154 latif undia and slavery 



and it is obvious that this would not encourage a sincere effort to get 

 the most out of the estate in a favourable year. His master's expecta- 

 tions would then rise, and the disappointment of poor returns in a bad 

 year might have serious consequences for himself. 



These considerations may help us to understand why the history 

 of the later Roman Republic gives so gloomy a picture of agriculture. 

 We find the small farmer, citizen and soldier too, dying out as a class 

 in a great part of Italy. We find the land passing into the hands of 

 a few large owners whose personal importance was vastly increased 

 thereby. Whether bought cheap on a glutted market or ' possessed ' / 

 in a sort of copyhold tenancy from the state, whether arable or 

 .pasture, it is at all events clear that the bulk of these latifundia (if 

 not the whole) had been got on very easy terms. The new holders 

 were not hampered by lack of capital or labour, as may often have 

 been the case with the old peasantry. Slave-labour was generally 

 cheap, at times very cheao. Knowledge and skill could be bought, as 

 well as bone and muscle. UJke the ox and the ass, the slave was only 

 fed and clothed and housed sufficiently to keep him fit for work: his 

 upkeep while at work was not the canker eating up profitsj With 

 the influx of wealth, the spoils of conquest, the tribute of subject 

 provinces, the profits of blackmail and usury, prices of almost every- 

 thing were rising in the second century BC. Corn, imported and sold 

 cheap to the Roman poor, was an exception : but the Italian land- 

 lords were ceasing to grow corn, save for local consumption. Some 

 authorities, if not all, thought 1 that grazing paid better than tillage : 

 and it was notorious that pasturage was increasing and cultivation 

 declining. The slave-herdsmen, hardy and armed against wolves and 

 brigands, were a formidable class. When combined with mutinous 

 gladiators they were, as Spartacus shewed in 73-1 BC, wellnigh irre- 

 sistible save by regular armies in formal campaigns. The owner of a 

 vast estate, controlling huge numbers of able-bodied ruffians who 

 had nothing to lose themselves and no inducement to spare others, 

 was in fact a public danger if driven to desperation. He could 

 mobilize an army of robbers and cutthroats at a few days notice, live 

 on the country, and draw recruits from all the slave-gangs near. It 

 was not want of power that crippled the representatives of large-scale 

 agriculture. 



And yet in the last days of the Republic, when the fabric of the 

 state was cracking under repeated strains, we are told that, among 

 the various types of men led by financial embarrassments to favour 

 revolutionary schemes, one well-marked group consisted of great 



1 See Gate's opinion cited by Cic deoffu% 89, Columella vi praef%% 3-5, Plin NH xvm 

 29, 30. 



