of Como, Pliny’s own neighbourhood, illustrates the normal changes of
ownership that were going on, and his own generous nature. An old lady,
an intimate friend of his mother, wanted to have a property in that
lovely district. Pliny gave her the offer of any of his land at her own
price, reserving only certain parcels for sentimental reasons. Before
(as it seems) any bargain was made, a friend died and left ⁵⁄₁₂ of his
estate to Pliny, including some land such as the old lady desired. Pliny
at once sent his freedman Hermes to offer her the suitable parcels for
sale. She promptly clinched the bargain with Hermes at a figure which
turned out to be only ⁷⁄₉ of the full value. Pliny’s attention was called
to this, but he stood by the act of his freedman and ratified the sale.
The _publicani_ who were then farming the 5% duty on successions soon
appeared, and claimed the 5% as reckoned on estimated full value of
the property. The old lady settled with them on these terms, and then
insisted on paying to Pliny the full value, not the bargained price;
which offer he, not to be outdone, gracefully declined. Such was the
course of a commonplace transaction, carried out by exceptional people in
an unselfish spirit. We are most certainly not to suppose that this sort
of thing was common in land-dealings. Another letter[1277] shews us how
a well-meant benefaction might fail in its aim for want of means in the
beneficiary. An old slave-woman, once Pliny’s wet-nurse, had evidently
been manumitted, and he made her a present of a small farm (_agellum_)
to provide her maintenance. At that time its market value was ample to
secure this. But things went wrong. For some reason the yearly returns
fell, and the market value fell also. Whether the old woman had tried
to manage it herself and failed, or whether a bad tenant had let down
the cultivation, does not plainly appear. At any rate Pliny was greatly
relieved when a friend, presumably one living near the place, undertook
to direct the cultivation of the farm. He expresses his confidence that
under the new management the holding would recover its value. For his own
credit, not less than for the advantage of his nurse, he wishes to see it
produce its utmost. These little holdings no doubt needed very skilful
management, and I suspect that idle slaves were in this case the cause
of the trouble. Slaves commonly went with land, and I do not think the
generous donor would give his old nurse the bare land without the needful
labour. The old ‘Mammy’ could not control them, and Pliny’s friend saved
the situation.
Trajan’s order, requiring Provincial candidates for office to invest a
third[1278] of their property in Italian real estate, and the artificial
rise of prices for the time, has been dealt with above. Pliny advised a
friend, if he would be not sorry[1279] to part with his Italian estates,
to sell now at the top of the market and buy land in the Provinces,
where prices would be correspondingly lowered. Of the risks attendant on
landowning in Italy he was well aware, and one letter[1280] on the pros
and cons of a tempting purchase must be translated in full. He writes
thus to a friend.
‘I am doing as usual, asking your advice on a matter of business. There
are now for sale some landed properties that border on farms of mine and
indeed run into them. There are about them many points that tempt me, but
some equally important that repel me. The temptations are these. First,
to round off my estate would be in itself an improvement. Secondly, it
would be a pleasure, and a real economy to boot, to make one trip and
one expense serve for a visit to both properties, to keep both under
the same[1281] legal agent, indeed almost under the same stewards, and
to use only one of the granges as my furnished house, just keeping the
other in repair. I am taking into account the cost of furniture, of chief
servants, fancy gardeners, artisans, and even hunting[1282] outfit: for
it makes a vast difference whether items like these are concentrated in
one spot or are scattered in separate places. On the other hand I fear
it may be rash to expose so large a property to the same local climatic
risks. It seems safer to encounter the changes of fortune by not holding
too much land in one neighbourhood. Moreover, it is a very pleasant thing
to have change of scene and climate, and so too is the mere touring about
from one of your estates to another. Then comes the chief issue on which
I am trying to make up my mind. The farms are productive, the soil rich,
the water-supply good; they contain pastures, vineyards, and woodlands
that afford timber, from which there is a small but regular return. A
favoured land, you see: but it is suffering from the weakness[1283] of
those who farm it. For the late landlord several times distrained[1284]
on the tenants’ goods, lessening their arrears[1285] of rent for the
moment, but draining their substance for the future: the failure of this
sent up the arrears once more. So they will have to be equipped[1286]
with labour; which will cost all the more because only trusty slaves
will do. As for chained slaves, I never keep them on my estates, and in
those parts nobody does. I have now only to tell you the probable price.
It is three million sesterces, though at one time it was five million:
but, what with the present scarcity[1287] of tenants and the prevailing
agricultural depression, the returns from the farms have fallen, and
so has the market value. You will want to know whether I can raise
easily even the three millions. It is true that nearly all I have is
invested[1288] in land; still I have some money out at interest, and I
shall have no trouble in borrowing. I shall get it from my mother-in-law,
who lets me use her cash as if it were my own. So pray don’t let this
consideration influence you, provided the others do not gainsay my
project; I beg you to weigh them most carefully. For of experience and
foresight you have plenty and to spare as a guide in general business,
particularly in the placing of investments.’
The glimpses of agricultural conditions that we get from Pliny’s letters
do not as a rule give us a cheerful picture. Most of his land seems to
have been under vines, and the vintage[1289] was often poor, sometimes a
failure. Drought and hailstorms played havoc[1290] with the crops. When
there was a bountiful vintage, of course the wine made a poor price.
Hence the returns from the farms are small, and unsafe[1291] at that.
So he replies to similar complaints of friends. When he is at any of
his country places he generally has to face a chorus of grumbling[1292]
tenants. He was sometimes utterly puzzled what to do. If inclined to make
abatements[1293] of rent, he is uneasily aware that this remedy may only
put off the evil day. If tenants do not recover their solvency (and he
knows that they seldom do), he will have to change his policy[1294],
for they are ruining the land by bad husbandry. For himself, he is no
farmer. When on a country estate, watching the progress of the vintage,
he potters about[1295] in a rather purposeless manner, glad to retire to
his study where he can listen to his reader or dictate to his secretary:
if he can produce[1296] a few lines, that is his crop. It would seem that
not all his farms were let to tenants. In one letter he speaks of his
town-slaves[1297] being employed as overseers or gangers of the rustic
hands, and remarks that one of his occupations is to pay surprise visits
to these fellows. We can guess what a drag upon Italian agriculture the
slavery-system really was: here is a man full of considerate humanity,
devoted to the wellbeing of his slaves, who cannot trust one of them to
see that others do their work.
But that letting to tenants was his usual plan is evident from the
number of his references to the trouble they gave him. It was not always
clear whether to get rid of them or to keep them (and if the latter,
on what terms,) offered the less disastrous solution of an awkward
problem. In one letter[1298] he gives the following excuse for his
inability to be present in Rome on the occasion of a friend’s succeeding
to the consulship. ‘You won’t take it ill of me, particularly as I am
compelled[1299] to see to the letting of some farms, a business that
means making an arrangement for several years, and will drive me to adopt
a fresh policy. For in the five years[1300] just past the arrears have
grown, in spite of large abatements granted. Hence most (of the tenants)
take no further trouble to reduce their liabilities, having lost hope of
ever meeting them in full: they grab and use up everything that grows,
reckoning that henceforth it is not they[1301] who would profit by
economy. So as the evils increase I must find remedies to meet them. And
the only possible plan is to let these farms[1302] not at a cash rent but
on shares, and then to employ some of my staff as task-masters to watch
the crops. Besides, there is no fairer source of income than the returns
rendered by soil climate and season. True, this plan requires mighty
honesty, keen eyes, and a host of hands. Still I must make the trial;
I must act as in a chronic malady, and use every possible treatment to
promote a change.’
No doubt there were many landlords more effectively qualified to wring
an income out of rustic estates than this delicate and gentle literary
man. Indeed he knew this himself and made no secret of it. Writing to a
friend[1303] he says ‘When others go to visit their estates, it is to
come back the richer; when I do so, it is to come back the poorer for the
trip.’ He then tells the story of a recent experience. He had disposed of
the year’s vintage on some estate (evidently the hanging crop) by auction
to some speculative buyers, who were tempted by the apparent prospects
of a rise in price to follow. Things did not turn out as expected, and
Pliny felt bound to make some abatement in the covenanted price. Whether
this was simply owing to his own scrupulous love of fair dealing, or
whether some stipulation in the contract of sale had automatically become
operative, does not seem quite clear: I should give him the benefit of
the doubt. How to make the abatement equitably, so as to treat each case
with perfect fairness, was a difficult problem. For, as he shews at
length, the circumstances of different cases differed widely, and a mere
‘flat rate’ remission of so much per cent all round would not have worked
out so as to give equal relief to all. After careful calculation he
devised a scheme that satisfied his conscientious wish to act fairly by
each and all. Of course this left him a large sum out of pocket, but he
thought that the general approval of the neighbourhood and the gratitude
of the relieved speculators were well worth the money. For to have a good
name among the local dealers was good business for the future. Many an
honest gentleman since Pliny’s time has similarly consoled himself for
his losses of honour, and some of them have not missed their well-earned
recompense.
Among his many country properties, a certain Tuscan _villa_ was one
of his favourite resorts. In a long description of it and its various
attractions he mentions[1304] incidentally that the Tiber, which ran
right through the estate, was available for barges in winter and spring,
and thus enabled them to send their farm-produce by water-carriage to
Rome. This confirms the evidence of other writers, as does also the
letter describing the widespread devastation[1305] caused by a Tiber
flood. More notable as throwing light on conditions of life in rural
Italy is a letter[1306] in reply to a correspondent who had written to
inform him of the disappearance of a Roman of position and property when
on a journey, apparently in the Tiber country. The man was known to have
reached Ocriculum, but after that all trace of him was lost. Pliny had
small hopes from the inquiry that it was proposed to conduct. He cites
a similar case from his own acquaintance years before. A fellow-burgess
of Comum had got military promotion as centurion through the influence
of Pliny, who made him a present of money when he set out, apparently
for Rome, to take up his office. Nothing more was ever heard of him.
But Pliny adds that in this case, as in the one just reported, the
slaves escorting their master also disappeared. Therefore he leaves it
an open question, whether[1307] the slaves murdered their master and
escaped undetected, or whether the whole party on either occasion were
murdered by a robber band. The lack of a regular constabulary in Italy
had been, and still was, a grave defect in Roman administration. To
account for this neglect we must remember that rich men always relied on
their slave-escort for protection. If the poor man travelled, he was not
worth[1308] robbing; his danger was the chance of being kidnapped and
sold for a slave, and we have seen that some of the early emperors tried
to put down this abuse. The danger to a traveller from his own slaves was
perhaps greater on a journey than at home; but it was of the same kind,
inseparable from slavery, and was most cruelly dealt with by the law.
Meanwhile brigandage seems never to have been thoroughly extinguished in
Italy or the Provinces[1309].
In spite of these drawbacks to life and movement in a great slave-holding
community, there is nothing that strikes a reader more in Pliny’s
letters than the easy acceptance of present conditions. Under Trajan the
empire seemed so secure and strong, that unpleasant occurrences could
be regarded as only of local importance. That the free population of
Italy could no longer defend in arms what their forefathers had won, was
manifest. But custom was making it seem natural to rely on armies raised
in the Provinces; all the more so perhaps as emperors were being supplied
by Spain. That slavery itself was one of the cankers that were eating
out the vitality of the Roman empire, does not seem to have occurred to
Pliny or other writers of the day. Philosophers had got so far as to
protest against its worst abuses and vindicate the claims of a common
humanity. Christian apostles, in the circles reached by them, preached
also obedience[1310] and an honesty above eye-service as the virtues of a
slave. But in both of these contrasted doctrines the teachers were mainly
if not exclusively thinking of domestics, not of farm-hands. There was
however one imperial department in which the distinction between slave
and free still rigidly followed old traditional rules; and it was one
much more likely to have to deal with cases of rustic slaves than of
domestics. This was the army. The immemorial rule, that no slave could
be a soldier, had never been broken save under the pressure of a few
great temporary emergencies, or by the evasions incident to occasions
of civil warfare. It still remained in force. When Pliny was governor
of the Province of Bithynia and Pontus he had to deal with a question
arising out of this rule. Recruiting was in progress, and two slaves
were discovered among the men enlisted. They had already taken the
military oath, but were not yet embodied in any corps. Pliny reported
the case[1311] to Trajan, and asked for instructions. The emperor sent a
careful answer. ‘If they were called up (_lecti_), then the recruiting
officer did wrong: if they were furnished as substitutes[1312] (_vicarii
dati_), the fault is with those who sent them: but if they presented
themselves as volunteers, well knowing[1313] their disqualification, they
must be punished. That they are not as yet embodied, matters little. For
they were bound to have given a true account of their extraction on the
day when they came up for inspection.’ What came of it we do not know.
But it is no rash guess that the prospect of escaping into the ranks of
the army would be attractive[1314] to a sturdy rustic slave, and that
a recruiting officer might ask few questions when he saw a chance of
getting exceptionally fine recruits. Probably the two detected suffered
the capital penalty. Such was still the rigid attitude of the great
soldier-emperor, determined not to confess the overstraining of the
empire’s man-power. But the time was not far distant when Marcus, beset
by the great pestilence and at his wits’ end for an army of defence,
would enrol slaves[1315] and ruffians of any kind to fight for Rome.
It is not necessary to cite the numerous references in the letters to
slaves and slavery that are not connected with agriculture. Nor need
I pursue in detail the circumstances of one of his generous public
benefactions, the alimentary endowment[1316] for freeborn children,
probably at Comum. It has been mentioned in another chapter, and its
chief point of interest is in the elaborate machinery employed to secure
the perpetuity of the charity. To leave money to the municipality was
to risk its being squandered. To leave them land meant that the estate
would not be carefully managed. What he did was to convey[1317] the
property in some land to a representative of the burgesses, and to take
it back subject to a rent-charge considerably less than the yearly value
of the land. Thus the endowment was safe, for the margin allowed would
ensure that the land would not be allowed to drop out of cultivation. An
interesting glimpse of municipal patriotism, active and passive. The only
other detail I have to note is that he regularly uses the term _colonus_
as ‘tenant-farmer.’ I have not found a single instance of the older sense
‘tiller of the soil.’ We cannot argue from Pliny to his contemporaries
without some reserve, for he was undoubtedly an exceptional man. But, so
far as his evidence goes, it bears out the view that great landlords were
giving up the system of slave stewardships for free tenancies. Owners
there still were who kept their estates in hand, farming themselves or
by deputy for their own account. But that some of these were men of a
humbler class, freedmen to wit, we have seen reason to believe from
references in the elder Pliny. Perhaps they were many, and some may even
have worked with their own hands. Be this as it may, slave labour[1318]
was still the staple appliance of agriculture, and whenever there were
slaves for sale there were always buyers.
XLIV. SUETONIUS AND OTHERS.
=Suetonius=, whose Lives of the first twelve emperors contain much
interesting and important matter, stands in relation to the present
inquiry on the same footing as most of the regular historians. He
flourished in the times of Trajan and Hadrian, and therefore what remains
of his writings is not contemporary evidence. But he was a student and
a careful compiler from numerous works now lost. The number of passages
in which he refers to matters directly or indirectly bearing on rustic
life and labour is not large, and most of them have been cited in other
chapters, where they find a place in connexion with the context. He can
be dealt with very briefly here.
The close connexion between wars and the supply of slaves is marked
in the doings of Julius[1319] Caesar. Gaulish and British captives
were (as Caesar himself records) no small part of the booty won in his
northern campaigns. He rewarded his men after a victory with a prisoner
apiece: these would soon be sold to the dealers who followed the army,
and most of them would find their way to the Roman slave-market. To
gratify friendly princes or provincial communities, he sent them large
bodies of slaves as presents. So his victims served instead of cash
to win adherents for their new master. And these natives of the North
would certainly be used for heavy rough work, mostly as farm-hands.
When Augustus, loth to enlarge the empire, felt constrained to teach
restless tribes a lesson, he imposed a reserve-condition[1320] on the
sale of prisoners taken: they were not to be employed in districts near
their old homes, and not to be manumitted before thirty years. Most
of these would probably also be brought to Italy for the same kind of
service. Yet, as we have seen, there was kidnapping[1321] of freemen in
Italy; probably a sign that slaves were already become dear. That their
numbers had been reduced in the civil wars, not only by death but by
manumission, is fairly certain. In the war with Sextus Pompeius it was
found necessary[1322] to manumit 20,000 slaves to serve as oarsmen in the
fleet. Suetonius also records that Augustus when emperor had trouble with
the unwillingness of Romans to be called up for military duty. He had
to deal sharply[1323] with an _eques_ who cut off the thumbs of his two
sons to incapacitate them. The abuse of the public corn-doles was a grave
evil. Men got rid of the burden of maintaining old slaves by manumitting
them and so making them, as freedmen-citizens, entitled to a share of the
doles. This was shifting the burden of feeding useless mouths on to the
state. Augustus saw that the vast importation of corn for this bounty
tended to discourage[1324] Italian agriculture, and thought of abolishing
the whole system of _frumentationes_. But he had to give up the project,
being convinced that the system would be restored. He really desired to
revive agriculture, and it was surely with this aim that he advanced
capital sums[1325] to landlords free of interest on good security for
the principal. The growth of humane sentiment toward slaves is marked
by the ordinance of Claudius[1326] against some very cruel practices of
slaveowners. And we are reminded that penal servitude was now a regular
institution in the Roman empire by Nero’s order[1327] for bringing
prisoners from all parts to carry out some colossal works in Italy, and
for fixing condemnation to hard labour as the normal penalty of crime.
In the Lives of the three Flavian emperors there are one or two passages
of interest. At this distance of time it is not easy to appreciate the
effect on the sentiments of Roman society of the extinction of the
Julio-Claudian house, and the accession of a thoroughly plebeian one,
resting on the support of the army and readily accepted by the Provinces.
Suetonius, like Tacitus, was near enough to the revolutionary year 69 AD
to understand the momentous nature of the crises that brought Vespasian
to the head of affairs. He takes pains to describe[1328] the descent of
the new emperor from a Sabine family of no remarkable distinction. For
two generations they had combined with fair success the common Roman
professions of military service and finance. They were respectable
people of good local standing. But there was another story relative to a
generation further back. It was said that Vespasian’s greatgrandfather
(this takes us back to Republican days) had been a contractor[1329] for
rustic labour. He was a headman or ‘boss’ of working-parties such as
are wont to pass year after year from Umbria into the Sabine country
to serve as farm-labourers. Of this story Suetonius could not discover
any confirmation. But that there had been, and perhaps still was, some
such supply of migratory labour available, is a piece of evidence not
to be ignored. Vespasian himself was a soldier who steadily rose in the
usual official career till he reached the coveted post of governor of
Africa. After a term of honest but undistinguished rule, he came back
no richer than he went, indeed he was very nearly bankrupt. He was
driven to mortgage all his landed estate, and to become for a time a
slave-dealer[1330], in order to live in the style that his official rank
required. The implied disgrace of resorting to a gainful but socially
despised trade is at least evidence of the continual demand for human
chattels. Of two acts of Domitian[1331], his futile ordinance to check
vine-growing, and his grant of the remaining odd remnants of Italian land
to present occupants, enough has been said above.