appears the more striking from Columella’s references to the lock-up
chamber or slave-prison. His predecessors pass lightly over this matter,
but he gives it the fullest recognition. The _ergastulum_ should be a
chamber[1033] below ground level, as healthy as you can get, lighted by
a number of slits in the wall so high above the floor as to be out of
a man’s reach. This dungeon is only for the refractory slaves, chained
and constantly inspected. For the more submissive ones cabins (_cellae_)
are provided in healthy spots near their work but not so scattered as to
make observation difficult. There is even a bath house[1034], which the
staff are allowed to use on holidays only: much bathing is weakening.
Whether on an average farm the chained or unchained slaves are assumed
to be the majority is not quite clear; probably the unchained, to judge
by the general tone of the precepts. But that a lock-up is part of the
normal establishment is clear enough. And it is to be noted that in one
passage[1035] _ergastula_ are mentioned in ill-omened juxtaposition
with citizens enslaved by their creditors. Whether it is implied
that unhappy debtors were still liable to be locked up as slaves in
creditors’ dungeons as of old, is not easy to say. Columella is capable
of rhetorical flourishes now and then. It is safer to suppose that he is
referring to two forms of slave-labour; first, the working off arrears of
debt[1036] by labour of a servile kind; second, the wholesale slave-gang
system suggested by the significant word _ergastula_. Or are we to read
into it a reference to the kidnapping[1037] of wayfarers which Augustus
and Tiberius had striven to put down? Before we leave the subject of
the slave-staff it is well to note that no prospect of freedom is held
out, at least to the males. Fertility, as we have seen, might lead to
manumission of females. But we are not told what use they were likely
to make of their freedom, when they had got it. My belief is that they
stayed on the estate as tolerated humble dependants; for they would
have no other home. Some were natives of the place, and the imported
ones would have lost all touch with their native lands. Perhaps the
care of poultry[1038] is a specimen of the various minor functions in
which they could make themselves useful. At all events they were free
from fetters and the lash. And the men too may have been occasionally
manumitted on the same sort of terms. Silence does not prove a negative.
For instance, we hear of _peculium_, the slave’s quasi-property, only
incidentally[1039] as being derived from _pecus_. Yet we are not entitled
to say that slaves were not free to make savings under the system of
Columella.
Though the _vilicus_ appears in this treatise as the normal head of
the management, there are signs that this was not the last word in
estate-organization. That he is sometimes[1040] referred to as being the
landlord’s agent (_actor_), but usually not, rather suggests that he
could be, and often was, confined to a more restricted sphere of duty,
namely the purely agricultural superintendence of the farm in hand. This
would make him a mere farm-bailiff, directing operations on the land,
but with little or no responsibility for such matters as finance. And
in a few passages we have mention of a _procurator_. This term must be
taken in its ordinary sense[1041] as signifying the landlord’s ‘attorney’
or full legal representative. He is to keep an eye on the management,
for instance[1042] the threshing-floor, if the master is not at hand.
The position of his quarters indicates his importance: as the steward’s
lodging is to be where he can watch goings-out and comings-in, so that
of the _procurator_ is to be where[1043] he can have a near view of the
steward as well as doings in general. Judging from the common practice
of the day, it is probable that he would be a freedman. Now, why does
Columella, after referring to him thus early in the treatise, proceed to
ignore him afterwards? The only reasonable explanation that occurs to
me is that the appointment of such an official would only be necessary
in exceptional cases: in short, that in speaking of a _procurator_
he implies an unexpressed reservation ‘supposing such a person to be
employed.’ Circumstances that might lead to such an appointment are not
far to seek. The landlord might be abroad for a long time on public
duty or private business. There might be large transactions pending
(purchases, sales, litigation, etc) in connexion with the estate or
neighbourhood; in the case of a very large estate this was not unlikely.
The estate might be one of several owned by the same lord, and the
_procurator_ intermittently resident on one or other as from time to time
required. Or lastly the services of an agent with full legal powers may
have been desirable in dealing with free tenantry. If a landlord had a
number of tenant farmers on his estates, it is most unlikely that his
_vilici_, slaves as they were, would be able to keep a firm hand[1044] on
them: and the fact of his letting his farms surely suggests that he would
not desire to have much rent-collecting or exaction of services to do
himself.
One point in which Columella’s system seems to record a change from
earlier usage may be found in the comparative disuse of letting out
special jobs to contractors. In one passage[1045], when discussing the
trenching-work required in _pastinatio_, and devices for preventing the
disputes arising from bad execution of the same, he refers to _conductor_
as well as _dominus_. The interests of the two are liable to clash, and
he tries to shew a means of ensuring a fair settlement between the
parties without going to law. I understand the _conductor_ to be a man
who has contracted for the job at an agreed price, and _exactor operis_
just below to be the landlord, whose business it is to get full value for
his money. Thus _conductor_ here will be the same as the _redemptor_ so
often employed in the scheme of Cato. I cannot find further traces of him
in Columella. Nor is the sale of a hanging[1046] crop or a season’s lambs
to a speculator referred to. But we have other authority for believing
that contracts of this kind were not obsolete, and it is probable
that the same is true of contracts for special operations. That such
arrangements were nevertheless much rarer than in Cato’s time seems to be
a fair inference. The manifest reluctance[1047] to hire external labour
also points to the desire of getting, so far as possible, all farming
operations performed by the actual farm-staff. If I have rightly judged
the position of tenant farmers, it is evident that their stipulated
services would be an important help in enabling the landlord to dispense
with employment of contractors’ gangs on the farm. This was in itself
desirable: that the presence of outsiders was unsettling to your own
slaves had long been remarked, and in the more elaborate organization
of Columella’s day disturbing influences would be more apprehensively
regarded than ever.
It is hardly necessary to follow out all the details of this complicated
system and enumerate the various special functions assigned to the
members of the staff. To get good foremen even at high prices was one
of the leading principles: an instance[1048] is seen in the case of
vineyards, where we hear of a thoroughly competent _vinitor_, whose price
is reckoned at about £80 of our money, the estimated value of about 4½
acres of land. The main point is that it is a system of slave labour on
a large scale, and that Columella, well aware that such labour is in
general wasteful, endeavours to make it remunerative by strict order
and discipline. He knows very well that current lamentations over the
supposed exhaustion[1049] of the earth’s fertility are mere evasions of
the true causes of rural decay, neglect and ignorance. He knows that
intensive cultivation[1050] pays well, and cites striking instances. But
the public for whom he writes is evidently not the men on small holdings,
largely market-gardeners[1051], who were able to make a living with or
without slave-help, at all events when within reach of urban markets.
He addresses men of wealth, most of whom were proud of their position
as landlords, but presumably not unwilling to make their estates more
remunerative, provided the effort did not give them too much trouble.
This condition was the real difficulty; and it is hard to believe that
Columella, when insisting on the frequent presence of the master’s eye,
was sanguine enough to expect a general response. His attitude towards
pastoral industry seems decidedly less enthusiastic than that of his
predecessors. Stock[1052] must be kept on the farm, partly to eat off
your own fodder-crops, but chiefly for the sake of supplying manure for
the arable land. In quoting Cato’s famous saying on the profitableness
of grazing, he agrees that nothing pays so quickly as good grazing, and
that moderately good grazing pays well enough. But if, as some versions
have it, he really said that even bad grazing was the next best thing for
a farmer, Columella respectfully dissents. The breeding and fattening of
all manner of animals for luxurious tables[1053] remains much the same as
in the treatise of Varro. A curious caution is given[1054] in discussing
the fattening of thrushes. They are to be fed with ‘dried figs beaten up
with fine meal, as much as they can eat or more. Some people chew the
figs before giving them to the birds. But it is hardly worth while to do
this if you have a large number to feed, for it costs money to hire[1055]
persons to do the chewing, and the sweet taste makes them swallow a good
deal themselves.’ Now, why hire labour for such a purpose? Is it because
slaves would swallow so much of the sweet stuff that your thrushes would
never fatten?
It is well known that importation of corn from abroad led to great
changes in Italian agriculture in the second century BC. The first was
the formation of great estates worked by slave-gangs, which seems to have
begun as an attempt to compete with foreign large-scale farming in the
general production of food-stuffs. If so, it was gradually discovered
that it did not pay to grow cereal crops for the market, unscrupulous
in slave-driving though the master might be. Therefore attention was
turned to the development on a larger scale of the existing culture
of the vine and olive and the keeping of great flocks and herds. Food
for these last had to be found on the farm in the winter, and more and
more it became usual only to grow cereals as fodder for the stock,
of course including the slaves. No doubt there was a demand for the
better sorts, such as wheat, in all the country towns, but the farms
in their immediate neighbourhood would supply the need. That Columella
assumes produce of this kind to be normally consumed on the place,
is indicated by his recommending[1056] barley as good food for all
live-stock, and for slaves when mixed with wheat. Also by his treating
the delicate[1057] white wheat, much fancied in Rome, as a degenerate
variety, not worth the growing by a practical farmer. His instructions
for storage shew the same point of view. The structure and principles
of granaries[1058] are discussed at length, and the possibility of
long storage[1059] is contemplated. The difficulties of transport by
land had certainly been an important influence in the changes of Roman
husbandry, telling against movements of bulky produce. Hence the value
attached[1060] to situations near the seaboard or a navigable stream
(the latter not a condition often to be realized in Italy) by Columella
and his predecessors. Military roads served the traveller as well as the
armies, but took no regard[1061] of agricultural needs. Moreover they had
special[1062] drawbacks. Wayfarers had a knack of pilfering from farms
on the route, and someone or other was always turning up to seek lodging
and entertainment. Thus it was wise not to plant your villa close to
one of these trunk roads, or your pocket was likely to suffer. But to
have a decent approach[1063] by a country road was a great convenience,
facilitating the landlord’s periodical visits and the carriage of goods
to and from the estate.
Certain words call for brief notice. Thus _opera_, the average day’s
work of an average worker, is Columella’s regular labour-unit in terms
of which he expresses the labour-cost[1064] of an undertaking. In no
other writer is this more marked. Occasionally _operae_ occurs in the
well-known concrete sense[1065] of the ‘hands’ themselves. The _magistri_
mentioned are not always the foremen spoken of above, but sometimes[1066]
directors or teachers in a general sense or even as a sort of synonym for
_professores_. To recur once again to _colonus_, the word, as in other
writers, often means simply ‘cultivator,’ not ‘tenant-farmer.’ The latter
special sense occurs in a passage[1067] which would be useful evidence
for the history of farm-tenancies, if it were not doubtful whether the
text is sound.
There remains a question, much more than a merely literary problem, as
to the true relation of Columella to Vergil. That he constantly quotes
the poet, and cites him as an authority on agriculture, is a striking
fact. One instance will shew the deep veneration with which he regards
the great master. In speaking[1068] of the attention to local qualities
of climate and soil needed in choosing an estate, he quotes lines
from the first _Georgic_, the matter of which is quite traditional,
common property. But he speaks of Vergil (to name the poet[1069] was
unnecessary) as a most realistic[1070] bard, to be trusted as an oracle.
Nay, so irresistible is to him the influence of Vergil, that he must
needs cast his own tenth book into hexameter verse: the subject of that
book is gardens, a topic on which Vergil had confessedly[1071] not fully
said his say. And yet in the treatment of the land-question there is a
fundamental difference between the two writers. Columella’s system is
based on slave labour organized to ensure the completest efficiency:
Vergil practically ignores slavery altogether. Columella advises you to
let land to tenant farmers whenever you cannot effectively superintend
the working of slave-organizations under stewards: Vergil ignores this
solution also, and seems vaguely to contemplate a return to the system
of small farms owned and worked by free yeomen in an idealized past.
Columella is concerned to see that capital invested in land is so
employed as to bring in a good economic return: Vergil dreams of the
revival of a failing race, and possible economic success and rustic
wellbeing are to him not so much ends as means. The contrast is striking
enough. In the chapter on Vergil I have already pointed out that the poet
had at once captured the adoration of the Roman world. It was not only in
quotations or allusions, or in the incense of praise, that his supremacy
was held in evidence so long as Latin literature remained alive. His
influence affected prose style also, and subtle reminiscences of
Vergilian flavour maybe traced in Tacitus. But all this is very different
from the practice of citing him as an authority on a special subject, as
Columella did and the elder Pliny did after him.
I would venture to connect this practice with the Roman habit of viewing
their own literature as inspired by Greek models and so tending to move
on parallel lines. Cicero was not content to be a Roman Demosthenes; he
must needs try to be a Roman Plato too, if not also a Roman Aristotle.
Now citation of the Homeric poems as a recognized authority on all
manner of subjects, not to mention casual illustrations, runs through
Greek literature. Plato and Aristotle are good instances. It is surely
not surprising that we find Roman writers patriotically willing to cite
their own great poet, more especially as the _Georgics_ lay ready to
hand. In the next generation after Columella, Quintilian framed his
criticism[1072] of the two literatures (as food for oratorical students)
on frankly parallel lines. Vergil is the pair to Homer: second to
the prince of singers, but a good second: and he is quoted and cited
throughout the treatise as Homer is in Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_. True, the
cases are not really parallel. Whatever preexistent material may have
served to build up the Homeric poems, they are at least not didactic
poems, made up of precepts largely derived from technical writers, and
refined into poetic form with mature and laborious skill. To quote the
_Georgics_, not only for personal observation of facts but for guiding
precepts, is often to quote a secondary authority in a noble dress, and
serves but for adornment. But in such a consideration there would be
nothing to discourage Roman literary men. To challenge Vergil’s authority
on a rustic subject remained the prerogative of Seneca.
Additional note to page 263
Varro _de lingua Latina_ VII § 105 says _liber qui suas operas
in servitutem pro pecunia quadam debebat dum solveret nexus
vocatur, ut ab aere obaeratus_. This antiquarian note is of
interest as illustrating the meaning of _operae_, and the
former position of the debtor as a temporary slave.
AGE OF THE FLAVIAN AND ANTONINE EMPERORS
XXXIV. GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
It is not easy to find a satisfactory line of division between the
period of the Flavian emperors and that of the adoptive series that came
after them. The Plebeian Flavians had no family claim, through birth or
adoption, to a preeminent position in the Roman world, and the rise of
Vespasian to power was indeed a revolution. Henceforth, though outward
forms and machinery remained, the real control of the empire rested with
those supported directly or indirectly by the great armies. But the
sound administrative policy set going by the common sense of Vespasian
long maintained the imperial fabric in strength, and it is commonly held
that from 69 to 180 AD was the Empire’s golden age. Nevertheless its
vitality was already ebbing, and the calamities that beset it in the days
of Marcus Aurelius found it unable to renew its vigour after holding
in check its barbarian invaders. The Flavian-Antonine period must be
treated as one, and from the point of view of the present inquiry certain
significant facts must always be borne in mind. The Italian element
in the armies was becoming less and less. Military policy consisted
chiefly in defence of the frontiers, for the annexations of Trajan were
not lasting, and they exhausted strength needed for defence. It was an
ominous sign that the Roman power of assimilation was failing. Mixed
armies of imperfectly Romanized soldiery, whether as conquerors or as
settlers, could not spread Roman civilization in the same thorough way as
it had become at length established in Spain or southern Gaul. To spread
it extensively and not intensively meant a weakening of Roman grasp; and
at some points[1073] it seems as if the influx of barbarism was felt
to be a menace in time of peace, not effectively counteracted by the
peaceful penetration of Rome.
Now, if the protection of Italy by chiefly alien swords was to relieve
the imperial centre from the heavy blood-tax borne by it in the old days
of Roman expansion, surely it remained an Italian function or duty to
provide carriers[1074] of Roman civilization, that is, if border lands
were to be solidly Romanized as a moral bulwark against barbarism. But
this duty could only be performed by a healthy and vigorous Italy, and
Italy[1075] was not healthy and vigorous. Internal security left the
people free to go on in the same ways as they had now been following for
generations, and those ways, as we have seen, did not tend to the revival
of a free rural population. Country towns were not as yet in manifest
decay, but there were now no imperial politics, and municipal politics,
ever petty and self-regarding, offered no stimulus to arouse a larger
and common interest. Municipalities looked for benefactors, and were
still able to find them. In this period we meet with institutions of a
charitable kind, some even promoted by the imperial government, for the
benefit of orphans and children of the poor. This was a credit to the
humanity of the age, but surely a palliative of social ailments, not a
proof of sound condition. In Rome there was life, but it was cosmopolitan
life. Rome was the capital of the Roman world, not of Italy. In the
eyes of jealous patriots it seemed that what Rome herself needed was a
thorough Romanizing. It was not from the great wicked city, thronged with
adventurers[1076] of every sort, largely Oriental Greeks, and hordes
of freedmen, that the better Roman influences could spread abroad. Nor
were the old Provinces, such as Spain and southern Gaul, where Roman
civilization had long been supreme, in a position to assimilate[1077]
and Romanize the ruder border-lands by the Rhine and Danube. They had no
energies to spare: moreover, they too depended on the central government,
and the seat of that government was Rome.
Italy alone could have vitalized the empire by moral influence, creating
in the vast fabric a spiritual unity, and making a great machine into
something more or less like a nation,—that is, if she had been qualified
for acting such a part. But Italy had never been a nation herself. The
result of the great Italian war of 90 and 89 BC had been to merge Italy
in Rome, not Rome in Italy. Italians, now Romans, henceforth shared
the exploitation of the subject countries and the hatred of oppressed
peoples. But under the constitution of the Republic politics became more
of a farce the more the franchise was extended, and the most obvious
effect of Italian enfranchisement was to increase the number of those
who directly or indirectly made a living out of provincial wrongs. The
Provinces swarmed with bloodsuckers of every kind. The establishment
of the Empire at length did something to relieve the sufferings of the
Provinces. But it was found necessary to recognize Italy as a privileged
imperial land. In modern times such privilege would take the form of
political rights and responsibilities. But political life was dead, and
privilege could only mean local liberties, exemption from burdens, and
the like. And in the long run the maintenance or abolition of privilege
would have to depend on the success or failure of the system. Now the
emperors of the first two centuries of the Empire did their best to
maintain the privileged position of Italy. But even in the time of
Augustus it was already becoming clear that Romanized Italy depended on
Rome and that Rome, so far as the Senate and Magistrates were concerned,
could not provide for the efficient administration of Italy or even of
Rome itself. Then began the long gradual process by which Italy, like
the rest of the empire, passed more and more under the control of the
imperial machine. In the period we are now considering this was steadily
going on, for brief reactions, such as that under Nerva, did not really
check it, and Italy was well on the way to become no more than a Province.
The feature of this period most important in connexion with the present
inquiry is the evidence[1078] that emperors were as a rule painfully
conscious of Italian decay. Alive to the dangers involved in its
continuance, they accepted the responsibility of doing what they could
to arrest it. Their efforts took various forms, chiefly (_a_) the direct
encouragement of farming (_b_) relief of poverty (_c_) measures for
providing more rural population or preventing emigration of that still
existing. It is evident that the aim was to place and keep more free
rustics on the land. In the numerous allotments of land to discharged
soldiers a number of odd pieces[1079] (_subsiciva_), not included in
the lots assigned, were left over, and had been occupied by squatters.
Vespasian, rigidly economical in the face of threatened state-bankruptcy,
had the titles inquired into, and resumed and sold those pieces where
no valid grant could be shewn. Either this was not fully carried out,
or some squatters must have been allowed to hold on as ‘possessors,’
probably paying a quit-rent to the treasury. For Domitian[1080] found
some such people still in occupation and converted their tenure into
proprietorship, on the ground that long possession had established a
prescriptive right. Nerva tried to go further[1081] by buying land and
planting agricultural colonies: but little or nothing was really effected
in his brief reign. In relief of poverty it was a notable extension to
look beyond the city of Rome, where corn-doles had long existed, and
continued to exist. The plan adopted was for the state to advance money
at low rates of interest to landowners in municipal areas, and to let
the interest received form a permanent endowment for the benefit of
poor parents and orphans. We must remember that to have children born
did not imply a legal obligation to rear them, and that the prospect
of help from such funds was a distinct encouragement to do so. Whether
any great results were achieved by this form of charity must remain
doubtful: flattering assurances[1082] to Trajan on the point can no more
be accepted without reserve than those addressed to Augustus on the
success of his reforms, or to Domitian on his promotion of morality. But
it seems certain that private charity was stimulated by imperial action,
and that the total sums applied in this manner were very large. Begun by
Nerva, carried out[1083] by Trajan, extended by Hadrian and Antoninus
Pius, the control of these endowments was more centralized by Marcus. In
his time great dearth in Italy had made distress more acute, and the hour
was at hand when the inner disorders of the empire would cause all such
permanent foundations to fail and disappear. They may well have relieved
many individual cases of indigence, but we can hardly suppose their
general effect on the Italian population to have been a healthy one.
They must have tended to deaden enterprise and relax self-help, for they
were too much after the pauperizing model long established in Rome. The
provision of cheap loan-capital for landowners may or may not have been a
boon in the long run.