others are many with which we are already familiar. Such is the rule
of Regulus[1113], that in buying a farm regard must be had to the
healthiness of the situation as well as to the richness of the soil.
Another is the need of keeping a due proportion[1114] between farm-house
and farm. Great men of the late Republic, Lucullus and Scaevola, erred
on this point in opposite directions: Marius on the other hand laid out
a _villa_ so skilfully that Sulla said ‘here was a man at last with
eyes in his head.’ The value of the master’s eye is another old friend.
We have also seen above that Mago’s[1115] advice, when you buy a farm,
to sell your town house, was not a policy to be followed by Romans of
quality, who felt it a duty not to cut themselves off from touch with
public affairs. Another tradition is that of the sentiment of the olden
time, holding it criminal[1116] to slay man’s fellow-worker, the ox. In
referring to the technical skill required in a steward, a favourite topic
of Cato, Pliny gives his own view[1117] briefly, ‘the master ought to set
the greatest store by his steward, but the fellow should not be aware of
it.’ The calculation of labour-cost[1118] in terms of _operae_, as with
others, so with him, is a regular way of reckoning. And we meet once more
the saying that, while good cultivation is necessary, too high farming
does not pay. He illustrates this by an instance[1119] of comparatively
modern date. A man of very humble origin, who rose through military
merit to the consulship, was rewarded by Augustus with a large sum of
money: this he spent on buying land[1120] in Picenum and fancy-farming.
In this course he ran through his property, and his heir did not think
it worth his while to claim the succession. The general tendency of all
these precepts and anecdotes is to commend moderation and to rebuke the
foolish ambition of land-proud capitalists of his own day. His praise of
the ancient ways and regret for their disappearance do not suggest any
hope of their revival. To Pliny as to others it was only too clear that
legends of conquering consuls setting their own hands to the plough had
no practical bearing on the conditions of the present age.
Thoughtful men[1121] could not ignore the fact that the decline in
production of cereal crops left Italy exposed to risk of famine. At any
moment storms might wreck the corn-fleets from Egypt or Africa, and the
strategic value of Egypt[1122] as a vital food-centre had been shewn
quite recently in strengthening the cause of Vespasian. No wonder Pliny
is uneasy, and looks back regretfully[1123] to the time when Italy was
not fed by the Provinces, when thrifty citizens grew their own staple
food-stuffs, and corn was plentiful and cheap. He quotes some prices from
the time of the great Punic wars and earlier, which shew the remarkable
cheapness of wine oil dried figs and flesh, as well as of various
grains. This result was not due to great estates owned by individual
landlords[1124] who elbowed out their neighbours, but to the willing work
of noble citizens tilling their little holdings. To look for similar
returns from the task-work of chained and branded slaves is a sheer libel
on Mother Earth. That he treats at great length of agricultural details,
not only of grain-crops in their various kinds, but fruits, vegetables,
indeed everything he can think of, and all the processes of cultivation,
is due to his encyclopaedic bent, and need not detain us here. When he
tells us[1125] that vine-growing was a comparatively late development
among the Romans, who long were content with grain-growing, it is a
passing sigh over a vanished age of simple life. The meaning of words
changes and records the change of things. When the Twelve Tables[1126]
spoke of _hortus_, it was not a garden in the modern sense, a place of
pleasure and luxury, that was meant, but a poor man’s small holding. By
that venerable code it was made a criminal offence[1127] to cut or graze
off under cover of night the crops raised on a man’s plough-land. A man
whose farm was badly cultivated was disgraced by the censors. For, as
Cato[1128] said, there is no life like the farmer’s for breeding sturdy
men to make efficient soldiers and loyal citizens. The gist of these
utterances, picked out of the mass, is that Pliny would like to see Italy
able to provide for her own feeding and her own defence, but knows very
well that no such ideal is within the range of hope.
His interest in agriculture such as he saw it around him is shewn in
recording recent or contemporary doings, such as that of the man
mentioned above who squandered a fortune on ill-judged farming. A more
successful venture[1129] was that of Remmius Palaemon, apparently in the
time of Claudius. He was a freedman, not a farmer, but a school-master
(_grammaticus_) of repute, a vainglorious fellow. He bought some land,
not of the best quality and let down by bad farming. To farm this he
engaged another freedman, one Acilius Sthenelus, who had the vineyards
thoroughly overhauled (_pastinatis de integro_). Before eight years
were out, he was able to sell a hanging crop for half as much again as
it had cost him to buy the land, and within ten years he sold the land
itself to Seneca (not a man for fancy prices) for four times as much as
he had given for it. Truly a fine speculation. Sthenelus had carried out
another of the same kind[1130] on his own account. We must note that both
were in the vine-culture, not in corn-growing, and the appearance of
freedmen, probably oriental Greeks, as leaders of agricultural enterprise
in Italy. There is nothing to shew that these undertakings were on a
large scale: the land in Sthenelus’ own case is stated as not more than
60 _iugera_. But no doubt he was, like many of his tribe, a keen man of
business[1131] and not too proud or preoccupied to give close attention
to the matter in hand. Such a man would get the utmost out of his slaves
and check waste: he would keep a tight grip on a slave steward if (which
we are not told) he found it necessary to employ one at all. For Pliny,
as for most Romans, a profitable speculation had great charms. He cannot
resist repeating the old Greek story[1132] of the sage who demonstrated
his practical wisdom by making a ‘corner’ in olive-presses, foreseeing a
‘bumper’ crop. Only he turns it round, making it a ‘corner’ in oil, in
view of a poor crop and high prices, and tells it not of Thales but of
Democritus.
There were of course many principles of agriculture that no economic
or social changes could affect. The ‘oracle’ of Cato, as to the
importance[1133] of thorough and repeated ploughing followed by liberal
manuring, was true under all conditions. But just for a moment the veil
is lifted to remind us that in the upland districts there was still an
Italy agriculturally, as socially, very different from the lowland arable
of which we generally think when speaking of Italian farming. ‘Ploughing
on hillsides[1134] is cross-wise, and so toilsome to man that he even
has to do ox-team’s work: at least the mountain peoples[1135] use the
mattock for tillage instead of the plough, and do without the ox.’ It
is to be regretted that we have so little evidence as to the condition
of the dalesmen, other than the passages of such writers as Horace and
Juvenal, who refer to them as rustic folk a sojourn among whom is a
refreshing experience after the noise and bustle of Rome. For it seems
certain that in these upland retreats there survived whatever was left of
genuine Italian life, and we should like to be able to form some notion
of its quantity; that is, whether the population of freemen on small
holdings, living mostly on the produce of their own land, was numerically
an important element in the total population of Italy. That great
stretches of hill-forest were in regular use simply as summer pastures,
and that the bulk of the arable lands were held in great estates, and
slaves employed in both departments, we hear in wearisome iteration. But
to get a true picture of the country as a whole is, in the absence of
statistics, not possible.
I have not been able to discover in Pliny any definite repugnance
to slavery as a system. It is true that he is alive to the evils of
the domestic slavery prevalent in his day. The brigades of slaves
(_mancipiorum legiones_)[1136] filling the mansions of the rich,
pilfering at every turn, so that nothing is safe unless put under lock
and seal, are a nuisance and a demoralizing influence. They are an alien
throng (_turba externa_) in a Roman household; a sad contrast[1137] to
the olden time, when each family had its one slave, attached to his
master’s clan, when the whole household lived in common, and nothing had
to be locked up. But this is only one of Pliny’s moralizing outbreaks,
and it is the abuse and overgrowth of slavery, not slavery in itself,
that he is denouncing. In speaking of agriculture he says ‘to have
farms cultivated by slave-gangs[1138] is a most evil thing, as indeed
are all acts performed by those who have no hope.’ Here the comparative
inefficiency of workers who see no prospect of bettering their condition
is plainly recognized; but it is the economic defect, not the outrage
on a common humanity, that inspires the consciously futile protest. And
at the very end of his great book, when he breaks out into a farewell
panegyric[1139] on Italy, and enumerates the various elements of her
preeminence among the countries of the world, he includes the supply of
slave-labour[1140] in the list. Spain perhaps comes next, but here too
the organized employment[1141] of slaves is one of the facts that are
adduced to justify her praise. Now I do not imagine that Pliny was a
hard unkindly man. But he evidently accepted slavery as an established
institution, one of the economic bases of society. He saw its
inferiority to free labour, but a passing protest seemed to him enough.
Had he been asked, Why don’t you recommend free labour directly? I think
he would have answered, Where are you going to find it in any quantity?
And it is obvious that, slave labour once assumed, the great thing was
to have enough of it. Nor again have I found him using _colonus_ in
the sense of tenant farmer. In that of ‘cultivator’ it occurs several
times, as in the quotation[1142] from Cato, that to call a man _bonum
colonum_ was of old the height of praise. Figuratively it appears in
comparisons, as when the guilt of the slayer of an ox is emphasized[1143]
by the addition ‘as if he had made away with his _colonus_.’ So of the
fertilizing Nile he says ‘discharging the duty[1144] of a _colonus_.’ In
the passage where he warns his readers against too high farming[1145] he
remarks ‘There are some crops that it does not pay to gather, unless the
owner is employing his own children or a _colonus_ of his own or hands
that have on other grounds to be fed—I mean, if you balance the cost
against the gain.’ Here it is just possible that he means ‘a tenant of
his own,’ that is a tenant long attached to the estate, like the _coloni
indigenae_ of Columella: but I think it is quite neutral, and probably
he has in mind either a relative or a slave. The ‘persons for whose keep
he is responsible’ sums up to the effect that if you have mouths to
fill you may as well use their labour, for it will add nothing to your
labour-bill. So far as I have seen, the difference between ownership and
tenancy is not a point of interest to Pliny.
In continuation of what has been said above as to the relations of Vergil
and Columella, it is necessary to discuss briefly the attitude of Pliny
towards these two writers. The indices to the _Natural History_ at once
disclose the fact that citations of Vergil[1146] are about six times as
numerous as those of Columella. Indeed he seldom refers to the latter;
very often to Varro, even more often to Cato. The frequent references
to Vergil may reasonably be explained as arising from a wish to claim
whenever possible the moral support of the now recognized chief figure
of Roman literature. This was all the more easy, inasmuch as Vergil’s
precepts in the _Georgics_[1147] are mostly old or borrowed doctrine
cast into a perfect form. Columella had used them in a like spirit, but
in dealing with the labour-question he faced facts, not only instructing
his readers in the technical processes of agriculture, but setting forth
the forms of labour-organization by which those processes were to be
carried on. Now Pliny records an immense mass of technical detail, but
of labour-organization he says hardly any thing; for his laments over a
vanished past are only of use in relieving his own feelings. And yet the
labour-question, and the tenancy-question connected therewith, were the
central issues of the agricultural problem. It was not the knowledge of
technical details that was conspicuously lacking, but the will and means
to apply knowledge already copious. Not what to do, but how to get it
done, was the question which Columella tried to answer and Pliny, like
Vergil, did not really face. It is curious to turn out the eight distinct
references to Columella in Pliny. In none of these passages is there a
single word of approval, and the general tone of them is indifferent and
grudging. Sometimes the words seem to suggest that his authority is not
of much weight, or pointedly remark that it stands quite alone. In one
place[1148] he is flatly accused of ignorance. When we consider that
Pliny speaks of Varro with high respect, and positively worships Cato and
Vergil, it is clear that there must have been some special reason for
this unfriendly and half-contemptuous attitude. The work of Columella
did not deserve such treatment. It evidently held its ground in spite of
sneers, for Palladius in the fourth century cites it repeatedly as one
of the leading authorities. It is not difficult to conjecture possible
causes for the attitude of Pliny: but none of those that occur to me is
sufficient, even if true, to justify it. I must leave it as one of the
weak points in the _Natural History_.
XXXVII. TACITUS.
=P Cornelius Tacitus=, one of the great figures of Roman literature,
passed through the time of the Flavian emperors, but his activity as a
writer belonged chiefly to the reign of Trajan. Like most historians,
he gave his attention to public and imperial affairs, and we get
from him very little as to the conditions of labour. Of emperors and
their doings evil or good, of the upper classes and their reactionary
sympathies, their intrigues and perils, we hear enough: but of the poor
wage-earners[1149] and slaves hardly anything, for to one who still
regretted the Republic while accepting the Empire, an aristocrat at
heart, the lower orders were of no more importance than they had been to
Cicero. Indeed they were now less worthy of notice, as free political
life had ceased and the city rabble, no longer needed for voting and
rioting, had merely to be fed and amused. A populace of some sort was a
necessary element in the imperial capital: that it was in fact a mongrel
mob could not be helped, and year by year it became through manumissions
of slaves a mass of more and more cosmopolitan pauperism. The Provinces
and the frontier armies were matters of deep interest, but the wars of
the succession after Nero only served to exhibit with irresistible stress
the comparative unimportance of Italy. Tacitus, a Roman of good family,
born in Italy if not in Rome, dignified and critical by temperament, was
not the man to follow the fashion of idle and showy rhetoric. He does not
waste time and effort in vainly deploring the loss of a state of things
that could not be restored. That the present condition of Italy grieved
him, we may feel sure. But he viewed all things in a spirit of lofty
resignation. That he was led to contrast the real or assumed virtues of
German barbarians with the flagrant vices of Roman life was about the
limit of his condescension to be a preacher: and it is not necessary to
assume that the pointing of a moral was the sole motive of his tract on
the land and tribes of Germany.
I have already referred to the uneasiness of Tiberius as to the
food-supply[1150] of Rome, dependent on importations of corn which were
liable to be interrupted by foul weather and losses at sea. The risk was
real enough, and the great artificial harbours constructed at the Tiber
mouth by Claudius and Trajan were chiefly meant to provide accommodation
for corn-fleets close at hand, with large granaries to store
cargoes[1151] in reserve. The slave rising of 24 AD in south-eastern
Italy, and its suppression, have also been mentioned[1152] above.
These passages, and a passing reference to the unproductiveness[1153]
of the soil (of Italy) are significant of the inefficiency of Italian
agriculture in the time of Tiberius. But in reporting these matters
Tacitus writes as historian, not as a contemporary witness, and enough
has been said of them above. A curious passage, not yet referred to, is
that describing the campaign[1154] against money-lenders in 33 AD. A
law passed by Julius Caesar in BC 49 with the object of relieving the
financial crisis without resorting to a general cancelling of debts,
long obsolete, was raked up again, and there was widespread alarm, for
most senators had money out on loan. It seems that some trials and
condemnations actually took place, and that estates of the guilty were
actually seized and sold for cash under the provisions of a disused
law. Further trouble at once followed, for there was a general calling
in of mortgages, while cash was scarce, the proceeds of the late sales
having passed into one or other of the state treasuries. Eighteen months
grace had been granted to enable offending capitalists to arrange their
affairs in conformity with the law. Evidently these gentry were in no
hurry to reinvest their money as it came in, but waited for a fall in
the price of land, certain to occur as a consequence of dearer money.
In order to guard against such a result, the Senate had ordered that
each (that is, each paid-off creditor,) should invest ⅔ of his loanable
capital in Italian real estate, and that each debtor[1155] should repay
⅔ of his debt at once. But the creditors were demanding payment in full,
and it did not look well for the debtors to weaken their own credit
(by practically confessing insolvency). So there was great excitement,
followed by uproar in the praetor’s court: and the measures intended
to relieve the crisis—the arrangements for sale and purchase—had just
the opposite effect. For the capitalists had locked up all their money
with a view to the (eventual) purchase of land. The quantity of land
thrown on the market sent prices down, and the more encumbered a man was
the more difficult he found it to dispose of his land (that is, at a
price that would clear him of debt). Numbers of people were ruined, and
the situation was only saved by Tiberius, who advanced a great sum of
money to be used in loans for three years free of interest, secured in
each case on real estate[1156] of twice the value. Thus confidence was
restored and private credit gradually revived. But, Tacitus adds, the
purchase of land on the lines of the Senate’s order was never carried
through: in such matters it is the way of the world to begin with zeal
and end with indifference.
If I have rightly given the sense of this passage, it furnishes some
points of interest. It sets before us a state of things in which a
number of landowners have raised money by mortgaging their real estate,
disregarding the provisions (whatever they were) of a law practically
disused. This reminds us that one very general use of Italian land was as
a security on which money could at need be raised. It was the only real
security always available, and this inclined people to keep their hold on
it, though as a direct income-producer it seldom gave good returns. No
doubt they had to pay on their borrowings a higher rate[1157] of interest
than they got on their capital invested in land. To be forced suddenly
to sell their lands in a glutted market was manifest ruin; for the whole
strength of their position lay in the justified assumption that the
capital value of their land in the market exceeded the amount of their
mortgage debts. Otherwise, who would have lent them the money on that
security? We can hardly avoid the suspicion that the frequent use of
land as a pledge may have had something to do with that unsatisfactory
condition of agriculture on which the evidence of Latin writers has
driven us to dwell. The mortgagor, once he had got the money advanced,
had less interest in the landed security: the mortgagee, so long as he
got his good return on the money lent, was unconcerned to see that his
debtor’s income was maintained; and that, in taking a mortgage, he had
insisted on a large margin of security for his capital, is not to be
doubted. For what purpose these loans were generally contracted, we are
not told. Those who borrowed money to waste it in extravagance would
surely have found it more business-like to sell their land outright. The
number of those who preferred to keep it, though encumbered on onerous
terms, simply from social pride, cannot have been really large; but they
would hardly make wise landlords. Probably some men raised money to
employ it in speculations[1158] that seemed to offer rich returns. So
long as the empire stood strong, mercantile speculation was far-reaching
and vigorous. But those engaged in this line of business would seldom be
able to find large sums in ready cash at short notice. Hence to them,
as to spendthrifts, the sudden calling in of mortgages was a grave
inconvenience.
The picture of the wily capitalists, hoarding their money till the
‘slump’ in land-values had fully developed, is one of all ‘civilized’
peoples and ages. What is notable on this particular occasion is the
sequel according to Tacitus. Once their design of profiting by their
neighbours’ necessities was checked by the intervention of Tiberius, the
investment in real estate was no longer attractive. The Senate’s order
was not enforced and the money-lenders could, and did, reserve their
ready cash for use in some more remunerative form of investment. The
slackness of the Senate may have been partly due to careless neglect, as
the words seem to suggest. But it may be suspected that some members of
that body had private reasons for wishing the Order of the House not to
be seriously enforced. Tacitus remarks that, on the matter being laid
before the Fathers, they were thrown into a flutter, since there was
hardly one among them[1159] that had not broken the law. This surely
refers to the time-honoured trick of Roman senators, who, forbidden
to engage in commerce (and money-lending was closely connected with
commerce), evaded the restriction in various ways, such as holding
shares in companies or lending through their freedmen as agents. So now,
seeking a high rate of interest on their capital, they did not wish to
lock up any more of it in land. Most of them would already own enough
real estate for social purposes. From this episode we have some right
to infer that in the period of the early Empire it had already become
clear that very extensive landowning in Italy was an unwise policy for
men who wanted a large income. Yet the preferential position of Italy had
not ceased to be a fact; and even in the time of Trajan we have seen an
imperial ordinance bidding new senators from the Provinces to invest ⅓ of
their fortunes in Italian land. This might raise prices for the moment,
but it had nothing directly to do with promoting agriculture. Practical
farming seems to have been passing more and more into the hands of
humbler persons, often freedmen, who treated it as a serious business.