Organization 185 



quarters, feeding, clothing, discipline, sanitation, and mating, of the 

 slave staff. True to his legal bent, he is careful to safeguard the rights 

 of the slaveowner by explaining 1 the formal details necessary to effect 

 a valid purchase, with guarantee of bodily soundness, freedom from 

 vice, and flawless title. Again, to keep slaves profitably it was urgently 

 necessary to keep them constantly employed, so that the capital sunk 

 in them should not lie idle and the hands lose the habit of industry. 

 Therefore, while relying on local craftsmen for special skilled services 

 occasionally needed, he insists that a number of rustic articles should 

 be manufactured on the farm. * One ought not to buy anything that 

 can be produced on the estate 2 and made up by the staff (domesticis 

 familia], such as wicker work and things made of rough wood.' More- 

 over, the organization of the staff in departments is an elaborate slave- 

 hierarchy. Under the general direction of the vilicus, each separate 

 function of tillage or grazing, or keeping and fattening fancy-stock has 

 its proper foreman. Such posts carried little privileges, and were of 

 course tenable during good behaviour. Some foremen would have 

 several common hands under them : none would wish to be degraded 

 back to the ranks. It seems that some wealthy men kept 3 birdcatchers 

 huntsmen or fishermen of their own, but Varro, writing for the average 

 landlord, seems to regard these as being properly free professionals. 

 As for the common hands, the * labourers' (operarii\ on whose bone 

 and sinew the whole economic structure rested, their condition was 

 much the same as in Cato's time, but apparently somewhat less wretched, 

 ^^arro does not propose to sell off worn-out slaves; this let us credit 

 to humaner feelings. He shews a marked regard for the health and 

 comfort of slaves; this may be partly humanity, but that it is also due 

 to an enlightened perception of the owner's interest is certain. He does 

 not provide for an ergastulum, though those horrible prisons were well 

 known in his day. Why is this? Perhaps partly because slave-labour 

 was no longer normally employed on estates in the extremely crude 

 and brutal fashion that was customary in the second century BC. And 

 partly perhaps owing to the great disturbances of land-tenure since 

 the measures of the Gracchi and the confiscations of Sulla. The earlier 

 latifundia had been in their glory when the wealthy nobles sat securely 

 in power, and this security was for the present at an end. But, if the 

 slave operarii were somewhat better treated, their actual field labour 

 was probably no less hard. Many pieces of land could not be worked 

 with the clumsy and superficial plough then in use. Either the slope 

 of the ground forbade it, or a deeper turning of the soil was needed, 



1 RR II 10 4, 5. 



2 RR I 22 r. Basket work is often referred to in scenes of country life. Cf Verg buc 

 II i\-i,georg\ 266. 



3 RR ill 3 4, 17 6. 



