy victory and abundant booty were looked for. The
Roman government fell into the habit of employing chiefly the contingents
of the Italian Allies in hard and unremunerative campaigns. This unfair
treatment, and other wrongs to match, led to the great rebellion of 90
BC. But the grant of the Roman franchise to the Italians, extorted by
force of arms, though it made more Roman citizens, could not make more
Roman farmers. The truth is, a specializing process was going on. The
soldier was becoming more and more a professional: farming was becoming
more and more the organized exploitation of labour. Long and distant
wars unfitted the discharged soldiers for the monotonous round of rustic
life: while they kept the slave-market well supplied with captives,
thus making it easy for capitalists to take advantage of great areas of
land cheaply acquired from time to time. Moreover, the advance of Roman
dominion had another effect beside the mere supply of labouring hands.
It made Rome the centre of the Mediterranean world, the place where all
important issues were decided, and where it was necessary to reside. The
wealthy landowner was practically compelled to spend most of his time in
the ruling city, in close touch with public affairs. Now this compelled
him to manage his estates by stewards, keeping an eye on them so far
as his engagements in Rome left him free to do so. And this situation
created a demand for highly-qualified stewards. The supply of these had
to come mainly from the eastern countries of old civilization. But if
technical skill could thus be procured (and it was very necessary for the
variety of crops that were taking the place of corn), it was generally
accompanied by an oriental subtlety the devices of which were not easy
to penetrate. From the warnings of the agricultural writers, as to the
need of keeping a strict watch on a _vilicus_, we may fairly infer that
these favoured slaves were given to robbing their masters. The master,
even if he had the knowledge requisite for practical control, seldom
had the leisure for frequent visits to his estate. What he wanted was
a regular income to spend: and the astute steward who was always ready
with the expected cash on the appointed day had little fear of reprimand
or punishment. His own interest was that his own master should expect as
little as possible, and it is obvious that this would not encourage a
sincere effort to get the most out of the estate in a favourable year.
His master’s expectations would then rise, and the disappointment of poor
returns in a bad year might have serious consequences for himself.
These considerations may help us to understand why the history of the
later Roman Republic gives so gloomy a picture of agriculture.
We find the small farmer, citizen and soldier too, dying out as a class
in a great part of Italy. We find the land passing into the hands of
a few large owners whose personal importance was vastly increased
thereby. Whether bought cheap on a glutted market or ‘possessed’ in a
sort of copyhold tenancy from the state, whether arable or pasture,
it is at all events clear that the bulk of these _latifundia_ (if not
the whole) had been got on very easy terms. The new holders were not
hampered by lack of capital or labour, as may often have been the case
with the old peasantry. Slave-labour was generally cheap, at times
very cheap. Knowledge and skill could be bought, as well as bone and
muscle. Like the ox and the ass, the slave was only fed and clothed
and housed sufficiently to keep him fit for work: his upkeep while at
work was not the canker eating up profits. With the influx of wealth,
the spoils of conquest, the tribute of subject provinces, the profits
of blackmail and usury, prices of almost everything were rising in the
second century BC. Corn, imported and sold cheap to the Roman poor, was
an exception: but the Italian landlords were ceasing to grow corn, save
for local consumption. Some authorities, if not all, thought[625] that
grazing paid better than tillage: and it was notorious that pasturage was
increasing and cultivation declining. The slave-herdsmen, hardy and armed
against wolves and brigands, were a formidable class. When combined with
mutinous gladiators they were, as Spartacus shewed in 73-1 BC, wellnigh
irresistible save by regular armies in formal campaigns. The owner of a
vast estate, controlling huge numbers of able-bodied ruffians who had
nothing to lose themselves and no inducement to spare others, was in fact
a public danger if driven to desperation. He could mobilize an army of
robbers and cutthroats at a few days notice, live on the country, and
draw recruits from all the slave-gangs near. It was not want of power
that crippled the representatives of large-scale agriculture.
And yet in the last days of the Republic, when the fabric of the state
was cracking under repeated strains, we are told that, among the various
types of men led by financial embarrassments to favour revolutionary
schemes, one well-marked group consisted of great landlords. These men,
says[626] Cicero, though deep in debt, could quite well pay what they owe
by selling their lands. But they will not do this: they are ‘land-proud.’
The income from their estates will not cover the interest on their debts,
but they go on foolishly trying to make it do so. In this struggle they
are bound to be beaten. In other words, the return on their landed
estates is not enough to support a life of extravagance in Rome. So they
borrow, at high interest. The creditors of course take good security,
with a margin for risks. So, in order to keep the social status of a
great landlord, the borrower takes a loan of less than the capital value
of his land, while he has to pay for the accommodation more than the
income from the land. Ruin is the certain end of such finance, and it is
only in a revolution that there is any hope of ‘something turning up’ in
favour of the debtor. We must not suppose that all or most of the great
landlords of the day had reached the stage of embarrassment described
by Cicero. That there were some in that plight, is not to be doubted,
even when we have allowed freely for an orator’s overstatements. But it
is hardly rash to suppose that there were some landlords who were not
in debt, at least to a serious extent, either through good returns from
their lands or from other investments, or even from living thriftily.
What seems quite clear is that large-scale farming of land was by no
means so remunerative financially as other forms of investment; and that
though, as pointed out above, it was carried on with not a few points in
its favour.
In the same descriptive passage[627] the orator refers to another class
of landowners ripe for revolution. These were the veterans of Sulla,
settled by him as _coloni_ on lands of farmers dispossessed on pretext
of complicity with his Marian opponents. Their estates were no doubt on
a smaller scale than those of the class just spoken of above. But they
were evidently comfortable allotments. The discharged soldiers made bad
farmers. They meant to enjoy the wealth suddenly bestowed, and they had
no notion of economy. Their extravagance, one form of which was the
keeping of a number[628] of slaves, soon landed them hopelessly in debt.
So they also saw their only chance of recovery in a renewal of civil war
and fresh confiscations. It was said that a number of necessitous rustics
(probably some of the very men ejected from the farms) were ready to
join them in a campaign of plunder. Here we have a special picture of
the military colonist, one of the most sinister figures in the last age
of the Republic. It is no doubt highly coloured, but the group settled
in Etruria were probably some of the worst specimens. In such hands
agriculture could not flourish, and the true interests of Rome could
hardly have suffered a more deadly blow than the transfer of Italian
lands from those who could farm them to those who could not. It was not
merely that lands were ‘let down.’ Italy was made less able to maintain
a native population, fitted and willing to serve the state in peace
and war. The effects of this diminution of the free rustic population
were most seriously felt under the Empire. Writers of the Augustan age
deplore[629] the disappearance of the old races in a large part of
Italy, displaced by alien slaves; and their cry is repeated by later
generations. The imperial country that had conquered the Mediterranean
world became dependent on subjects and foreigners for her own defence.
The evil plight of agriculture in Cicero’s day was merely a continuation
and development of the process observable in the second century.
Experience had probably moderated some of the crude and blundering
methods of the land-grabbers whose doings provoked the agrarian movement
of the Gracchi. But in essence the system was the same. And it was a
failure, a confessed evil. Why? It is easy to reply that slave-labour
is wasteful; and this is I believe an economic truism. But it is well
to look a little further. Let me begin by quoting from an excellent
book[630] written at a time when this subject was one of immediate
practical interest. ‘The profitableness which has been attributed to
slavery is profitableness estimated exclusively from the point of view
of the proprietor of slaves.... The profits of capitalists may be
increased by the same process by which the gross revenue of a country is
diminished, and therefore the community as a whole may be impoverished
through the very same means by which a portion of its number is enriched.
The economic success of slavery therefore is perfectly consistent with
the supposition that it is prejudicial to the material wellbeing of the
country where it is established.’ These propositions I do not dispute:
I had come to the same conclusion long before I read this passage. I
further admit that in the case of Rome and Italy the community as a whole
was impoverished by the slave-system: it was the constant influx of
tributes from the provinces that kept up the appearance of wealth at the
centre of empire. But whether, in the case of agriculture, the capitalist
landlords were really enriched by the profits of plantation slavery, is
surely a question open to doubt.
Those of them whose capital sunk in great estates and gangs of slaves
brought in only a moderate return, while they were borrowing at a
higher rate of interest, were certainly not the richer for their landed
investments. To keep up a fictitious show of solid wealth for the moment,
they were marching to ruin. But the man who made his income from landed
estates suffice for his needs,—can we say that he was enriched thereby?
Hardly, if he was missing the chance of more remunerative investments
by having his money locked up in land. He made a sacrifice, in order
to gratify a social pride which had in Roman public life a certain
political value. Under the Republic, this political value might be
realized in the form of provincial or military appointments, profitable
through various species of blackmail. But the connexion of such profits
with ownership of great plantations is too remote to concern us here.
A smart country-place, where influential friends could be luxuriously
entertained, was politically more to the point. Now if, as seems
certain, the great plantations were not always (perhaps very seldom
were) a strictly economic success, though protected against Transalpine
competition[631] in wine and oil, can we discern any defects in the
system steadily operating to produce failure?
When we admit that slave-labour is wasteful, we mean that its output as
compared with that of free labour is not proportionate to the time spent.
Having no hope of bettering his condition, the slave does only just
enough to escape punishment; having no interest in the profits of the
work, he does it carelessly. If, as we know, the free worker paid by time
needs constant watching to keep him up to the mark, much more is this
true of the slave. Hence a system of piece-work is disliked by the free
man and hardly applicable in practice to the case of the slave. But we
are not to forget that the slave, having been bought and paid for, draws
no money wage. The interest on his prime cost is on the average probably
much less than a free man’s wage; but the master cannot pay him off and
be rid of him when the job is done. The owned labourer is on his owner’s
hands so long as that owner owns him. Against this we must set the very
low standard of feeding clothing housing etc allowed in the case of the
slave. Nor must we ignore the economic advantage of slavery as ensuring a
permanent supply of labour: for the free labourer was (and is) not always
to be had when wanted. These were pretty certainly the considerations
that underlay the organization described by the Roman writers on _res
rustica_; a regular staff of slaves for everyday work, supplemented by
hired labour at times of pressure or for special jobs. And the growing
difficulty of getting hired help probably furnished the motive for
developing the system of _coloni_. By letting parcels of an estate to
small tenants a landlord could secure the presence of resident freemen
in his neighbourhood. These in their spare time could be employed as
labourers. At how early a date stipulation for labour in part payment of
their rents placed such tenants on a ‘soccage’ footing is not certain.
It has rightly or not, been detected in Columella. At all events it
contained the germ of predial serfdom.
Now, so long as slave-labour was the permanent and vital element in
agriculture, success or failure depended entirely on the efficiency
of direction and control. Accordingly the regular organization of a
great estate was a complete hierarchy. At the head was the _vilicus_,
having under him foremen skilled in special branches of farm work and
head-shepherds and the like. Even among the rank and file of the slaves
many had special duties occupying all or part of their time, for it was
an object to fix responsibility. But it is clear that the efficiency of
the whole organization depended on that of the _vilicus_. And he was a
slave, the chattel of a master who could inflict on him any punishment
he chose. The temptation to rob his master[632] for his own profit was
probably not nearly so strong as we might on first thoughts suppose. If
he had contrived to hoard the fruits of his pilferings in portable cash,
what was he to do with it? He was not free to abscond with it. He would
be well known in the neighbourhood: if any slave could escape detection
as a runaway, it would not be he. And detection meant the loss of all
his privileges as steward, with severe punishment to boot. His obvious
policy was to cling to his stewardship, to induce his master to let him
keep a few beasts of his own (as _peculium_)[633] on some corner of the
estate, and to wait on events. It might be that he looked forward to
manumission after long service. But I cannot find any authority for such
a supposition, or any concrete instance of a manumitted _vilicus_. This
inclines me to believe that in practice to such a man manumission was no
boon. He was in most cases a native of some distant country, where he
had long been forgotten. The farm of his lord was the nearest thing he
had to a home. I am driven to suppose that as a rule he kept his post as
long as he could discharge its duties, and then sank into the position
of a quasi-pensioned retainer who could pay for his keep by watching
his successor. Ordinary slaves when worn out may have been put to light
duties about the farm, care of poultry etc, and he might direct them, so
far as the new steward allowed. I am guessing thus only in reference to
average cases. The brutal simplicity of selling off worn-out slaves for
what they would fetch was apparently not unknown, and is approved[634] by
Cato.
It has been briefly hinted above that the steward’s obvious interest lay
in preventing his master from expecting too much in the way of returns
from the estate. The demand for net income, that is to say the treatment
of agriculture as an investment yielding a steady return year in and year
out, was economically unsound. A landlord in public life wanted a safe
income; interest on good debentures, as we should say. But to guarantee
this some capitalist was needed to take the risks of business, of course
with the prospect of gaining in good years more than he lost in bad ones.
Now the Roman landlord had no such protection. In a business subject to
unavoidable fluctuations he was not only entitled to the profits but
liable to the losses. Imagine him just arrived from Rome, pledged already
to some considerable outlay on shows or simple bribery, and looking for
a cash balance larger than that shewn at the last audit. Let the steward
meet him with a tale of disaster, and conceive his fury. Situations of
this kind must surely have occurred, perhaps not very seldom: and one of
the two men was in the absolute power of the other. We need not imagine
the immediate[635] sequel. Stewards on estates for miles round would be
reminded of their own risks of disgrace and punishment, and would look
to their own security. I suggest that the habitual practice of these
trusted men was to keep the produce of an estate down to a level at
which it could easily be maintained; and, if possible, to represent it
as being even less than it really was. Thus they removed a danger from
themselves. This policy implied an easygoing management of the staff, but
the staff were not likely to resent or betray it. A master like Cato was
perhaps not to be taken in by a device of the kind: but Catos were rare,
and the old man’s advice to look sharply after your _vilicus_ sounds as
if he believed many masters to be habitually fooled by their plausible
stewards. If such was indeed the case, here we have at once a manifest
cause of the decline of agriculture. The restriction of production would
become year by year easier to arrange and conceal, harder and harder to
detect. The employment of freemen[636] as stewards seems not to have been
tried as a remedy; partly perhaps because they would have insisted on
good salaries, partly because they were free to go,—and, if rogues[637],
not empty-handed.
The cause to which I have pointed is one that could continue operating
from generation to generation, and was likely so to continue until such
time as the free farmer should once more occupy the land. The loving care
that agriculture needs could only return with him. It was not lack of
technical knowledge that did the mischief; Varro’s treatise is enough to
prove that. It was the lack of personal devotion in the landlords and
motive in the stewards. Principles without practice failed, as they have
failed and will fail. Nor must we lay much stress on the disturbances of
the revolutionary period. Had these, damaging though they were, been the
effective cause of decline, surely the long peace under the early Empire
would have led to a solid revival. But, though a court poet might sing
of revival to please his master, more serious witnesses tell a different
tale. In the middle of the first century AD we have Lucan Columella
and the elder Pliny. If Lucan’s pictures of the countryside peopled
with slave-gangs, and of the decay of free population, are suspected as
rhetorically overdrawn, at least they agree with the evidence of Livy
in the time of Augustus, so far as the parts near Rome are concerned.
Columella[638] gravely deplores the neglect of agriculture, in particular
the delegation of management to slaves. The landlord and his lady have
long abdicated their interest in what was once a noble pursuit: it is
now a degrading one, and their places are taken by the _vilicus_ and
_vilica_. Yet all he can suggest is a more perfect organization of the
slave-staff, and the letting of outlying farms to tenants. Pliny tells
the same woeful story. And while he vents his righteous indignation on
the _latifundia_ that have ruined Italy, he also mentions instances of
great profits[639] made by cultivators of vines and olives on estates
of quite moderate size. But these successful men were not of the social
aristocracy: they were freedmen or other humble folks who themselves
looked sharply after their own business.
Therefore, when we are told[640], and rightly, that with establishment of
the Empire the political attraction of Rome was lessened, and that the
interest of wealthy landlords became more strictly economic in character,
we must not be in haste to identify this change with a return of genuine
prosperity. That a sort of labour-crisis followed the restoration of
peace is reasonably inferred from the fact that the kidnapping[641] of
freemen, and their incorporation in the slave-gangs of great estates,
was one of the abominations with which the early Principate had to
deal. In a more peaceful world the supply of new slaves fell off, and
the price doubtless rose. It would seem that at the same time free
wage-earners were scarce, as was to be expected after the civil wars. So
the highwayman, probably often a discharged soldier, laid hands on the
unprotected wayfarer. After taking his purse, he made a profit of his
victim’s person by selling him as a slave to some landowner in need of
labourers, who asked no questions. Once in the _ergastulum_ the man had
small chance of regaining his freedom unless and until an inspection of
these private prisons was undertaken by the government. Such phenomena
are not likely to be the inventions of sensational writers; for the
government, heavily weighted with other responsibilities, was driven to
intervene and put down the scandal. But to do this was not to supply the
necessary labour. That problem remained, and in the attempt to solve it
an important development in the organization of large estates seems to
have taken place. While the regular labour was as before furnished by the
slave-staff, and greater care taken[642] to avoid losses by sickness,
and while even the breeding of slaves under certain restrictions was
found worthy of attention, the need of extra hands at certain seasons
was met by an arrangement for retaining potential free labourers within
easy reach. This was an extension of the system of tenant _coloni_.
Parcels of the estate were let to small farmers, whose residence was
thereby assured. Columella[643] advises a landlord in dealing with his
tenants to be more precise in exacting from them work (_opus_) than rent
(_pensiones_), and Weber[644] takes _opus_ to mean not merely the proper
cultivation of their several plots but a stipulated amount of labour on
the lord’s farm. The practice of exacting labour from debtors[645] in
discharge of their debt was not a new one, and this arrangement seems
to be the same in a more systematic form. By taking care to keep the
little farm sufficiently small, and fixing the rent sufficiently high,
the tenant was pretty certain to be often behind with his rent. In such
conditions, even if the tenant did not encumber himself by further
borrowing, it is clear that he was very liable to sink into a ‘soccage’
tenant, bound to render regular services without wage. Nominally free, he
was practically tied to the soil; while the landlord, nominally but the
owner of the soil, gradually acquired what was of more value than a money
rent,—the ownership of his tenant’s services. In the growing scarcity of
slave labour the lord had a strong motive for insisting on his rights,
and so the free worker travelled down the road to serfdom.