142 Need of slaves. Capitalists 



on derelict farms. It has been held 1 that this clause refers only to 

 large estates worked by slave-gangs, while the free farmers stand for 

 the men on small holdings, who presumably employed no slaves. 

 Now it is quite conceivable that this contrast may have been in Livy's 

 mind as he wrote in the days of Augustus. That it was the meaning 

 of the older author from whom he took the facts is not an equally 

 probable inference. No doubt lack of slaves would hinder or prevent 

 the renewal of tillage on a big estate. But what of a small farm whose 

 owner had fallen in the war? The absence of the father in the army 

 would be a most serious blow to the efficient working of the farm. If 

 the raids of the enemy drove his family to take refuge in Rome, and 

 the farm was let down to weeds, more labour than ever would be 

 needed to renew cultivation. When there was no longer any hope of 

 his return, the supply of sufficient labour was the only chance of re- 

 viving the farm. Surely there must have been many cases in which 

 the help of one or two slaves was the obvious means of supplying it. 

 Therefore, if we recognize that slave-labour had long been a common 

 institution in Roman households, we shall not venture to assert that 

 only large estates are referred to. That such estates, worked by slave- 

 gangs, were numerous in 206 BC, is not likely: that small farmers often 

 (not always) eked out their own labour with the help of a slave, is far 

 more so. The actual shortage of slaves 2 had been partly brought about 

 by the employment of many in military service. Some had no doubt 

 simply run away. And the period of great foreign conquests and a 

 full slave-market had yet to come. 



I do not venture to dispute that the accumulation of capital in the 

 form of ready money available for speculation in state leases, farming 

 of revenues, and other contracts, had already begun at Rome in the 

 age of the great Punic wars. In the second war, contracts for the 

 supply of necessaries to the armed forces played a considerable part, 

 and we hear of contractors 3 who practised shameless frauds on the 

 state. Greed was a plant that throve in the soil of Roman life: the 

 scandals of the later Republic were merely the sinister developments 

 of an old tendency favoured by opportunities. Land-grabbing in par- > 

 ticular was, if consistent tradition may be believed, from early times 

 a passion of Roman nobles: and the effect of a law 4 forbidding them 

 to become ship-owners and engage in commerce was to concentrate 

 their enterprise on the acquisition of great landed estates. Another 

 notable fact is the large voluntary loans 5 which the government was 



1 Weissenborn's note on the passage. 



2 Liv XXII 57 n, and index to Livy under volones. 



3 Liv xxin 49 1-4, xxiv 18 11, xxv i 4, 3 84 n. 



4 Liv xxi 63 3, 4 , Cic n in Verr v 45. Liv xxvi 36. 



