this period that illustrate the growing change of view as to slavery
in general. The point made by moralists, that moral bondage is more
degrading than physical (for the latter need not be really degrading),
came with not less force from Epictetus the slave than from Seneca
the noble Roman. It is however worth while just to note the frequent
references to cases of philosophers and other distinguished literary men
who had either actually been slaves or had at some time in their lives
been forced to earn their daily bread by bodily labour. Such cases are,
Cleanthes[1332] drawing water for wages, Plautus[1333] hired by the baker
to grind at his mill, and Protagoras[1334] earning his living as a common
porter. In one passage several slaves[1335] are enumerated who became
philosophers. Now, what is the significance of these and other references
of the same import? I suggest that they have just the same bearing as
the general principles of common humanity argumentatively pressed by the
Stoic and other schools of thought. The sermonizing of Seneca is a good
specimen. But discussion of principles in the abstract was never the
strong point of Roman society, and citation of concrete instances would
serve to give reality to views that were only too often regarded as the
visionary speculations of chattering Greeks. That Roman authors, down
to the last age of Roman literature, expressed the longing for a more
wholesome state of agriculture by everlasting references to Cincinnatus
and the rest of the traditional rustic heroes, is another recognition
of this method. The notion that courage and contempt of death could be
fostered by the spectacle of gladiators rested on much the same basis.
True, there is nothing in the above considerations that directly bears
upon rustic labour as such: but hints that ‘a man’s a man for a’ that’
are not to be ignored when they make their appearance in the midst of a
slave-holding society.
XLV. APULEIUS.
The Province of Africa was in this period a flourishing part of the
empire, giving signs of its coming importance in the next generation,
when it produced several emperors. It was in fact a sort of successor of
Spain, and like Spain it enjoyed the advantage of not fronting on the
usual seats of war to the North and East. One of the most remarkable
literary figures of the age was the African[1336] =L Apuleius= of
Madaura, who travelled widely as student and lecturer, and was well
acquainted with Greece and Italy. A philosopher of the mystical-Platonist
type, he was in touch with practical life through his study of the Law,
and was for some time a pleader in Rome. His native Province[1337] was
notoriously addicted to litigation, and a modern scholar[1338] has shewn
that the works of Apuleius abound in legal phraseology and are coloured
with juristic notions. Now, it was not possible to go far in considering
property and rights without coming upon questions relative to land:
moreover, he himself owned land in Africa. Accordingly we find in him
some references to land, and even to rustic labour and conditions of
rural life. And, though his _Metamorphoses_ is a fantastic romance, there
is no reason to doubt that incidents and scenes (other than supernatural)
are true to facts observed by the writer, and therefore admissible as
evidence of a general kind. An instance may be found in the case of
the ass, that is the hero of the story transformed into that shape by
magic. He is to be sold, and the waggish auctioneer[1339] says to a
possible bidder ‘I am well aware that it is a criminal offence to sell
you a Roman citizen for a slave: but why not buy a good and trusty slave
that will serve you as a helper both at home and abroad?’ Here we have
a recognition of the fact of kidnapping, which is referred to elsewhere
in the book; that in cases of Roman victims the law took a very serious
view of the offence; while the point of the pleasantry lies in the
circumstance that neither auctioneer nor company present are aware that
the ass is a transformed man, liable to regain his human shape by magical
disenchantment.
The scene of the _Metamorphoses_ is laid in Greece, and the anecdotes
included in it do not give us a favourable picture of that part of
the Roman empire. There was surely nothing to tempt the writer to
misrepresent the condition of the country by packing his descriptions
with unreal details: he would thus have weakened the effect of his
romance. Wealth in the hands of a few, surrounded by a pauper majority;
shrunken towns, each with its more or less degraded rabble; general
insecurity for life liberty and property; a cruel and arbitrary use
of power; a spiritless acquiescence in this pitiful state of things,
relieved by the excitements of superstition and obscenity: such was
Roman Greece as Apuleius saw it. No doubt there was Roman Law to enforce
honesty and order. But the administration of justice seldom, if ever,
reaches the standard of legislation; and as yet the tendency of the Roman
government was to interfere as little as possible with local authorities.
Greece in particular had always been treated with special indulgence, in
recognition of her glorious past. Whether the effects of this favour were
conducive to the wellbeing of the country, may fairly be doubted. The
insane vanity of Nero, masquerading as Liberator of Greece, had surely
done more harm than good. Hadrian’s benefactions to Athens, dictated
by sentimental antiquarianism, could not improve the general condition
of the country, however satisfactory they might be to what was now an
University town living on students and tourists.
One of the first things that strikes a reader of this book is the
matter-of-fact way in which brigandage[1340] is taken for granted.
These robbers work in organized bands under chosen captains, have
regular strongholds as bases of operations, draw recruits from the
poverty-stricken peasantry or slaves, and do not hesitate to attack
and plunder great mansions, relying on the cowardice or indifference
(or perhaps treachery) of the rich owner’s slaves. Murder is to them
a mere trifle, and their ingenuity in torturing is fiendish. No doubt
their activities are somewhat exaggerated as a convenient part of the
machinery of the story, but the lament of Plutarch and the Euboic idyll
of Dion forbid us to regard these brigand-scenes as pure fiction.
They are another side of the same picture of distressful Greece. Nor
is the impression produced thereby at all weakened by a specimen of
military[1341] insolence. Greece was not a Province in which a large
army was kept, but all Governors had some armed force to support their
authority. The story introduces the ass with his present owner, a
gardener, on his back. They are met by a swaggering bully of a soldier,
who inquires where they are going. He asks this in Latin. The gardener
makes no reply, not knowing Latin. The angry soldier knocks him off the
ass, and repeats his question in Greek. On being told that they are
on their way to the nearest town, he seizes the ass on the pretext of
being wanted for fatigue duty in the service of the Governor, and will
listen to no entreaties. Just as he is preparing to break the gardener’s
skull, the gardener trips him up and pounds him to some purpose. He shams
dead, while the gardener hurries off and takes refuge with a friend in
the town. The soldier follows, and stirs up his mates, who induce the
local magistrates to take up the matter and give them satisfaction. The
gardener’s retreat is betrayed by a neighbour, and clever concealment
nullified by an indiscretion of the ass. The wretched gardener is found
and haled off to prison awaiting execution, while the soldier takes
possession of the ass. This story again is surely not grotesque and
incredible fiction. More likely it is made up from details heard by
the African during his sojourn in Greece. If scenes of this kind were
possible, the outlook of humble rustics[1342] can hardly have been a
cheerful one.
That perils of robbers and military insolence were not the only troubles
of the countryside, is shewn by the following anecdote[1343] describing
the brutal encroachments of a big landlord on poorer neighbours.
A landowner, apparently a man of moderate means, had three sons,
well-educated and well-behaved youths, who were close friends of a poor
man with a little cottage of his own. Bordering on this man’s little
holding was the large and fertile landed estate belonging to a rich and
powerful neighbour in the prime of life. This rich man, turning the fame
of his ancestors to bad account, strong in the support of party cliques,
in fact an autocrat[1344] within the jurisdiction of the town, was given
to making raids on the poverty of his humble neighbour. He slaughtered
his flocks, drove off his oxen, and trampled down his crops before they
were ripe, till he had robbed him of all the fruit of his thrift. His
next desire was to expel him altogether from his patch of soil: so he
got up a baseless dispute over boundaries, and claimed the whole of the
land as his own. The poor man, though diffident by nature, was bent upon
keeping his hereditary ground if only for his own burial. The claim
upset him greatly, and he entreated a number of his friends to attend at
the settlement[1345] of boundaries. Among those present were the three
brothers mentioned above, who came to do their little best in the cause
of their injured friend. But the rich man, unabashed by the presence
of a number of citizens, treated all efforts at conciliation with open
contempt, and swore that he would order his slaves to pick the poor man
up by the ears and chuck him ever so far from his cottage in less than
no time. The bystanders were greatly incensed at this brutal utterance.
One of the three brothers dared to say ‘It’s no good your bullying and
threatening like this just because you are a man of influence; don’t
forget that even poor[1346] men have found in the laws guarding freemen’s
rights a protector against the outrages of the rich.’ Upon this the
enraged tyrant let loose his ferocious dogs[1347] and set them on the
company. A horrible scene followed. One of the three youths was torn to
pieces, and the others also perished; one of them slain by the rich man
himself, the other, after avenging his brother, by his own hand.
The mere aggression of the rich landlord on the poor is interesting as
adding another instance of the encroachments to the occurrence of which
many other writers testify. The most remarkable feature of the story is
the insolent disregard of the Law shewn by the rich man from first to
last. That the governor of the Province could prevent or punish such
outrages, if his attention were called to them, is not to be doubted.
But he could not be everywhere at once, and it is not likely that many
of the poorer class would be forward to report such doings and appear
as accusers of influential persons. The rich probably sympathized with
their own class, and a poor man shrank from a criminal prosecution that
would in any event expose him to their vengeance afterwards. True, the
poor were the majority. But it was a very old principle of Roman policy
to entrust the effective control of municipalities to the burgesses of
property, men who had something to lose and who, being a minority, would
earn their local supremacy by a self-interested obedience to the central
government. Thus local magnates (their evil day was not yet come) were
left very much to their own devices, and most provincial governors cared
too much for their own ease and comfort to display an inquisitive zeal.
Moreover, so far as the rich thought it judicious to keep the poorer
contented, it would be the town rabble that profited chiefly if not
exclusively by their liberalities: the more isolated rustic was more
liable to suffer from their land-proud greediness. We must picture them
as overbearing and arbitrary slaveholders, practically uncontrolled; and
the worst specimens among them as an ever-present terror to a cowed and
indigent peasantry. We are not to suppose that things were as bad as this
in all parts of Greece, but that there was little or nothing to prevent
their becoming so, even in happier districts.
From time immemorial the Greek tendency had been to congregate in towns,
and after the early fall of the landowning aristocracies this tendency
was strengthened by democratic movements. The country as a whole was
never able to feed its population. But the population was now greatly
reduced. Given due security, perhaps the rustics might now have been able
to feed the towns. And that they were to some extent doing so may be
inferred from the fact that the chief peasant figure in the rural life
of the _Metamorphoses_ is the market-gardener[1348]. If he is but left
in peace, he seems to be doing fairly well. It is natural at this point
to inquire whether a _hortulanus_ might not also be a _colonus_, the
former name connoting his occupation and the latter his legal position in
relation to the land. Both terms often occur, but they seem to be quite
distinct: I can find nothing to justify the application of both to the
same person. And yet I cannot feel certain that Apuleius always means a
tenant-farmer[1349] under a landlord whenever he uses the word _colonus_.
Probably he does, as Norden seems to think. In any case the gardener is
evidently in a smaller way of business than the average _colonus_, and it
may be that his little scrap of land is his own. He certainly works[1350]
with his own hands, and I find nothing to suggest that he is an employer
of slaves, or that he himself is not free. That the tenant-farmers were
often _coloni partiarii_, bound to deliver to their landlord a fixed
share of their produce in kind, is highly probable. But this does not
exclude the payment of money rents as well. Local usage probably varied
in different districts. It is true that Apuleius several times[1351]
uses _partiarius_ metaphorically, but this only shews his addiction to
legal language, and is no proof of the prevalence of the share-system in
Greece. The _coloni_, nominally free, were as yet only bound to the soil
by the practical difficulty of clearing themselves from the obligations
that encumbered them and checked freedom of movement. But they were now
near to the time when they were made fixtures by law.
Another work of Apuleius furnishes matter of interest, the so-called
_Apologia_, a speech in his own defence when tried on a charge of
magical arts about the year 158 AD. That the accused was in no little
danger from this criminal prosecution has been shewn[1352] by Norden.
What concerns us is the reference to rustic affairs that the speaker
is led to make in the course of his argument, when demolishing some of
the allegations of his enemies. The trial was in Africa at the regular
provincial assize, and the conditions referred to are African. Apuleius,
as a man of note in his native Province, takes high ground to manifest
his confidence in the strength of his case. The prosecution want to draw
him into an unseemly squabble over side-issues. As the chief alleged
instance of his magic was connected with his marriage to a rich lady, a
widow of mature age, whom he was said to have bewitched, being at the
time a young man in need, it had evidently been thought necessary to
discuss his financial position as throwing light upon his motives. If
at the same time he could be represented as having acted in defiance of
well-known laws, so much the better. If we may trust the bold refutation
of Apuleius, they entangled themselves in a contradiction and betrayed
their own blind malice. His reply[1353] is as follows. ‘Whether you keep
slaves to cultivate your farm, or whether you have an arrangement with
your neighbours for exchange[1354] of labour, I do not know and do not
want to know. But you (profess to) know that at Oea, on the same day,
I manumitted three slaves: this was one of the things you laid to my
charge, and your counsel brought it up against me, though a moment before
he had said that when I came to Oea I had with me but a single slave.
Now, will you have the goodness to explain how, having but one, I could
manumit three,—unless this too is an effect of magic. Was there ever
such monstrous lying, whether from blindness or force of habit? He says,
Apuleius brought one slave with him to Oea. Then, after babbling a few
words, he adds that Apuleius manumitted three in one day at Oea. If he
had said that I brought with me three, and granted freedom to them all,
even that would not have deserved[1355] belief. But, suppose I had done
so, what then? would not three freedmen be as sure a mark of wealth as
three slaves of indigence?’
After this outburst the speaker is at pains to point out that to do
with few slaves is a philosopher’s part, commended by examples not of
philosophers only but of men famed in Roman history. The well-worn topic
of the schools, that to need little is true riches, is set forth at
large, with instances in illustration. He then asserts[1356] that he
inherited a considerable property from his father, which has been much
reduced by the cost of his journeys and expenses as a student and gifts
to deserving friends. After this he turns upon his adversary. ‘But you
and the men of your uneducated rustic class are worth just what your
property is worth and no more, like trees that bear no fruit and are
worth only the value of the timber in their stems. Henceforth you had
better not taunt any man with his poverty. Your father left you nothing
but a tiny farm at Zarat, and it is but the other day that you were
taking the opportunity of a shower of rain to give it a good ploughing
with the help of a single ass, and made it a three-days[1357] job. What
has kept you on your legs is the quite recent windfalls of inheritances
from kinsmen who died one after another.’ These personalities, in the
true vein of ancient advocacy, do not tell us much, but it is interesting
to note that the skilled pleader, a distinguished man of the world, quite
naturally sneers at his opponent for having been a poor working farmer.
Whether this was an especially effective taunt in the Province Africa,
the home of great estates, it is hardly possible to guess.
Of small farmers in Africa, working their own land, we have, probably by
accident, hardly any other record. But the reference above, to neighbours
taking turns to help one another on their farms, comes in so much as a
matter of course that we may perhaps conclude that there were such small
free farmers, at least in some parts of the Province. For slaves we need
no special evidence. But the lady whom Apuleius had married seems to
have been a large slaveowner as well as a large landowner. He declares
that he with difficulty persuaded her to quiet the claims of her sons by
making over to them a great part of her estate in land and other goods;
and one item consists[1358] of 400 slaves. We have also a reference to
_ergastula_ in a passage where he is protesting that to charge him with
practising magic arts with the privity of fifteen slaves is on the face
of it ridiculous[1359]. ‘Why, 15 free men make a community, 15 slaves
make a household, and 15 chained ones a lock-up.’ I take these _vincti_
to be troublesome slaves, not debtors. Again, in refuting the suggestion
that he had bewitched the lady, he states as proof of her sanity that
at the very time when she is said to have been out of her mind she most
intelligently audited and passed the accounts of her stewards[1360] and
other head-servants on her estates. And in general it has been well
said[1361] that Apuleius, with all his wide interest in all manner of
things, did not feel driven to inquire into the right or wrong of slavery
in itself. He took it as he found it in the Roman world of his day. That
he had eyes to see some of its most obvious horrors, may be inferred from
the description[1362] of the condition of slaves in a flour-mill, put
into the mouth of the man-ass. But with the humanitarian movements of
these times he shews no sympathy; and he can depict abominable scenes of
cruelty and bestiality without any warmth of serious indignation.
COMMODUS TO DIOCLETIAN
XLVI. GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
The death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD brings us to the beginning of a
long period of troubles, in which the growing weakness of the empire
was exposed, the principate-system of Augustus finally failed under the
predominance of military power, and the imperial government was left
to be reorganized by Diocletian on a more Oriental model. There is no
doubt that during some hundred years the internal wellbeing of the Roman
empire was being lowered, and that the parts most open to barbarian
invasion suffered terribly. But the pressure of taxation to supply
military needs bore heavily on all parts and impaired the vitality of the
whole. Reactions there were now and then, when a strong man, or even a
well-meaning one, became emperor and had a few years in which to combat
present evils and for the moment check them. But the average duration
of reigns was very brief; emperors were generally murdered or slain in
battle; from 249 to 283 the chief function of an emperor was to lead
his army against barbarian invaders. It is a remarkable fact that the
first half of this unhappy century was the classical period of Roman
jurisprudence. The important post of Praetorian Prefect, which began with
a dignified military command and was more and more becoming the chief
ministry of the Empire, was again and again held by eminent jurists. But
in the long run the civil power could not stand against the jealousy of
the military, and the murder of Ulpian in 228 practically ends the series
of great lawyer-ministers, leaving the sword in undisputed control. The
authorities for this century of troubles are meagre and unsatisfactory.
With the help of contemporary inscriptions, modern writers are able to
compose some sort of a history of the times, so far as public events and
governmental activities are concerned. But the literature of private
life, the source of our best evidence on agricultural labour, is for the
time at an end, and the facts of farm life were not of the kind thought
worthy of record in inscriptions.
There is therefore nothing to be done but to glean the few scraps of
information that in any way bear upon the condition of tillers of the
soil in this period. They are as a rule of little value, and they come
from writers of little authority. But it is something if they are of a
piece with the general record of these unhappy times. Even the imperial
biographies of Marius Maximus survive only in the meagre abstracts of
later writers, and modern historians are quite unable to reconstruct any
clear picture of the inner life of the period 180-284 AD owing to the
lack of materials.
The most significant piece of information relates to Pertinax. We are
told[1363] that one of the useful reforms contemplated by him was the
reclamation of waste lands throughout the empire. He ordained that any
one might occupy derelict lands, even on the imperial estates: on careful
cultivation thereof, the farmer was to become owner[1364]. For a space of
ten years he was to be exempt from all taxation, and his ownership was to
be guaranteed against future disturbance. This passage is good evidence
of the decay of agriculture, agreeing with what we have learnt from other
sources. But we cannot gather from it that the well-meant design had
any practical effect. Pertinax was only emperor for the inside of three
months, and could not realize his virtuous aspirations. About 80 years
later we find Aurelian[1365] planning the development of waste lands
in Etruria, and Probus[1366] giving allotments in the wilds of Isauria
to his veterans as settlers with obligation of military service. There
can be little doubt that the depopulation and decline of cultivation,
made sadly manifest in the calamitous times of Marcus Aurelius, had
never ceased to undermine the vital forces of the empire. How to fill up
deserted lands, and make them productive of food and revenue, was the
problem that every serious ruler had to face. And there was in fact only
one resource available to meet the need. The native population of the
empire, stationary at best, had been further reduced by pestilence and
famine, and was not able to fill up the spaces laid waste by frontier
wars. Hence the policy of bringing in masses of barbarians, adopted by
Marcus, had to be repeated again and again.