The early Empire 201 



nevertheless they would presently come back refreshed but bored 1 

 with their rural holiday. That the science and art of agriculture were 

 being improved, is true ; hence the treatise of Varro, written in his old 

 age. But technical improvements could not set the small farmers as a 

 class on their legs again. The small man's vantage lay (and still lies) 

 in minute care and labour freely bestowed, without stopping to inquire 

 whether the percentage of profit is or is not an adequate return for his 

 toil. Moreover, technical improvements often require the command 

 of considerable capital. The big man can sink capital and await a 

 return on the investment : but this return must be at a minimum rate 

 or he will feel that it does not 'pay.' For in his calculations he cannot 

 help comparing the returns 2 on different kinds of investments. 



Under such conditions it is no wonder that we find latifundia still 

 existing under the early Empire in districts suited for the plantation 

 system. No doubt much of the large landholding was the outcome of 

 social ambitions. Men who had taken advantage of civil war and its 

 sequels to sink money in land took their profit either in a good per- 

 centage on plantations, or in the enhanced importance gained by 

 owning fine country places, or in both ways. A new class was coming 

 to the front under the imperial regime and among them were wealthy 

 freedmen. These had not yet reached the predominant influence and 

 colossal wealth that marked their successors of the next generation. 

 But they had begun to appear 8 in the last age of the Republic, and 

 were now a force by no means to be ignored. Such landowners were 

 not likely to favour the revival of peasant farmers, unless the presence 

 of the latter could be utilized in the interest of the big estates. There 

 were two ways in which this result could be attained. A small free- 

 holder might, from the small size of his farm, have some spare time, 

 and be willing to turn it to account by working elsewhere for wages. 

 Such a man would be a labourer of the very best kind, but he could 

 not be relied upon to be disengaged at a particular moment ; for, if 

 not busy just then on his own farm, some other employer might have 

 secured his services. A small tenant farmer, to whom part of a great 

 estate was let, would be governed by any conditions agreed upon be- 

 tween him and his landlord. That these conditions might include a 

 liability to a certain amount of actual service at certain seasons on his 

 landlord's estate, is obvious. That the coloni of later times were nor- 

 mally in this position, is well known. That this system, under which 

 a tenant retaining personal freedom was practically (and at length 

 legally) bound to the soil, suddenly arose and became effective, is most 



1 A picture forestalled by Lucretius in 1053-75. 



2 Already illustrated in the case of Cato noted above. 



3 See Cic de legibus ill 30. Cf Horace epodes iv. 



