the circumstances of that time would fit the utterances of Varro’s
characters, I am exceeding the limits of sober guesswork, I cannot judge.
But I am convinced that in any case upland pastures and forest-lands[716]
accounted for a very large part of the surface of Italy then, as they do
still. Indeed Varro recognizes this in his references to the migration
of flocks and herds according to the seasons, and particularly when he
notes not only the great stretches of rough land to be traversed but also
the need of active and sturdy _pastores_ able to beat off the assaults
of wild beasts and robbers. Surely the complete cultivation of Italy,
compared as it is with that of other countries, is a description not
to be taken literally, but as a natural exaggeration in the mouth of a
self-complacent Roman agriculturist. Be this as it may, the treatise
marks a great advance on that of Cato in some respects. Many details
are common to both writers, in particular the repeated insistence on
the main principle that whatever the farmer does must be made to pay.
Profit, not sentiment or fancy, was their common and truly Roman aim. But
in the century or more that had elapsed since Cato wrote other authors
(such as Saserna) had treated of farming, and much had been learnt from
Greek and Punic authorities. Knowledge of the products and practices of
foreign lands had greatly increased, and Varro, who had himself added to
this store, made free use of the wider range of facts now at the service
of inquirers. And the enlarged outlook called for a systematic method.
Accordingly Varro’s work is clearly divided into three discussions, of
tillage (Book I), grazing and stock-breeding (II), and keeping fancy
animals (III) chiefly to supply the market for table-luxuries. And he
goes into detail in a spirit different from that of Cato. Cato jerked out
dogmatic precepts when he thought fit, for instance his wonderful list of
farm-requisites. Varro is more concerned with the principles, the reasons
for preferring this or that method, derived from the theories and
experience of the past. For instance, in estimating the staff required,
he insists[717] on its being proportioned to the scale of the work to be
done: as the average day’s work (_opera_) varies in efficiency according
to the soil, it is not possible to assign a definite number of hands to
a farm of definite area. Nor is he content simply to take slave-labour,
supplemented by hired free labour and contract-work, for granted. In
a short but important passage he discusses the labour-question, with
reasons for the preference of this or that class of labour for this
or that purpose, of course preferring whichever is likely to give the
maximum of profit with the minimum of loss.
It is this passage[718] that is chiefly of interest from my present point
of view, and I will therefore translate it in full.
‘So much for the four conditions[719] of the farm that are connected
with the soil, and the second four external to the farm but bearing on
its cultivation. Now for the appliances used in tillage. Some classify
these under two heads (_a_) men (_b_) the implements necessary for their
work. Others under three[720] heads (_a_) the possessed of true speech
(_b_) the possessed of inarticulate speech (_c_) the speechless. In these
classes respectively are included[721] (_a_) slaves (_b_) oxen (_c_)
waggons, and such are the three kinds of equipment. The men employed
in all tillage are either slaves or freemen or both. Free labour is
seen in the case of those who till their[722] land themselves, as poor
peasants[723] with the help of their families mostly do: or in that of
wage-earners[724], as when a farmer hires free hands to carry out the
more important operations on his farm, vintage or hay-harvest and the
like: such also are those who were called “tied men”[725] in Italy, a
class still numerous in Asia Egypt and Illyricum. Speaking of these[726]
as a class, I maintain that in the tillage of malarious land[727] it pays
better to employ free wage-earners than slaves; even in a healthy spot
the more important operations, such as getting in vintage or harvest,
are best so managed. As to their qualities, Cassius writes thus: in
buying[728] labourers you are to choose men fit for heavy work, not less
than 22 years of age and ready to learn farm-duties. This you can infer
from giving them other tasks and seeing how they perform them, or by
questioning[729] new slaves as to the work they used to do under their
former owner. Slaves should be neither timid nor high-spirited. Their
overseers[730] should be men able to read and write, in fact with a touch
of education, honest fellows, somewhat older than the mere labourers
just mentioned. For these are more willing to obey their elders. Above
all things the one indispensable quality in overseers is practical
knowledge of farming. For the overseer is not only to give orders, but
to take part in carrying them out; so that the slave may do as he sees
the overseer do, and note the reasonableness of his own subordination to
one his superior in knowledge. On the other hand the overseer should not
be allowed to enforce obedience by the lash rather than by reprimand,—of
course supposing that the same effect[731] is produced. Again, you should
not buy too many slaves of the same race, for nothing breeds trouble in
the household[732] more than this. For the overseers there should be
rewards to make them keen in their work: care should be taken to allow
them a private store[733] and slave concubines to bear them children, a
tie which steadies them and binds them more closely to the estate. It is
these family ties that distinguish the slave-gangs from Epirus and give
them a high market-value. You should grant favours to overseers to gain
their goodwill, and also to the most efficient of the common hands; with
these it is also well to talk over the work that is to be undertaken,
for it makes them think that their owner takes some account of them and
does not utterly despise them. They can be given more interest in their
work by more generous treatment in the way of food or clothing, or by
a holiday or by leave to keep a beast or so of their own at grass on
the estate, or other privileges: thus any who have been overtasked or
punished may find some comfort[734] and recover their ready goodwill
towards their owner.’
This passage well illustrates the advance in scientific treatment of
the subject since the time of Cato. The analysis and classification may
not be very profound, but it tends to orderly method, not to oracles.
The influence of Greek writings is to be traced, for instance in the
rules for the choice and treatment of slaves. The writings of Aristotle
and his school had been studied in Rome since the great collection had
been brought by Sulla from the East. How far Varro actually borrows from
Aristotle or Plato or Xenophon is not always easy to say. The advice to
avoid getting too many slaves of one race or too spirited, and to use
sexual relations as a restraining tie, were by this time common-places
of slave-management, and appear under Cato in somewhat cruder practical
forms. But Varro is involved in the difficulties that have ever beset
those who try to work on double principles, to treat the slave as at
once the chattel of an owner and a partner in common humanity. So he
tells his reader ‘manage your slaves as men, if you can get them to obey
you on those terms; if not,—well, you must make them obey—flog them.’
Humanitarian principles have not gone far in the system of Varro, who
looks solely from the master’s point of view. The master gets rather
more out of his slaves when they work to gain privileges than when they
work merely to escape immediate punishment. So he is willing to offer
privileges, and the prospect of promotion to the higher ranks of the
staff. Overseers and the best of the common hands may form a little
quasi-property of their own by the master’s leave. But these _peculia_
do not seem to be a step on the road to manumission, of which we hear
nothing in this treatise. We are left to infer that rustic slaves on
estates generally remained there when past active work, tolerated
hangers-on, living on what they could pick up, and that to have acquired
some _peculium_ was a comfortable resource in old age. In short, the
hopes of the worn-out rustic bondman were limited indeed.
When we note Varro’s attitude towards free labour we cannot wonder that
humanitarianism is not conspicuous in his treatment of slavery. Hired
men are more to be trusted than slaves, so you will employ them, as Cato
advised, for jobs that need care and honesty and that cannot wait. But he
adds a sinister hint as to employing them on work dangerous to health.
Your own slaves for whom you have paid good money are too valuable to be
exposed to such risks. The great merit of the _mercennarius_ is that,
when the job is done and his wage paid, you have done with him and have
no further responsibility. This brutally industrial view is closely
connected with the legal atmosphere of Roman civilization, in which
Varro lived and moved. The debtor discharging his debt by serving his
creditor as a farm-hand, once an ordinary figure in Italy, was now only
found abroad: Varro mentions this unhappy class, for he is not thinking
of Italy alone. It is interesting to hear from him that peasant-farmers
were not extinct in Italy. But we are not told whether they were still
numerous or whether they were mostly to be found in certain districts, as
from other authorities we are tempted to infer. Nor do we learn whether
men with small farms of their own often went out as wage-earners; nor
again whether landless _mercennarii_ were in his time a numerous class.
These omissions make it very difficult for us to form any clear and
trustworthy picture of rural conditions as they presented themselves to
Varro. It would seem that they were in general much the same as in Cato’s
time, but that Varro is more inclined to discuss openly some details
that Cato took for granted. So in his turn Varro takes some things for
granted, passing lightly over details that we cannot but wish to know.
There is however one important matter, ignored by Cato (at least in
his text as we have it), to which reference is found in Varro. It is
the presence of the free tenant farmer (_colonus_) in the agricultural
system of Italy. He tells us that the formal lease[735] of a farm
usually contained a clause by which the _colonus_ was forbidden to graze
a she-goat’s offspring on the farm. In another passage[736] the same
prohibition is mentioned, but with this limitation, that it applies only
to land planted with immature saplings. So poisonous were the teeth of
nibbling goats thought to be. The restriction imposed on the tenant
suggests that the landlord was bargaining at an advantage; the lessor
could dictate his terms to the lessee. That the tenant farmers of this
period were at least in some cases humble dependants of their landlords
is clearly shewn by a passage[737] of Caesar. In order to hold Massalia
for Pompey in 49 BC, Domitius raised a squadron of seven ships, the crews
for which he made up from his own[738] slaves freedmen and tenants. Soon
after he refers to this force[739] as the tenants and herdsmen brought
by Domitius. These herdsmen are no doubt some of the slaves before
mentioned. It is evident that the free retainers called tenants are not
conceived as having much choice in the matter when their noble lord
called them out for service. Probably their effective freedom consisted
in the right to own property (if they could get it), to make wills, to
rear children of their own, and other like privileges. But their landlord
would have so great a hold[740] on them that, though in theory freemen,
they were in practice compelled to do his bidding. In later times we
shall find the tenant farmer a common figure in rural life, but very
dependent on his landlord; and it is by no means clear that his position
had ever been a strong and independent one. Of Varro all we can say is
that he does refer to farm-tenancy as a business-relation, and infer from
his words that in that relation the landowner had the upper hand.
Beside what we may call the legal sense of ‘tenant,’ Varro also uses
_colonus_ in its older sense of ‘cultivator.’ In discussing the
convenience of being able to supply farm needs, and dispose of farm
surplus, in the neighbourhood, he points out that the presence or absence
of this advantage may make all the difference whether a farm can be
made to pay or not. For instance, it is seldom worth while to keep
skilled craftsmen[741] of your own: the death of one such specialist
sweeps away the (year’s) profit of the farm. Only rich landowners can
provide for such services in their regular staff. So the usual practice
of _coloni_ is to rely on local men for such services, paying a yearly
fee and having a right to their attendance at call. The _coloni_ here
are simply ‘farmers,’ and there is nothing to shew that they do not own
their farms. The connexion with the verb _colere_ appears even more
strongly where _pastor_ is contrasted[742] with _colonus_, grazier with
tiller: and in that passage the _colonus_ is apparently identical with
the _dominus fundi_ just below. The _coloni_ of these passages can hardly
be mere tenants, but on the other hand they are certainly not great
landowners. They seem to be men farming their own land, but in a small
way[743] of business. Whether there were many such people in Varro’s
Italy, he does not tell us. Nor do we find any indication to shew whether
they would normally take part in farm work with their own hands. When
he deplores[744] the modern tendency to crowd into the city, where men
use their hands for applauding shows, having abandoned the sickle and
the plough, he is merely repeating the common lament of reformers. There
is no sign of any hope of serious reaction against this tendency: the
importation and cheap distribution of foreign corn is a degenerate and
ruinous policy, but there it is. Varro admired the small holdings and
peasant farmers of yore, but no man knew better that independent rustic
citizens of that type had passed away from the chief arable districts of
Italy never to return.
That small undertakings were still carried on in the neighbourhood of
Rome and other urban centres, is evident from the market-gardens of the
Imperial age. A notable case[745] is that of the bee-farm of a single
_iugerum_ worked at a good profit by two brothers about 30 miles north of
Rome. Varro expressly notes that they were able to bide their time so as
not to sell on a bad market. He had first-hand knowledge of these men,
who had served under him in Spain. Clearly they were citizens. They can
hardly have kept slaves. It seems to have been a very exceptional case,
and to be cited as such: it is very different from that of the peasant
farmer of early Rome, concerned first of all to grow food for himself and
his family. Agriculture as treated by Varro is based on slave labour, and
no small part of his work deals with the quarters, feeding, clothing,
discipline, sanitation, and mating, of the slave staff. True to his
legal bent, he is careful to safeguard the rights of the slaveowner by
explaining[746] the formal details necessary to effect a valid purchase,
with guarantee of bodily soundness, freedom from vice, and flawless
title. Again, to keep slaves profitably it was urgently necessary to keep
them constantly employed, so that the capital sunk in them should not lie
idle and the hands lose the habit of industry. Therefore, while relying
on local craftsmen for special skilled services occasionally needed,
he insists that a number of rustic articles should be manufactured on
the farm. ‘One ought not to buy anything that can be produced on the
estate[747] and made up by the staff (_domesticis_ = _familia_), such as
wicker work and things made of rough wood.’ Moreover, the organization
of the staff in departments is an elaborate slave-hierarchy. Under the
general direction of the _vilicus_, each separate function of tillage or
grazing, or keeping and fattening fancy-stock has its proper foreman.
Such posts carried little privileges, and were of course tenable during
good behaviour. Some foremen would have several common hands under
them: none would wish to be degraded back to the ranks. It seems that
some wealthy men kept[748] birdcatchers huntsmen or fishermen of their
own, but Varro, writing for the average landlord, seems to regard these
as being properly free professionals. As for the common hands, the
‘labourers’ (_operarii_), on whose bone and sinew the whole economic
structure rested, their condition was much the same as in Cato’s time,
but apparently somewhat less wretched. Varro does not propose to sell
off worn-out slaves; this let us credit to humaner feelings. He shews a
marked regard for the health and comfort of slaves; this may be partly
humanity, but that it is also due to an enlightened perception of the
owner’s interest is certain. He does not provide for an _ergastulum_,
though those horrible prisons were well known in his day. Why is this?
Perhaps partly because slave-labour was no longer normally employed on
estates in the extremely crude and brutal fashion that was customary in
the second century BC. And partly perhaps owing to the great disturbances
of land-tenure since the measures of the Gracchi and the confiscations of
Sulla. The earlier _latifundia_ had been in their glory when the wealthy
nobles sat securely in power, and this security was for the present at
an end. But, if the slave _operarii_ were somewhat better treated, their
actual field labour was probably no less hard. Many pieces of land could
not be worked with the clumsy and superficial plough then in use. Either
the slope of the ground forbade it, or a deeper turning of the soil was
needed, as for growing[749] vines. This meant wholesale digging, and
the slave was in effect a navvy without pay or respite. No wonder that
_fossor_ became a proverbial term for mere animal strength and dull
unadaptability. An interesting estimate of the capability of an average
digger is quoted[750] from Saserna. One man can dig over 8 _iugera_ in 45
days. But 4 day’s work is enough for one _iugerum_ (about ⅝ of an acre).
The 13 spare days allowed are set to the account[751] of sickness, bad
weather, awkwardness, and slackness. Truly a liberal margin to allow for
waste. It cannot have been easy to farm at a profit with slave-labour
on such terms; for the slave’s necessary upkeep was, however meagre, a
continual charge.
And yet we do not find Varro suggesting that free wage-earning labour
might in the long run prove more economical than slave-labour even for
rough work. Nay more, he does not refer to the employment of contractors
with their several gangs, each interested in getting his particular
job done quickly and the price paid. He only refers to _mercennarii_
in general terms, as we saw above. Nor does he speak[752] of _politio_
as a special process, as Cato does. It may be that he did not think it
worth while to enter into these topics. But it is more probable that the
results of agrarian legislation and civil warfare in the revolutionary
period had affected the problems of rustic labour. The attempt to revive
by law the class of small cultivating owners had been a failure. Military
service as a career had competed with rustic wage-earning. Men waiting
to be hired as farm hands were probably scarce. Otherwise, how can we
account for the great armies raised in those days? To refer once more to
a point mentioned above, Varro does not suggest that the charge of an
estate might with advantage be entrusted to a freeman as _vilicus_. That
we can discover all the reasons for the preference of slaves as stewards
is too much to hope for. That it seemed to be a guarantee of honesty and
devotion to duty, the manager being wholly in his master’s power, is a
fairly certain guess. And yet Varro like others saw the advisability of
employing free labour for occasional work of importance. Perhaps the
permanent nature of a steward’s responsibilities had something to do with
the preference. It may well have been difficult to keep a hold on a free
manager. In management of a slave staff no small tact and intelligence
were needed as well as a thorough knowledge of farming. General
experience needed to be supplemented by an intimate knowledge[753] of
the conditions of the neighbourhood and the capacities of the particular
estate. And a free citizen, whose abilities and energy might qualify
him for management of a big landed estate, had endless opportunities
of turning his qualities to his own profit elsewhere. Whether as
individuals or in companies, enterprising Romans found lucrative openings
in the farming of revenues, in state-contracts, in commerce, or in
money-lending, both in Italy and in the Provinces. Such employments,
compared with a possible estate-stewardship, would offer greater personal
independence and a prospect of larger gains. And freemen of a baser and
less effective type would have been worse than useless: certainly far
inferior to well-chosen slaves.
XXVI. CICERO.
It is hardly possible to avoid devoting a special section to the evidence
of =Cicero=, though it must consist mainly of noting a number of isolated
references to particular points. With all his many country-houses, his
interest in agriculture was slight. But his active part in public life
of all kinds makes him a necessary witness in any inquiry into the facts
and feelings of his time; though there are few witnesses whose evidence
needs to be received with more caution, particularly in matters that
offer opportunity for partisanship. For our present purpose this defect
does not matter very much. It is chiefly as confirming the statements of
others that his utterances will be cited.
When we reflect that Cicero was himself a man of generous instincts, and
that he was well read in the later Greek philosophies, we are tempted
to expect from him a cosmopolitan attitude on all questions affecting
individuals. He might well look at human rights from the point of view
of common humanity, differentiated solely by personal virtues and vices
and unaffected by the accident of freedom or servitude. But we do not
find him doing this. He might, and did, feel attracted by the lofty
nobility of the Stoic system; but he could not become a Stoic. No doubt
that system could be more or less adapted to the conditions of Roman
life: it was not necessary to make the Stoic principles ridiculous by
carrying[754] priggishness to the verge of caricature. But the notion
that no fundamental difference existed between races and classes, that
for instance the Wise Man, human nature’s masterpiece, might be found
among slaves, was more than Cicero or indeed any level-headed Roman
could digest. The imperial pride of a great people, conscious of present
predominance through past merit, could not sincerely accept such views.
To a Roman the corollary of accepting them would be the endeavour (more
or less successful) to act upon them. This he had no intention of doing,
and a mere theoretical assent[755] to them as philosophical speculations
was a detail of no serious importance. Taking this as a rough sketch of
the position occupied by Romans of social and political standing, we must
add to it something more to cover the case of Cicero. He was a ‘new man.’
He was not a great soldier. He was not a revolutionary demagogue. He was
ambitious. In order to rise and take his place among the Roman nobles he
had to fall in with the sentiments prevailing among them: the newly-risen
man could not afford to leave the smallest doubt as to his devotion to
the privileges of his race and class. Thus, if there was a man in Rome
peculiarly tied to principles of human inequality, it was Cicero.
Therefore we need not be surprised to find that this quick-witted and
warm-hearted man looked upon those engaged in handwork with a genial
contempt[756] sometimes touched with pity. To him, as to the society in
which he moved, bodily labour seemed to deaden interest[757] in higher
things, in fact to produce a moral and mental degradation. In the case
of slaves, whose compulsory toil secured to their owners the wealth and
leisure needed (and by some employed) for politics or self-cultivation,
the sacrifice of one human being for the benefit of another was an
appliance of civilization accepted and approved from time immemorial.
But the position of the freeman working for wages, particularly of the
man who lived by letting out his bodily strength[758] to an employer
for money, was hardly less degrading in the eyes of Roman society, and
therefore in those of Cicero. We have no description of the Roman mob
by one of themselves. That the rough element[759] was considerable, and
ready to bear a hand in political disorder, is certain. But they were
what circumstances had made them, and it is probable that the riotous
party gangs of Cicero’s time were not usually recruited among the best
of the wage-earners. It is clear that many slaves took part in riots,
and no doubt a number of freedmen also. In many rural districts disputes
between neighbours easily developed into acts of force and the slaves of
rival claimants did battle for their several owners. Moreover, slaves
might belong, not to an individual, but to a company[760] exploiting some
state concession of mineral or other rights. In such cases ‘regrettable
incidents’ were always possible. And the wild herdsmen (_pastores_)
roaming armed in the lonely hill-country were a ready-made soldiery ever
inclined to brigandage or servile rebellions, a notorious danger. It was
an age of violence in city and country. Rich politicians at last took to
keeping private bands[761] of swordsmen (_gladiatores_). And it is to be
borne in mind that, while a citizen might be unwilling to risk the life
of a costly[762] slave, his own property, a slave would feel no economic
restraint to deter him from killing his master’s citizen enemy.