Italy failing 163 



and his chief accomplices to Rome. Tacitus remarks that there was in 

 the city a widespread uneasiness, owing to the enormous growth of 

 slave-gangs while the freeborn population was declining. 



These specimens are enough to illustrate a public danger obvious 

 a priori and hardly needing illustration. The letter of Tiberius 1 to the 

 Senate in 22 AD shews how he had brooded over the social and economic 

 condition of Italy. He saw clearly that the appearance of prosperity 

 in a country where parks and mansions multiplied, and where tillage 

 was still giving way to pasturage, was unsound. He knew no doubt 

 that these signs pointed to the decline of the free rural population as 

 still in progress. As an experienced general he could hardly ignore 

 the value of such a free population for recruiting armies to serve the 

 state, or regard its decline with indifference. He refers to the burden 

 of imperial responsibilities. Now the system inherited from Augustus 

 set Italy in a privileged position as the imperial land. Surely Tiberius 

 cannot have overlooked the corresponding liability of Italy to take a 

 full share in the defence of the empire. Yet in present circumstances 

 her supply of vigorous manhood was visibly failing. If the present 

 tendencies continued to act, the present system would inevitably break 

 down. But, however much Tiberius was inclined to do justice to the 

 Provinces, he could not escape his first duty to Italy without a complete 

 change of system : and for this he was not prepared. Such misgivings 

 of course could not be expressed in a letter to the Senate; but that an 

 Emperor, temperamentally prone to worry, did not foresee the coming 

 debility and degradation of Italy, and fret over the prospect, is to me 

 quite incredible. 



The movement for checking luxury, which drew this letter from 

 Tiberius, resulted according to Tacitus in a temporary reduction of 

 extravagance in entertainments. The influence of senators brought in 

 from country towns or the Provinces helped in promoting a simpler 

 life. It was example, not legislation, that effected whatever improve- 

 ment was made. It was the example of Vespasian that did most to 

 reform domestic economy. But the historian was well aware that re- 

 forms depending on the lead of individuals are transient. We have no 

 reason to believe that any lasting improvement of agriculture was 

 produced by these fitful efforts. From stray references in Tacitus, 

 from the letters of the younger Pliny, from notices in Juvenal and 

 Martial, it is evident that in the great plain of the Cisalpine and in 

 the Italian hill country farming of one kind or another went on and 

 prospered. In such districts a real country life might be found. But 

 this was no new development: it had never ceased. Two conditions 

 were necessary, remoteness from Rome and difficulty of access, which 



1 Tacitv-s ann III 53-5. 



II 2 



