and Terence 125 



as a retreat, is no more than a point of dramatic convenience. In one 

 passage 1 we have a picture of a small farm, with slave-labour employed 

 on it. Freemen as agricultural labourers hardly appear at all. But a 

 significant dialogue 2 between an old freeman and a young one runs 

 thus: ' Country life is a life of toil.' 'Aye, but city indigence is far 

 more so.' The youth, who has offered to do farm-work, is representative 

 of that class of urban poor, whose lot was doubtless a very miserable 

 one. Very seldom do we hear anything of them, for our records in 

 general only take account of the master and the slave. In the play 

 just referred to 3 there occur certain terms more or less technical. The 

 neutral operarius seems equivalent to epydr^, and mercennarius to 

 jjuio-OajTos, distinct from 4 servus. But these terms are not specially con- 

 nected with agriculture. 



The references in Terence give us the same picture. An old man 

 of 60 or more is blamed 5 by a friend. * You have a first-rate farm and 

 a number of slaves: why will you persist in working yourself to 

 make up for their laziness? Your labour would be better spent in 

 keeping them to their tasks.' The old man explains 6 that he is punish- 

 ing himself for his treatment of his only son. In order to detach the 

 youth from an undesirable amour, he had used the stock reproaches 

 of fathers to erring sons. He had said 'At your time of life I wasn't 

 hanging about a mistress: I went soldiering in Asia for a living, and 

 lere I won both money and glory.' At length the young man could 

 >tand it no longer : he went ofT to Asia and entered the service of one 

 of the kings. The old man cannot forgive himself, and is now busy 

 tormenting himself for his conduct. He has sold off 7 all his slaves, 

 male or female, save those whose labour on the farm pays for its cost, 

 and is wearing himself out as a mere farm hand. Another 8 old farmer, 

 a man of small means who makes his living by farming, is evidently 

 not the owner but a tenant. Another 9 has gone to reside on his farm, 

 to make it pay ; otherwise the expenses at home cannot be met. In 

 general country life is held up as a model 10 of frugality and industry. 

 In one passage 11 we hear of a hired wage-earner employed on a farm 

 (a villa mercennariuni) whom I take to be a free man, probably em- 

 ployed for some special service. Such are the gleanings to be got from 

 these Roman echoes of the later Attic comedy. I see no reason to 

 believe that they are modified by intrusion of details drawn from Italy. 

 The period in which Plautus and Terence wrote (about 230-160 BC) 



1 Trinummus 508-61. 2 Vidularia 31-2. 



3 Vidularia 21-55, text is fragmentary. 



4 But not excluding it, since slaves were hired. 5 Hautontimorumenos 62-74. 

 6 Hautont 93-1 1 7. 7 Hautont 142-4. 



8 Phormio 362-5, cf Adelphoe 949. 9 Hecyra 224-6. 



10 Adelphoe 45-6, cf 95, 401, 517-20, 845-9. u Adelphoe 541-2. 



