century is quite beyond my scope. It has already been admirably done by
Sir Samuel Dill. But there are a few points remaining to be discussed as
relevant to my subject. That the decline of the middle class, and the
passing of large areas of land into few hands, was a process forwarded by
inability to pay debts incurred, is extremely probable. It had been going
on for many centuries. But I do not see that the evidence of Sidonius
suggests that this evil was in his time especially prevalent. The case
cited[1781] is peculiar. The borrower is expressly stated not to have
mortgaged any of his land. The loan was only secured by a written bond
which fixed the interest[1782] at 12% per annum. This had been ten years
in arrear, and the total debt was now doubled. The debtor fell ill, and
pressure was put on him by officials employed to collect debts. I infer
that the lack of real security prompted this dunning of a sick man, for
fear the personal security might lapse by his death. Sidonius, a friend
of the creditor, undertook to plead with him for at least some stay of
action. This man had lately been ordained, and Sidonius (not yet himself
in orders, I think,) was evidently surprised to note the simple religious
life led by him in his country villa. And he needed little entreaty, but
acted up to what he considered his duty to a brother Christian. He not
only granted further time for payment, but remitted the whole of the
accrued interest, claiming only the principal sum lent. Such conduct may
have been, and probably was, exceptional; but I cannot argue from it that
heartless usurers were eating up the small landowners of Gaul.
So too the case of the young man[1783] of good position who cast off a
slave mistress and wedded a young lady of good family, reputation, and
property, may have been exceptional. Sidonius takes it all very coolly,
and mildly improves the occasion. A far more interesting affair is one
in a lower station of life, of which I must say a few words. In a brief
letter[1784] to his friend Pudens he says ‘The son of your nurse has
raped my nurse’s daughter: it is a shocking business, and would have made
bad blood between you and me, only that I saw at once you did not know
what to do in the matter. You begin by clearing yourself of connivance,
and then condescend to ask me to condone a fault committed in hot
passion. This I grant, but only on these terms, that you release[1785]
the ravisher from the status of a Sojourner, to which he belongs by
birth; thus becoming his patron instead of his lord. The woman is free
already. And to give her the position of a wedded wife, and not the
plaything of caprice, there is but one way. Our scamp for whom you
intercede must become your Client[1786] and cease to be a Tributary,
thus acquiring the quality of an ordinary Commoner rather than that of a
Serf.’ Sidonius is as usual ready to make the best[1787] of a bad job.
From his proposal I draw the following conclusions. First, as to the
nurses. The _nutrix_, like the Greek τροφός, held a position of trust
and respect in the household, consecrated by immemorial tradition. No
slave had a higher claim to manumission, if she desired it. It would
seem that Sidonius’ ‘mammy’ was ending her days as a freedwoman, and
hence her daughter was free. It looks as if the nurse of Pudens were
still a slave, and her son an _inquilinus_ on the estate of Pudens.
He may very well have been tenant of a small holding, practically a
serf-tenant. Pudens is still his _dominus_. His quality of _inquilinus_
attaches to him in virtue of his _origo_; that is, he is registered in
the census-books[1788] as a human unit belonging to a particular estate
and taken into account in estimating taxation-units. Therefore he is
_tributarius_[1789]. Sidonius proposes to divest him of the character of
serf and make him an ordinary Roman citizen. The difference this would
make is probably a purely legal one. Being at present a Serf, probably in
strict law a slave also, his connexion with the girl is a _contubernium_.
His manumission[1790] (for such it really is) will enable him to convert
it into a _matrimonium_, carrying the usual legal responsibilities.
The practical change in his economic position will probably be nil. He
will still remain a dependent _colonus_, but he may perhaps enjoy the
privilege of paying his own share[1791] of taxes. That Sidonius speaks
of his present condition first as Inquilinate and then as Colonate, is
one of many proofs that the two terms now connoted virtually[1792] the
same thing. Such had already been stated as a fact in a law of Honorius,
which was retained by Tribonian in the code of Justinian. Whether the
_inquilini_ were barbarian bondsmen (_hörige_), tenants bound to the soil
like _coloni_ but the personal property of their landlords, as Seeck
holds; or usually descendants of _coloni_, as Weber thought; is more than
I can venture to decide. I do not think that either hypothesis[1793]
exhausts all the possibilities, and the point is not material to the
present inquiry. In any case it can hardly be doubted that both classes
consisted of men who worked with their own hands, only aided in some
cases by slave labour which was far from easy to procure.
LXI. CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
After so long a discussion of the surviving evidence, it is time to
sum up the results and see to what conclusions the inquiry leads us in
respect of the farm life and labour of the Greco-Roman world. And first
as to the figures of the picture, the characters with whose position
and fortunes we are concerned. We find three classes, owner farmer
labourer, clearly marked though not so as to be mutually exclusive. We
can only begin with ownership in some form, however rudimentary; for
the claim to resist encroachment on a more or less ill-defined area
is a phenomenon of even the rude life of hunter-tribes. How private
property grew out of common ownership is a question beyond the range
of the present inquiry. It is enough that the owner, whether a clan
or a family or an individual, has a recognized right to use the thing
owned (here land) and to debar others from doing so. But it is clear
that he may also be the actual manager of its use: he may even supply
in person all the labour needed for turning it to account: in short,
he may be his own farmer and his own labourer. And legend asserts or
implies that such was the primitive condition of man when he passed from
nomadic to settled existence. Differentiation of function is therefore
a product of time and circumstance, a development varying in date and
degree among various races and in various portions of the world. Once
the stage of civilization is reached at which the regular cultivation of
the same piece of land year by year is the normal means of sustaining
human life, we meet the simplest economic figure, the peasant who
supplies his own needs by his own methods, tilling the soil which in
some sense he claims as his own. Whether it is his own permanently as
an individual, or temporarily as a member of a village community, is a
difference immaterial from the present point of view. Nor does it matter
that his method of dealing with the land may be regulated by principles
conventional in the society to which he belongs.
Delegation of management is a momentous step, destined to bring important
unforeseen consequences. Many reasons may have rendered it necessary or
at least convenient. It appears in two forms, the actual and relative
dates of which are hardly to be determined with certainty. Either the
owner keeps the profit of the undertaking and bears the loss, or some
division of profit and loss between the owner and the manager is the
condition of the arrangement between the two parties. Ownership is
not abdicated: nor is it easy to see how, without a clear recognition
of ownership, any system of delegation could arise. But on the first
plan the owner owns not only the land but the service of his delegate.
Whether the man be a client bound to his patron by social custom, or
an agent earning a wage, or a slave the property of his master, he is
merely a servant in charge. He can be superseded at any moment at the
landowner’s will. The free tenant on the other hand is a creature of
contract, and his existence presupposes a community in which the sanctity
of deliberate bargains is considerably developed. Whether the tenant’s
obligation consists in the payment of a fixed rent in money or kind, or
in a share of produce varying with the season’s crop, does not matter.
He is bound by special law, however rudimentary; and it is the interest
of the community to see that such law is kept in force: for no one would
enter into such bargains if their fulfilment were not reasonably assured.
Whether a certain reluctance to enter into such a relation may perhaps
account for the rare and doubtful appearance of tenancy in early Roman
tradition, or whether it is to be set down simply to defects of record,
I do not venture to decide. The landlord’s obligation is to allow his
tenant the enjoyment and free use of a definite piece of land on certain
terms for a stipulated period. Further stipulations, giving him the
right to insist on proper cultivation and the return of the land in good
condition at the end of the tenancy, were doubtless soon added at the
dictation of experience. That tenant farmers with their families usually
supplied labour as well as management, is surely not to be doubted. That,
in the times when we begin to hear of this class as non-exceptional, they
also employed slave labour, is attested: that we do not hear of them as
engaging free wage-earners, may or may not be an accidental omission.
Labour, simply as labour, without regard to the possible profit or loss
attending its results, was no more an object of desire, engaged in for
its own sake, in ancient times than it is now. Domestication of animals,
a step implying much attentive care and trouble, was a great advance in
the direction of securing a margin of profit on which mankind could rely
for sustenance and comfort. The best instance is perhaps that of the ox,
whose services, early exploited to the full, were cheaply obtained at the
cost of his rearing and keep. Hence he was kept. But in ages of conflict,
when might was right, the difference[1794] between an ox-servant and a
man-servant had in practice no existence, and the days of theory were
as yet in the far future. A human enemy, captured and spared, could be
put to use in the same way as a domesticated ox. His labour, minus the
cost of his keep, left a margin of profit to his owner. At the moment of
capture, his life was all he had: therefore his conqueror had deprived
him of nothing, and the bargain was in his favour, though economically in
his owner’s interest. No wonder then that our earliest records attest the
presence of the slave. Even nomad tribes were attended by slaves[1795]
in their migrations, nor indeed has this custom been wholly unknown in
modern times. On the other hand it is remarkable how very little we hear
of wage-earning labour in ancient agriculture. Nothing seems to imply
that it was ever a normal resource of cultivation. When employed, it is
almost always for special work at seasons of pressure, and it seems to
have remained on this footing, with a general tendency to decline. In
other words, the margin of profit on the results of wage-earning labour
seemed to employers less than that on the results of slave labour, so far
as ordinary routine was concerned. And we are not in a position to shew
that in their given circumstances their judgment was wrong. But we need
to form some notion of the position of the wage-earning labourer in a
civilization still primitive.
The main point ever to be borne in mind is that the family household was
a close union of persons bound together by ties of blood and religion
under a recognized Head. A common interest in the family property carried
with it the duty of common labour. The domestic stamp was on everything
done and designed. Even the slave had a humble place in the family life,
and family religion did not wholly ignore him. He was there, and was
meant to stay there. Farm-work was the chief item in the duties of the
household, and he bore, and was meant to bear, his full share of it. But
the hired labourer stood in no such relation to the household union,
however friendly his connexion with his employer might be. He did his
work, took his wage, and went: no tie was severed by his going, and any
other person of like capacity could fill his place if and when the need
for help-service arose. In short, his labour was non-domestic, irregular,
occasional: and therefore less likely to receive notice in such records
as have come down to us. But if we conclude (as I am inclined to do) that
wage-labour was not much employed on the land in early times, we must
admit that this is rather an inference than an attested tradition.
The distinction between domestic regular service and non-domestic
help-service is essential, and on a small holding from which a family
raised its own sustenance the line of division was easy to draw. Later
economic changes tended to obscure it, and we find Roman jurists[1796]
of the Empire striving to discover a full and satisfactory answer to
a much later question, namely the distinction between a domestic and
a rustic slave. But by that time ‘domestic’ appears as ‘urban,’ for
the effect of centuries has been to draw a really important line of
division, not between slave and free but between two classes of slaves.
There is however in the conditions of early slavery, when ‘domestic’
and ‘rustic’ were merely two aspects of the same thing, another point
not to be overlooked, since it probably had no little influence on the
development of human bondage. It is this. The human slave differs from
the domesticated ox through possession of what we call reason. If he
wished to escape, he was capable of forming deep-laid plans for that
purpose. Now the captives in border wars would be members of neighbouring
tribes. If enslaved, the fact of being still within easy reach of their
kindred was a standing temptation to run away, sure as they would be
of a welcome in their former homes. No kindness, no watchfulness, on
the master’s part would suffice to deaden or defeat such an influence.
To solve the problem thus created, a way was found by disposing of
captives to aliens more remote and getting slaves brought from places
still further away. This presupposes some commercial intercourse. In the
early Greek tradition we meet with this slave-trade at work as a branch
of maritime traffic chiefly in the hands of Phoenician seamen. In Italy
we find a trace of it in the custom[1797] of selling ‘beyond Tiber,’
that is into alien Etruria. At what stage of civilization exactly this
practice became established it is rash to guess: we cannot get behind
it. The monstrous slave-markets of the historical periods shew that it
developed into a normal institution of the ancient world. But it is not
unreasonable to suppose that an alien from afar was less easily absorbed
into his master’s family circle than a man of a neighbouring community
though of another tribe. Are we to see in this the germ of a change by
which the house-slave became less ‘domestic’ and tended to become a human
chattel?
The exploitation of some men’s labour for the maintenance of others could
and did take another form in ages of continual conflict. Successful
invaders did not always drive out or destroy the earlier inhabitants
of a conquered land. By retaining them as subjects to till the soil,
and making the support of their rulers the first charge upon their
produce, the conquerors provided for their own comfort and became a
leisured noble class. In the Greek world we find such aristocracies of
a permanently military character, as in Laconia and Thessaly. Colonial
expansion reproduced the same or very similar phenomena abroad, as in
the cases of Heraclea Pontica and Syracuse. The serfdom of such subject
populations was a very different thing[1798] from slavery. It had nothing
domestic about it. There is no reason to suppose that the serf was under
any constraint beyond the regular performance of certain fixed duties,
conditions imposed by the state on its subjects, not the personal orders
of an individual owner. In some cases at least the serf seems to have
enjoyed a measure of protection[1799] under public law. Whether the
original Roman _plebs_ stood on much the same footing as the Greek serfs
is perhaps doubtful, but their condition presents certain analogies. The
main truth is that the desire of conquerors to profit by the labour of
the conquered was and is an appetite almost universal: moral revulsion
against crude forms of this exploitation is of modern, chiefly English,
origin; even now it is in no small degree a lesson from the economic
experience of ages. But it is well to remember that we use ‘serfdom’
also as the name for the condition of rural peasantry in the later Roman
Empire, and that this again is a different relation. For it is not a case
of conquered people serving their conquerors. Rather is it an affliction
of those who by blood or franchise represent the conquering people. Step
by step they sink under the loss of effective freedom, though nominally
free, bound down by economic and social forces; influences that operate
with the slow certainty of fate until their triumph is finally registered
by imperial law.
That the institution of Property is a matter of slow growth, is now
generally admitted by sincere inquirers. It had reached a considerable
stage of development when a clan or household (still more when an
individual) was recognized as having an exclusive right to dispose of
this or that material object presumably useful to others also. For
instance, in the right of an owner to do as he would with an ox or a
slave. Individual property in land was certainly a later development, the
appropriation being effected by a combination of personal acquisitiveness
with economic convenience. From my present point of view the chief
interest of the property-question is in its connexion with debt-slavery.
That farmers, exposed to the vicissitudes of seasons, are peculiarly
liable to incur debts, is well known from experience ancient and modern.
But ancient Law, if rudimentary, was also rigid; and tradition depicts
for us the small peasant as a victim of the wealthy whose larger capital
enabled them to outlast the pressure of bad times. How far the details of
this picture are to be taken literally as evidence of solid fact has not
unreasonably been doubted. But that a farmer in straits could pledge not
only his land but his person as security for a debt seems hardly open to
question. For we find the practice still existing in historical periods,
and political pressure exerted to procure mitigation of the ancient
severity. Now, if a man gave himself in bondage to a creditor until such
time as his debt should be discharged, he became that creditor’s slave
for a period that might only end with his own life. Here we have another
way in which the man of property could get the disposal of regular labour
without buying a slave in the market or turning to work himself. A later
form of the practice, in which a debtor worked off his liability[1800] by
service at an estimated rate, a method of liquidation by the accumulation
of unpaid wages, seems to have been a compromise avoiding actual slavery.
Evidently subsequent to the abolition of debt-slavery, it died out in
Italy, perhaps partly owing to the troublesome friction that would surely
arise in enforcing the obligation.
It is natural to ask, if we find small trace of eagerness to labour in
person on the land, and ample tradition of readiness to devolve that
labour on slaves and subjects, how comes it that we find agriculture in
honour, traditionally regarded as the manual labour beyond all others
not unworthy of a freeman? To reply that human life is supported by the
produce of the land is no sufficient answer. To recognize the fact of
necessity does not account for the sentiment of dignity. Now, in the
formation of such unions as may fairly be called States, the commonest
if not universal phenomenon is the connexion of full citizenship
with ownership of land. Political movement towards democracy is most
significantly expressed in the struggles of landless members of inferior
right to gain political equality. Whether the claim is for allotments of
land, carrying a share of voting-power, or for divorcing the voting-power
from landholding, does not matter much here. At any rate it was the rule
that no alien could own land within the territory of the state, and state
and territory were coextensive. Only special treaties between states,
or a solemn act of the sovran power in a state, could create exceptions
to the rule. From this situation I would start in attempting to find
some answer to the above question. In a village community I think it is
generally agreed that all true members had a share of the produce, the
great majority as cultivators, holding lots of land, not as tenants at
will or by contract, but in their own right, though the parcels might be
allotted differently from time to time. If a few craftsmen were left to
specialize in necessary trades for the service of all, and drew their
share in the form of sustenance provided by the cultivating members, the
arrangement presented no insuperable difficulty on a small scale. But
the tillers of the soil were the persons on whose exertions the life
of the community primarily and obviously depended. The formation of a
larger unit, a State, probably by some successful warrior chief, made a
great change in the situation. A city stronghold established a centre
of state life and government, and villages exchanged the privileges and
perils of isolation for the position of local hamlets attached to the
common centre of the state, and in this new connexion developing what
we may fairly call political consciousness. Under the new dispensation,
what with growth of markets, the invention of coined money, and greater
general security, the movement towards individual property proceeded
fast. Noble families engrossed much of the best land: and tradition[1801]
credibly informs us that in one mode or other they imposed the labour of
cultivation on the poorer citizens, of course on very onerous terms.
At this point in the inquiry some help may be got from taking the
military view. War, at least defensive war, was a possibility ever
present. Kings, and the aristocracies that followed them, had as their
prime function to secure the safety of the state. A sort of regular force
was provided by the obligation of army service that rested upon all full
citizens. The warrior nobles and their kinsmen formed a nucleus. But the
free peasant farmers were indispensable in the ranks, and, as their farms
usually lay near the frontier, they furnished a hardy and willing militia
for border warfare. The craftsmen, smith potter cobbler etc, were now
more concentrated in the city, and were always regarded as ill-fitted
for service in the field. Naturally the classes that bore a direct part
in defence of the state stood higher in general esteem. But to say this
is not to say that bodily labour on the land was, as labour, honoured
for its own sake. The honour belonged to those who, owning land, either
worked it with their own hands or employed the labour of others. I can
find no trace of traditional respect for the labourer as labourer until
a much later age, when a dearth of free rustic labourers had begun to be
felt. Then it appeared in the form of yearning[1802] for a vanished past,
side by side with humanitarian views in relation to slavery. Meanwhile
a stage had been traversed in which slavery was recognized as necessary
in spite of its admitted evils, and therefore requiring justification;
a movement most clearly illustrated by the special pleading of
Aristotle. That great writer was fully alive to the manifold merits of
the farmer class as citizens and producers, but his trust in the power
of self-interest proves him a confirmed individualist. How to combine
self-interest with patriotic devotion to the common welfare is the vital
problem, even now only solved ideally on paper. That coldly-reasoned
conclusions of thinkers were really the foundation of the esteem in which
we find the working farmer held, I cannot believe. Much more likely is it
that it sprang mainly from immemorial tradition of a time when ownership
and cultivation went together, and that theory merely absorbed and
revived what was still an indistinct impression in the minds of men.