Agricola

XXXIV. GENERAL INTRODUCTION.

It is not easy to find a satisfactory line of division between the period of the Flavian emperors and that of the adoptive series that came after them. The Plebeian Flavians had no family claim, through birth or adoption, to a preeminent position in the Roman world, and the rise of Vespasian to power was indeed a revolution. Henceforth, though outward forms and machinery remained, the real control of the empire rested with those supported directly or indirectly by the great armies. But the sound administrative policy set going by the common sense of Vespasian long maintained the imperial fabric in strength, and it is commonly held that from 69 to 180 AD was the Empire’s golden age. Nevertheless its vitality was already ebbing, and the calamities that beset it in the days of Marcus Aurelius found it unable to renew its vigour after holding in check its barbarian invaders. The Flavian-Antonine period must be treated as one, and from the point of view of the present inquiry certain significant facts must always be borne in mind. The Italian element in the armies was becoming less and less. Military policy consisted chiefly in defence of the frontiers, for the annexations of Trajan were not lasting, and they exhausted strength needed for defence. It was an ominous sign that the Roman power of assimilation was failing. Mixed armies of imperfectly Romanized soldiery, whether as conquerors or as settlers, could not spread Roman civilization in the same thorough way as it had become at length established in Spain or southern Gaul. To spread it extensively and not intensively meant a weakening of Roman grasp; and at some points[1073] it seems as if the influx of barbarism was felt to be a menace in time of peace, not effectively counteracted by the peaceful penetration of Rome.

Now, if the protection of Italy by chiefly alien swords was to relieve the imperial centre from the heavy blood-tax borne by it in the old days of Roman expansion, surely it remained an Italian function or duty to provide carriers[1074] of Roman civilization, that is, if border lands were to be solidly Romanized as a moral bulwark against barbarism. But this duty could only be performed by a healthy and vigorous Italy, and Italy[1075] was not healthy and vigorous. Internal security left the people free to go on in the same ways as they had now been following for generations, and those ways, as we have seen, did not tend to the revival of a free rural population. Country towns were not as yet in manifest decay, but there were now no imperial politics, and municipal politics, ever petty and self-regarding, offered no stimulus to arouse a larger and common interest. Municipalities looked for benefactors, and were still able to find them. In this period we meet with institutions of a charitable kind, some even promoted by the imperial government, for the benefit of orphans and children of the poor. This was a credit to the humanity of the age, but surely a palliative of social ailments, not a proof of sound condition. In Rome there was life, but it was cosmopolitan life. Rome was the capital of the Roman world, not of Italy. In the eyes of jealous patriots it seemed that what Rome herself needed was a thorough Romanizing. It was not from the great wicked city, thronged with adventurers[1076] of every sort, largely Oriental Greeks, and hordes of freedmen, that the better Roman influences could spread abroad. Nor were the old Provinces, such as Spain and southern Gaul, where Roman civilization had long been supreme, in a position to assimilate[1077] and Romanize the ruder border-lands by the Rhine and Danube. They had no energies to spare: moreover, they too depended on the central government, and the seat of that government was Rome.

Italy alone could have vitalized the empire by moral influence, creating in the vast fabric a spiritual unity, and making a great machine into something more or less like a nation,—that is, if she had been qualified for acting such a part. But Italy had never been a nation herself. The result of the great Italian war of 90 and 89 BC had been to merge Italy in Rome, not Rome in Italy. Italians, now Romans, henceforth shared the exploitation of the subject countries and the hatred of oppressed peoples. But under the constitution of the Republic politics became more of a farce the more the franchise was extended, and the most obvious effect of Italian enfranchisement was to increase the number of those who directly or indirectly made a living out of provincial wrongs. The Provinces swarmed with bloodsuckers of every kind. The establishment of the Empire at length did something to relieve the sufferings of the Provinces. But it was found necessary to recognize Italy as a privileged imperial land. In modern times such privilege would take the form of political rights and responsibilities. But political life was dead, and privilege could only mean local liberties, exemption from burdens, and the like. And in the long run the maintenance or abolition of privilege would have to depend on the success or failure of the system. Now the emperors of the first two centuries of the Empire did their best to maintain the privileged position of Italy. But even in the time of Augustus it was already becoming clear that Romanized Italy depended on Rome and that Rome, so far as the Senate and Magistrates were concerned, could not provide for the efficient administration of Italy or even of Rome itself. Then began the long gradual process by which Italy, like the rest of the empire, passed more and more under the control of the imperial machine. In the period we are now considering this was steadily going on, for brief reactions, such as that under Nerva, did not really check it, and Italy was well on the way to become no more than a Province.

The feature of this period most important in connexion with the present inquiry is the evidence[1078] that emperors were as a rule painfully conscious of Italian decay. Alive to the dangers involved in its continuance, they accepted the responsibility of doing what they could to arrest it. Their efforts took various forms, chiefly (a) the direct encouragement of farming (b) relief of poverty (c) measures for providing more rural population or preventing emigration of that still existing. It is evident that the aim was to place and keep more free rustics on the land. In the numerous allotments of land to discharged soldiers a number of odd pieces[1079] (subsiciva), not included in the lots assigned, were left over, and had been occupied by squatters. Vespasian, rigidly economical in the face of threatened state-bankruptcy, had the titles inquired into, and resumed and sold those pieces where no valid grant could be shewn. Either this was not fully carried out, or some squatters must have been allowed to hold on as ‘possessors,’ probably paying a quit-rent to the treasury. For Domitian[1080] found some such people still in occupation and converted their tenure into proprietorship, on the ground that long possession had established a prescriptive right. Nerva tried to go further[1081] by buying land and planting agricultural colonies: but little or nothing was really effected in his brief reign. In relief of poverty it was a notable extension to look beyond the city of Rome, where corn-doles had long existed, and continued to exist. The plan adopted was for the state to advance money at low rates of interest to landowners in municipal areas, and to let the interest received form a permanent endowment for the benefit of poor parents and orphans. We must remember that to have children born did not imply a legal obligation to rear them, and that the prospect of help from such funds was a distinct encouragement to do so. Whether any great results were achieved by this form of charity must remain doubtful: flattering assurances[1082] to Trajan on the point can no more be accepted without reserve than those addressed to Augustus on the success of his reforms, or to Domitian on his promotion of morality. But it seems certain that private charity was stimulated by imperial action, and that the total sums applied in this manner were very large. Begun by Nerva, carried out[1083] by Trajan, extended by Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, the control of these endowments was more centralized by Marcus. In his time great dearth in Italy had made distress more acute, and the hour was at hand when the inner disorders of the empire would cause all such permanent foundations to fail and disappear. They may well have relieved many individual cases of indigence, but we can hardly suppose their general effect on the Italian population to have been a healthy one. They must have tended to deaden enterprise and relax self-help, for they were too much after the pauperizing model long established in Rome. The provision of cheap loan-capital for landowners may or may not have been a boon in the long run.

The increase of rustic population through excess of births over deaths could not be realized in a day, even if the measures taken to promote it were successful. So we find Trajan[1084] not only founding colonies in Italy but forbidding colonists to be drawn from Italy for settlement in the Provinces; a restriction said to have been[1085] disregarded by Marcus. But one important sequel of the frontier wars of Marcus, in which German mercenaries were employed, was the transplanting[1086] of large numbers of German captives into Italy. Such removals had occurred before, but seldom and on a small scale. This wholesale transplantation under Marcus made a precedent for many similar movements later on. It may be taken for granted that the emperor did not turn out Italians in order to find room for the new settlers. It is also probable that these were bound to military service. The great military colonies of later date, formed of whole tribes or nations settled near the frontiers, certainly held their lands on military tenure. Such was the system of frontier defence gradually forced upon Rome through the failure of native imperial forces sufficient for the purpose: and this failure was first conspicuous in Italy. Among the various measures taken by emperors to interest more persons in promoting Italian agriculture we may notice Trajan’s[1087] ordinance, that Provincials who aspired to become Roman Senators must shew themselves true children of Rome by investing one third of their property in Italian land. The order seems to have been operative, but the reduction[1088] of the fixed minimum proportion from ⅓ to ¼ by Marcus looks as if the first rule had been found too onerous. There is no reason to think that the state of rural Italy was materially bettered by these well-meant efforts. And the introduction of barbarian settlers, who had to be kept bound to the soil in order to be readily available when needed for military service, tended to give the rustic population a more and more stationary character. It was in fact becoming more usual to let farms to free coloni; but the coloni, though personally free, were losing freedom of movement.

NOTE ON EMIGRATION FROM ITALY.

In the Journal of Roman Studies (vol VIII) I have discussed the question whether the emigration from Italy to the Provinces was to a serious extent agricultural in character, and in particular whether we can believe it to have carried abroad real working rustics in large numbers. Are we to see in it an important effective cause of the falling-off of the free rustic population of Italy? That the volume of emigration was large may be freely granted; also that settlements of discharged soldiers took place from time to time. Nor does it seem doubtful that many of the emigrants became possessors of farm-lands[1089] in the Provinces. But that such persons were working rustics, depending on their own labour, is by no means clear. And, if they were not, the fact of their holding land abroad does not bear directly on the decay of the working farmer class in Italy. That commerce and finance and exploitation in general were the main occupations of Italian[1090] emigrants, I do not think can be seriously doubted. And that many of them combined landholding with their other enterprises is probable enough.

Professor Reid kindly reminds me that soldiers from Italy, whose term of service expired while they were still in a Province, were apt to settle down there in considerable numbers. The case of Carteia in Spain is well known, and that of Avido, also in Spain, was probably of the same nature. These were not regular Colonies. So too in Africa Marius seems to have left behind him communities of soldiers not regularly organized[1091] as coloniae. When the town of Uchi Maius received the title of colonia from the emperor Severus, it called itself[1092] colonia Mariana, like the one founded by Marius in Corsica. And the same title appears in the case[1093] of Thibari. With these African settlements we may connect the law carried by Saturninus in 100 BC to provide the veterans of Marius with allotments of land in Africa, on the scale of 100 iugera for each man. If this record[1094] is to be trusted (and the doubtful points cannot be discussed here), the natural inference is that farms of considerable size are meant, for the working of which no small amount of labour would be required. Nor is this surprising, for the soldiers of Marius were at the time masters of the situation, and not likely to be content with small grants. Whether the allotments proposed were in Africa or in Cisalpine Gaul[1095] is not quite certain. Marius seems to have left Africa in the winter of 105-4 BC. Since then he had been engaged in the war with the northern barbarians, and the lands recovered from the invaders were in question. Still, the proposal may have referred to Africa, for it is certain that the connexion of Marius with that Province was remembered[1096] long after. The important point is that the persons to be gratified were not civilian peasants but discharged veterans of the New Model army, professionalized by Marius himself. Neither the retired professional mercenaries of Greco-Macedonian armies, nor the military colonists of Sulla, give us reason to believe that such men would regard hard and monotonous labour with their own hands as a suitable reward for the toils and perils of their years of military service. Surely they looked forward to a life of comparative ease, with slaves to labour under their orders. If they kept their hold on their farms, they would become persons of some importance in their own provincial neighbourhood. Such were the milites or veterani whom we find often mentioned under the later Empire: and these too were evidently not labourers but landlords and directors.

Therefore I hold that the class of men, many of them Italians by descent, whom we find holding land in various Provinces and living on the profits of the same, were mostly if not all either soldier-settlers or persons to whom landholding was one of several enterprises of exploitation. That the mere Italian peasant emigrated in such numbers as seriously to promote the falling-off of the free rustic population of Italy, is a thesis that I cannot consider as proved or probable.

XXXV. MUSONIUS.

In earlier chapters I have found it necessary to examine the views of philosophers on the subject of agriculture and agricultural labour, holding it important to note the attitude of great thinkers towards these matters. And indeed a good deal is to be gleaned from Plato and Aristotle. Free speculations on the nature of the State included not only strictly political inquiries, but social and economic also. But in the Macedonian period, when Greek states no longer enjoyed unrestricted freedom of movement and policy, a change came over philosophy. The tendency of the schools that now shewed most vital energy, such as the Epicurean and Stoic, was to concern themselves with the Individual rather than the State. The nature of Man, and his possibilities of happiness, became more and more engrossing topics. As the political conditions under which men had to live were now manifestly imposed by circumstances over which the ordinary citizen had no control, the happiness of the Individual could no longer be dependent on success in political ambitions and the free play of civic life. It had to be sought in himself, independent of circumstances. The result was that bold questioning and the search for truth ceased to be the prime function of philosophic schools, and the formation of character took the first place. Hence the elaboration of systems meant to regulate a man’s life by implanting in him a fixed conception of the world in which he had to live, and his relation to the great universe of which he and his immediate surroundings formed a part. And this implied a movement which may be roughly described as from questioning to dogma. The teacher became more of a preacher, his disciples more of a congregation of the faithful; and more and more the efficiency of his ministrations came to depend on his own personal influence, which we often call magnetism.

When Greek literature and thought became firmly established in Rome during the second century BC, it was just this dogmatic treatment of moral questions that gave philosophy a hold on a people far more interested in conduct than in speculation. The Roman attempts, often clumsy enough, to translate principle into practice were, and continued to be, various in spirit and success. Stoicism in particular blended most readily with the harder and more virile types of Roman character, and found a peculiarly sympathetic reception among eminent lawyers. The reigns of the first emperors were not favourable to moral philosophy; but the accession of Nero set literature, and with it moralizing, in motion once more. A kind of eclectic Stoicism came into fashion, a Roman product, of which Seneca was the chief representative. A touch of timeserving was needed to adapt Greek theories for practical use in the world of imperial Rome. Seneca was both a courtier and a wealthy landowner, and was one of the victims of Nero’s tyranny. We have seen that while preaching Stoic doctrine, for instance on the relations of master and slave, he shews little interest in agriculture for its own sake or in the conditions of agricultural labour. It is interesting to contrast with his attitude that of another Stoic, a man of more uncompromising and consistent type, whose life was partly contemporaneous with that of Seneca, and who wrote only a few years later under the Flavian emperors.

Musonius[1097] Rufus, already a teacher of repute in Nero’s time, seems to have kept himself clear of conspiracies and intrigues, recognizing the necessity of the monarchy and devoting himself to his profession of moral guide to young men. But any great reputation was dangerous in Nero’s later years, and a pretext was found for banishing the philosopher in 65. Under Galba he returned to Rome, still convinced of the efficacy of moral suasion, witnessed the bloody successions of emperors in 69, and risked his life in an ill-timed effort to stay the advance of Vespasian’s soldiery by discoursing on the blessings of peace. Vespasian seems to have allowed him to remain in Rome, and he is said to have been tutor to Titus. Yet he had not shrunk from bringing to justice an informer guilty of the judicial murder of a brother Stoic, and he was generally regarded as the noblest of Roman teachers, both in principles and in practice. He has been spoken of as a forerunner of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Evidently no timeserver, he seems to have made allowance for human needs and human weakness in the application of strict moral rules. It is a great pity that we have no complete authentic works of his surviving: but some of the reports by a pupil or pupils have come down to us. One of these extracts[1098] is so complete in itself, and so striking in its view of agriculture and agricultural labour, that I have translated it here. We are to bear in mind that the opinions expressed in it belong to a time when a small number of great landlords owned a large part (and that the most attractive) of Italy, and vast estates in the provinces as well. It is the luxurious and slave-ridden world of Petronius and Seneca that we must keep before us in considering the advice of Musonius; advice which we cannot simply ignore, however much we may see in this good man a voice crying in the wilderness.

‘There is also another resource[1099], nowise inferior to the above, one that might reasonably be deemed superior to it, at least for a man of strong body: I mean that derived from the land, whether the farmer owns it or not. For we see that there are many who, though cultivating land owned by the state[1100] or by other persons, are yet able to support not only themselves but wives and children; while there are some who by the devoted industry of their own hands[1101] attain to great abundance in this way of life. For the earth responds most fairly and justly to the care bestowed upon her, returning manifold what she receives and providing a plenty of all things necessary to life for him that will labour; and she does it consistently with a man’s self-respect and dignity. For nobody, other than an effeminate weakling, would describe any of the operations of husbandry as disgraceful or incompatible with manly excellence. Are not planting ploughing vine-dressing honourable works? And sowing reaping threshing, are not these all liberal pursuits, suited to good men? Nay, the shepherd’s life, if it did not degrade Hesiod or hinder him from winning divine favour and poetic renown, neither will it hinder others. For my part, I hold this to be the best of all the tasks comprised in husbandry, inasmuch as it affords the soul more leisure for pondering and investigating what concerns mental culture. For all tasks that bend the body and keep it fully on the strain do at the same time force the soul to give them its whole attention, or nearly so, sharing as it does the strain of the body: but all those that permit the body to escape excessive strain do not prevent the soul from reasoning out important questions and from improving its own wisdom by such reasonings, a result which is the special aim of every philosopher. This is why I set such special value on the art of shepherds. If however a man does[1102] combine tillage with philosophy, I hold no other life comparable with this, and no other means of livelihood preferable to it. Surely it is more according to nature to get your sustenance from Earth, our nurse and mother, than from some other source. Surely it is more manly[1103] to live on a farm than to sit idle in a city. Surely out-of-door pursuits are healthier than sheltered retirement. Which, pray, is the freeman’s choice, to meet his needs by receiving from others, or by contrivance of his own? Why, it is thought far more dignified to be able to satisfy your own requirements unaided than with aid of others. So true is it that to live by husbandry, of course with due respect[1104] to what is good and honourable, is beautiful and conducive to happiness and divine favour. Hence it was that the god (Delphic Apollo) proclaimed[1105] that Myson of Chenae was a wise man and greeted Aglaus of Psophis as a happy one; for these both led rustic lives, working with their own hands and not spending their time in cities. Surely then it is a worthy ambition to follow these men’s example and devote ourselves to husbandry in earnest.

‘Some may think it a monstrous notion that a man of educative power, qualified to lead youths on to philosophy, should till the soil and do bodily labour like a rustic. And, if it had been the fact that tilling the soil hinders the pursuit of philosophy or the lending help to others in that pursuit, the notion would have been monstrous indeed. But, as things are, if young men could see their teacher at work in the country, demonstrating in practice the principle to which reason guides us, namely that bodily toil and suffering are preferable to dependence on others for our food, I think it would be more helpful to them than attendance at his lectures in town. What is to hinder the pupil, while he works at his teacher’s side, from catching his utterances on self-control or justice or fortitude? For the right pursuit of philosophy is not promoted by much talking, and young men are under no necessity to learn off the mass of speculation on these topics, an accomplishment of which the Professors[1106] are so vain. For such discourses are indeed sufficient to use up a man’s lifetime: but it is possible to pick up the most indispensable and useful points even when one is engaged in the work of husbandry, especially as the work will not be unceasing but admits periods of rest. Now I am well aware that few will be willing to receive instruction by this method: but it is better that the majority of youths who profess the pursuit of philosophy should never attend a philosopher at all, I mean those unsound effeminate creatures whose presence at the classes is a stain upon the name of philosophy. For of those that have a genuine love of philosophy not one would be unwilling to spend his time with a good man on a farm, aye though that farm were one most difficult[1107] to work; seeing that he would reap great advantages from this employment. He would have the company of his teacher night and day; he would be removed from the evils of city life, which are a stumbling-block to the pursuit of philosophy; his conduct, good or bad, could not escape notice (and nothing benefits a pupil more than this); moreover, to be under the eye of a good man when eating and drinking and sleeping is a great benefit.’

At this point the writer digresses for a moment to quote some lines of Theognis and to interpret them in a sense favourable to his own views. He then continues ‘And let no one say that husbandry is a hindrance to learning or teaching. Surely it is not so, if we reflect that under these conditions the pupil enjoys most fully the company of his teacher while the teacher has the fullest control of his pupil. Such then being the state of the case, it is clear that of the philosopher’s resources none is more useful or more becoming than that drawn from husbandry.’

In this extract three points simply stand for principles dear to all sincere Stoics; (1) the duty and benefit of living ‘according to Nature,’ (2) the duty and benefit of self-sufficiency and not depending on the support of others, (3) the duty and satisfaction of continued self-improvement. Consistent practice on these lines would go far to produce the Stoic ideal, the Wise Man, happy and perfect in his assurance and dignity. But the attempt to combine all these in a ‘back to the land’ scheme of moral betterment has surely in it a marked personal note. It is the dream of a singular man in the surroundings of a rotten civilization; a civilization more rotten, and a dream more utopian, than the dreamer could possibly know. Aspirations towards a healthy outdoor life had been felt by many before Musonius. Admiration of rustic pursuits was no new thing, but it was generally freedom from worries, with the occasional diversions of the chase, that were attractive to the town-bred man. Ploughing and digging, and the responsible charge of flocks and herds, had long been almost entirely left to slaves, and Musonius is driven to confess that few youths of the class from which he drew pupils would be willing to undertake such occupations. It was useless to urge that bodily labour is not degrading: that it is exhausting, and engrosses the whole attention, he could not deny. He falls back on pastoral duties as light and allowing leisure for serious discourse. The suggestion seems unreal, though sincere, when we remember that Italian shepherds had to fight wolves and brigands. Moreover, the preference of grazing to tillage was in no small degree due to the fewer persons employed in it, and the stockmen were a notoriously rough class. Even the idealized shepherds of the bucolic poets exhibit a coarseness not congenial to conversation savouring of virtue. But to a Stoic preacher who could try to pacify a licentious soldiery the notion of using pastoral pursuits as a means to moral excellence may well have seemed a reasonable proposal.

It is at least clear that the futility of philosophy as administered by lecturers in Rome had made a strong impression on Musonius. The fashionable company to whom the discourses were addressed, whether they for the moment shed some of their self-satisfaction or not, were seldom or never induced to remodel their worthless lives. So Musonius urges them to break away from solemn trifling and take to rustic labour. He probably chose this remedy as one specially Roman, following the tradition of the heroes of ancient Rome. But no artificial revival of this kind was possible, whatever his generous optimism might say. His contemporary the elder Pliny, who was content to glorify the vanished past and deplore the present, had a truer appreciation of the facts. Farm-work as a means of bringing personal influence to bear, treating body and mind together, a sort of ‘Wisdom while you dig,’ was in such a society a merely fantastic proposal. The importance of farming and food-production was a commonplace, but the vocation of Musonius was moralizing and character-production. There is no reason to think that he had any practical knowledge of agriculture. His austere life proves nothing of the kind. The only remark that shews acquaintance with conditions of landholding is his reference to the farmers who make a living on hired land. And this is in too general terms to have any historical value.

XXXVI. PLINY THE ELDER.

Among the writers of this period who refer to agricultural matters the most important is the elder Pliny, who contrived in a life of public service[1108] in various departments to amass a prodigious quantity of miscellaneous learning and to write many erudite works. His naturalis historia, an extraordinary compilation of encyclopaedic scope, contains numerous references to agriculture, particularly in the eighteenth book. He collected and repeated the gleanings from his omnivorous reading, and the result is more remarkable for variety and bulk than for choice and digestion. As a recorder he is helpful, preserving as he does a vast number of details, some not otherwise preserved, others of use in checking or supplementing other versions. Far removed as the book is from being a smooth and readable literary work, the moralizing rhetoric of the age shews its influence not only in the constant effort to wring a lesson of some kind out of the topic of the moment, but in the longer sermonizing passages that lead up to some subject on which the writer feels deeply. One of these[1109] occurs in introducing agriculture, and in pursuing the subject he loses no opportunity of contrasting a degenerate present with a better past. We need not take his lamentations at their full face-value, but that they were in the main justified is not open to doubt. It has been so often necessary to cite him in earlier chapters, that we shall not have to dwell upon him at great length here.

The functions of compiler and antiquarian are apt to coincide very closely, and it is in his picture of the earlier conditions of Roman and Italian farming that Pliny’s evidence is most interesting. The old traditions[1110] of the simple and manly yeomen, each tilling his own little plot of ground, content with his seven iugera of land or even with two in the earliest times, Cincinnatus and the rest of the farmer-heroes, to whom their native soil, proud of her noble sons, responded[1111] with a bounteous fertility that she denies to the heartless labour of slave-gangs on modern latifundia,—these are the topics on which he enlarges with a rhetorical or even poetic warmth. The ruin of Italy, nay of Provinces too, through the land-grabbing and formation of vast estates, is denounced[1112] in a classic passage. He sees no end to the process. Six landlords held between them half the Province of Africa in the time of Nero. Wanting money, the emperor put them to death for the sake of their property. He does not add, but doubtless reflected, that such measures only added to the resources controlled by a tyrant ruler, not a desirable object. We may add further that such iniquities inevitably disposed virtuous emperors to leave the land-monopolizers a free hand, perhaps unwillingly; but these gentry were not breaking the law by buying land, and an emperor conscious of the burden of administration, and desiring to carry on his work undisturbed by internal disloyalty, had strong reasons for not provoking wealthy capitalists. To conciliate them, and if possible to engage their cooperation in schemes designed for the public good according to the ideas of the time, was to proceed on the line of least resistance.

Among the traditional precepts handed on by Pliny from Cato and 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.

That the attention of Tacitus had been directed to the methods of capitalists in Italy, and therewith to money-lending, landholding, and slavery, may be gathered from the remarks on these subjects in his Germany. He writes, as Herodotus and others had done before him, taking particular notice of customs differing from those prevalent in his own surroundings. Thus he notes[1160] the absence of money-lending at interest. He describes the system of communal ownership of land by village-units, and its periodic redistribution among the members of the community. The wide stretches of open plains[1161] enable the Germans to put fresh fields under tillage year by year, leaving the rest in fallow (no doubt as rough pasture). Intensive culture is unknown. To wring the utmost out of the soil by the sweat of their brow is not their aim: they have no orchards or gardens or fenced paddocks, but are content to raise a crop of corn. All this is in marked contrast with Italian conditions. Even to get rid of fallows was an ambition of agriculturists in Italy, and a rotation-system[1162] had been devised to this end. And, whatever may have been the case in prehistoric times, full property in land had long been established by the Roman Law, and there was in the Italian land-system no trace of redistribution for short terms of use. In treating of slavery, the first point made is its connexion[1163] with the inveterate German habit of gambling. Losers will end by staking their own freedom on a last throw; if this also fails, they will submit to be fettered and sold. To the Roman this seems a false notion of honour. He adds that to take advantage of this sort of slave-winning is not approved by German sentiment: hence the winner combines[1164] scruples with profit by selling a slave of this class into foreign lands. Other slaves are not employed in Roman fashion as an organized staff of domestics. Each has a lodging and home of his own: his lord requires of him a fixed rent[1165] of so much corn or live-stock or clothing, as of a tenant: and he renders no service beyond this. House-work is done by a man’s own wife and family. Slaves are seldom flogged or chained or put to task-work. The German may kill his slave, but it will not be as a penalty for disobedience, but in a fit of rage. Freedmen are of little more account than slaves, and are only of influence at the courts of the kings who rule some of the tribes. There they rise above the freeborn and noble: but in general the inferiority of freedmen serves to mark the superiority of the freeborn.

Tacitus had held an important official post in Belgic Gaul or one of the so-called ‘Germanies’ along the Rhine, and had been at pains to learn all he could of the independent barbarians to the East. The Rhine frontier was one of the Roman borders that needed most careful watching, and Roman readers took an uneasy interest in the doings of the warrior tribes whose numbers, in contrast to their own falling birth-rate, were ever renewed and increased by alarming fertility. He was not alone in perceiving the contrasts between Italian and German institutions and habits, or in reading morals therefrom, expressed or implied. Germans had been employed as mercenary soldiers by Julius Caesar, and were destined to become one of the chief elements of the Roman armies. But in Italy they were perhaps more directly known as slaves. We have just seen that Tacitus speaks of a regular selling of slaves over the German border, and another passage[1166] incidentally illustrates this fact in a curious manner. In the course of his conquest of Britain, Agricola established military posts on the NW coast over against Ireland. It seems to have been in one of these that a cohort of Usipi were stationed. They had been raised in the Roman Germanies, and apparently sent over in a hurry. Not liking the service, they killed their officer and the old soldiers set to train them, seized three vessels, and put to sea. After various adventures and sufferings in a voyage round the north of Britain, they fell into the hands of some tribes of northern Germany, who took them for pirates—those that were left of them. Of the fate reserved for some of these Tacitus remarks ‘Some were sold as slaves[1167] and, passing from purchaser to purchaser, eventually reached the Roman bank (of the Rhine), where their extraordinary story aroused much interest.’ Such were the strange possibilities in the northern seas and lands where the Roman and the German met.

NOTE ON AN AFRICAN INSCRIPTION.

It may be convenient to notice here an inscription[1168] relative to irrigation in Africa. In all parts of the empire subject to drought the supply of water to farmers was a matter of importance, as it is in most Mediterranean countries today. Good soils, that would otherwise have lain waste, were thus turned to account. In the African Provinces much was done to meet this need, as the remains of works for storage of water clearly testify. The period 69-180 AD seems to have been marked by a considerable extension of cultivation in these parts, and particularly in southern Numidia, which at that time was included in the Province Africa. In this district, between Sitifis (Setif) and Trajan’s great city Thamugadi (Timgad), lay the commune of Lamasba[1169], the members of which appear to have been mainly engaged in agriculture. There has been preserved a large portion of a great inscription dealing with the water-rights of their several farms. There is nothing to suggest that the holders of these plots were tenants under great landlords. They seem to be owners, not in the full sense of Roman civil law, but on the regular provincial[1170] footing, subject to tribute. To determine the shares of the several plots in the common water-supply was probably the most urgent problem of local politics in this community.