170 Relation to neighbours. The steward 



shewing the unsatisfactory position of rustic enterprise than from any 

 other point of view. 



A few details relative to the staff employed on the estate are 

 worthy of a brief notice. Cato is keenly alive to the importance of 

 the labour-question. In choosing an estate you must ascertain that 

 there is a sufficient local supply 1 of labour. On the face of it this 

 seems to mean free wage-earning labour, though the word operarius 

 is neutral. But in a notable passage, in which he sets forth the advan- 

 tage of being on friendly terms with neighbours (neighbouring land- 

 lords), he says ' Don't let your household (familiam) do damage : if 

 you are in favour with the neighbourhood, you will find it easier to 

 sell your stock, easier 2 to get employment for your own staff at a 

 wage, easier to hire hands : and if you are engaged in building they 

 (the vicini) will give you help in the way of human and animal 

 labour and timber.' Here we seem to come upon the hiring, not of 

 free labourers, but of a neighbour's slave hands on payment of a rent 

 to their owner. The case would arise only when some special rough 

 job called for a temporary supply of more labour. It would be the 

 landlord's interest to keep his neighbours inclined to oblige him. 

 Thus by mutual accommodation in times of pressure it was possible 

 to do with a less total of slaves than if each farm had had to be pro- 

 vided with enough labour for emergencies. We may also remark 

 that it made the slave-owner less dependent on free wage-earners, who 

 would probably have raised their demands when they saw the land- 

 lord at their mercy. It must always be borne in mind that Cato is 

 writing solely from the landlord's point of view. 



The leading fact relative to the staff is that the steward or head 

 man (vilicus) under whom the various workers, slave or free, are 

 employed is himself a slave. So too the vilica, usually his consort. 

 Their position is made quite clear by liability to punishment and by 

 their disqualification 3 from performance of all save the most ordinary 

 and trivial religious ceremonies. Their duties are defined by jealous 

 regulations. But in order to keep the steward up to the mark the 

 master must often visit the estate. It is significant that he is advised 

 on arrival to make a round of the place 4 without delay, and not to 

 question his steward until he has thus formed his own impressions 

 independently. Then he can audit accounts, check stores, listen to 

 excuses, give orders, and reprimand failure or neglect. That the 

 master needed to be a man of knowledge and energy in order to 

 make his estate a source of profit when in charge of a steward, is 



1 Cato agr i 3 operariorum copia siet. 



2 Cato agr 4 operas facilius locabis, operarios facilius conduces. 



3 Cato agr 5, 83, 143. * Cato agr 2 i. 



