144 Land-market after the great war 



the wholesome old land-system in a great part of Italy. With this 

 tendency the wholesale employment of slave-labour went hand in hand. 



But we must not forget that the creditors in 200 BC are made to 

 press for their money on the ground that they wanted to invest it in 

 land, of which there was plenty then in the market. This may be a 

 detail added by Livy himself: but surely it is more likely that he is 

 repeating what he found in his authorities. In any case the land re- 

 ferred to can hardly be other than the derelict farms belonging to those 

 who had suffered by the war. In earlier times we have traditions of 

 men losing their lands through inability to pay the debts for which 

 they stood pledged. In a somewhat later time we hear 1 of small 

 farmers being bought out cheaply by neighbouring big landlords, and 

 bullied if they made difficulty about leaving their farms. The present 

 case is different, arising directly out of the war. The father of a family 

 might be dead, or disinclined to go back to monotonous toil after the 

 excitements of military life, or unable to find the extra labour for 

 reclaiming a wasted and weed-grown farm, or means of restocking it. 

 He or his heir would probably not have capital to tide him over the 

 interval before the farm was again fully productive: his immediate 

 need was probably ready money. No wonder that farms were in the 

 market, and at prices that made a land-grabber's mouth water. The 

 great war certainly marked a stage in the decay of the small-farm 

 agriculture, the healthy condition of which had hitherto been the 

 soundest element of Roman strength. 



Before we leave the traditions of the early period it is necessary 

 to refer to the question of free wage-earning labour. Have we any 

 reason to think that under the conditions of early Rome there was 

 any considerable class of rustic 2 wage-earners? Nearly all the passages 

 that suggest an affirmative answer are found in the work of Dionysius, 

 who repeatedly uses 3 the Greek word dyreveiv of this class of labour. 

 It is represented as being practically servile, for it meant working with 

 slaves or at least doing the work which according to the writer 4 was 

 (even in the regal period) done by slaves. The poor Plebeians appear 

 as loathing such service: their desire is for plots of land on which each 

 man can work freely for himself. This desire their protectors, kings 

 or tribunes, endeavour to gratify by allotments as occasion serves. 



1 Appian civ I 7 5. But the account given in this passage of the spread of latifundia 

 and slave-gangs is too loose to be of much value. In particular, the assertion that slave- 

 breeding was already common and lucrative is not to be believed. Appian was misled by 

 the experience of his own day. See Sallust lug 41 8 interea parentes aut parvi liberi 

 militum, uti quisque potenliori confinis erat y sedibus pellebantur. 



2 The urban artisans engaged in the sedentary trades do not concern us here. See 

 Weissenborn on Liv vm 20 4 opificum vulgus et sellularii. 



3 Dionys ill 31, IV 9, 13, etc. 



4 Dionys VI 79, a passage much coloured by later notions. 



