of a wage-earning labourer (_mercennarius_) who had the luck to turn
up a buried treasure, a find which enabled him to buy the very farm on
which he was employed, and work it as his own. There is no point in
this ‘yarn’ unless it was a well-known tale, part of the current stock
of the day. The famous _satire_ in which it occurs (II 6) seems to be
almost exactly contemporary with the appearance of the _Georgics_. In it
the restful charm of country life is heartily preferred to the worries
and boredom of Rome. His Sabine estate, with its garden, its unfailing
spring of water, and a strip of woodland, is of no great size, but it
is enough: he is no greedy land-grabber. When in Rome he longs for it.
There he can take his ease among spoilt young slaves, born[901] on the
place, keeping a sort of Liberty Hall for his friends. The talk at table
is not _de villis domibusve alienis_ but of a more rational and improving
kind: envy of other men’s wealth is talked out with an apposite fable.
Here we have mention of wage-earning, land-purchase, and slaves. And
the poet’s estate is evidently in the first place a residence, not a
farm worked on strict economic lines. That the number of slave hands
(_operae_) employed there on the Home Farm[902] was eight, we learn
from another _satire_ (II 7 118). To the smart country seats, which
advertise the solid wealth of rich capitalists, he refers in express
terms in _epistles_ I 15 45-6, and by many less particular references.
The land-grabbers are often mentioned, and the forest-lands (_saltus_)
used for grazing, in which much money was invested by men ‘land-proud,’
as a sign of their importance. In short, the picture of rural Italy given
by Horace reveals to us a state of things wholly unfavourable to the
reception of the message of the _Georgics_. When he speaks of _pauper
ruris colonus_ or of _inopes coloni_ he is surely not betraying envy of
these toilers’ lot. Far from it. When enjoying a change in his country
place, he may occasionally divert himself with a short spell[903] of
field-work, at which his neighbours grin. On the other hand the spectacle
of a disreputable freedman, enriched by speculations in time of public
calamity, and enabled through ill-gotten wealth to become a great
landlord, is the cause of wrathful indignation (_epode_ IV). And these
and other candid utterances come from one whose father was a freedman
in a country town, farming in quite a small way, to whose care and
self-denial the son owed the education that equipped him for rising in
the world. Horace indeed is one of the best of witnesses on these points.
There are points on which Vergil and Horace are agreed, though generally
with a certain difference of attitude. Thus, both prefer the country to
the town, but Horace frankly because he enjoys it and likes a rest: he
does not idealize country life as such, still less agricultural labour.
Both disapprove _latifundia_, but Horace on simple commonsense grounds,
not as a reformer. Both praise good old times, but Horace without the
faintest suggestion of possible revival of them, or anything like them.
Both refer to the beginnings of civilization, but Vergil looks back to
a golden age of primitive communism, when _in medium quaerebant_ and
so forth; a state of things ended by Jove’s ordinance that man should
raise himself by toil. Horace, less convinced of the superiority of
the past, depicts[904] the noble savage as having to fight for every
thing, even acorns; and traces steps, leading eventually to law and
order, by which he became less savage and more noble. Horace is nearer
to Lucretius here than Vergil is. Neither could ignore the disturbing
effect of the disbanding of armies and ejectment of farmers to make
way for the settlement of rude soldiers on the land. But to Horace,
personally unconcerned, a cool view was more possible. So, while hinting
at public uneasiness[905] as to the detailed intentions of the new ruler
in this matter, he is able to look at the policy in general merely as
the restoration of weary veterans to a life of peace and the relief of
their chief’s anxieties. Vergil, himself a sufferer, had his little fling
in the _Bucolics_, and was silent[906] in the _Georgics_. Again, Vergil
shuns the function of war as a means of supplying the slave-market. He
knows it well enough, and as a feature of the ‘heroic’ ages the fate of
the captive appears in the _Aeneid_. Horace makes no scruple[907] of
stating the time-honoured principle that a captive is to the conqueror
a valuable asset: there is a market for him as a serviceable drudge,
and not to spare his life is sheer waste. That there may be sarcasm
underlying the passage does not impair its candour. And it distinctly
includes rustic slavery in the words _sine pascat durus aretque_.
Lastly, while both poets praise the restfulness of the countryside with
equal sincerity, it is Horace who recognizes[908] that the working
farmer himself, after his long labours at the plough, looks forward to
retirement and ease when he has saved enough to live on. His is a real
rustic, Vergil’s an ideal.
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
the _Georgics_. 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 the _Georgics_.
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 the _Georgics_ is placed in
the year 30 BC, 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 of his
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. His _haud mollia iussa_ (III
41) 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 the _Georgics_ exhibits 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 mention of 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-fisted _dominus_ of 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 of _servitia_, 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 43 BC, 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 41 BC
Octavian, 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, published _in 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 the
_Georgics_ would 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 the _Georgics_. 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 as _Vergilius 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 the _Georgics_
set 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.
XXX. THE ELDER SENECA AND OTHERS.
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 the =elder 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
of _ex parte_ advocacy, but having as statements no authority whatever.
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 the _ergastula_ in 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 the _vilicus_ for 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 the
relations 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 this _suppressio_.
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 own _colonus_. Here we clearly have the tenant farmer in
the second century BC In 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 was _ingenua_ does not rule out this
supposition.
=Velleius= and =Valerius Maximus= also 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 seven _iugera_ of
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 freedman =Phaedrus= gives 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
the _vilicus_.
XXXI. SENECA THE YOUNGER.