246 Seneca on tenancies 



'; dignity. Indeed many of these trades are quite unnecessary, the out- 

 l come of modern 1 extravagance. We could do withqut_them, and'Healt* 

 jjthg^bettgt^fpj fa-man's real needs are small. But to work for a living 

 is not in itself a degradation: did not the Stoic master Cleanthes draw 

 r* water 2 for hire? In short, the Wise Man may be a king or a slave, 

 >. | millionaire or pauper. The externals cannot change his true quality, 

 ; though they may be a help or a hindrance in his growth to perfect 

 | wisdom. 



In his references to agriculture and country matters it is to be 

 remarked that Seneca confirms the impression derived from other 

 sources, that the letting of land to, tenant farmers was on the increase. 

 Discoursing on the greedy luxury of the rich, their monstrous kitchens" 

 and cellars, and the toiling of many to gratify the desires of one, he 

 continues * Look at all the places where the earth is being tilled, and 

 at all the thousands 3 of farmers (colonorum) ploughing and digging; is 

 this, think you, to be reckoned one man's belly, for whose service crops 

 are being raised in Sicily and in Africa too?' The coloni here mentioned 

 may be merely ' cultivators ' in a general sense. But I think they are 

 more probably tenants of holdings on great estates. In speaking of 

 his arrival at his Alban villa, and finding nothing ready for a meal, he 

 philosophically refuses to let so small an inconvenience make him 

 angry with his cook and his baker. 'My baker 4 has got no bread; but 

 the steward has some, and so have the porter and the farmer.' A 

 coarse sort of bread, no doubt, but you have only got to wait, and you 

 will enjoy it when you are really hungry. Here we seem to have an 

 instance of what was now probably an ordinary arrangement : the villa> 

 homestead with somtr^Shd round it, kept as a country 'box' for the 

 master by his steward, who would see to the garden and other appur- 

 tenances, while the rest of the land is let to a humble tenant farmer. 

 In another passage we have an interesting glimpse of a tenant's legal 

 position 5 as against his landlord. * If a landlord tramples down growing 

 crops or cuts down plantations, he cannot keep his tenant, though the 

 lease may be still in being: this is not because he has recovered what 

 was due to him as lessor, but because he has made it impossible for 

 him to recover it. Even so it often happens that a creditor is cast in 

 damages to his debtor, when he has on other grounds taken from him 

 more than the amount of the debt claimed.' I gather from this passage 



.- - 44 3 aquam traxit et rigando horto locavit manus. 



*tpist 114^ 26 quot millia To^onorum arent fodiant . . .etc. 



4 epist 123 2 non habet panem metis pistor: sed habet vilicus, sed habet atriensis, sed 

 habet colonus. atriensis = head of domestics, porter or butler. 



5 de benefvi 4 4 colonum suum non tenet, quamvis tabellis manentibus, qui segetem eius 

 proculcavit, qui succidit arbusta, non quia recepit quod pepigerat sed quia ne reciperet e/ecit. 



ic debitori suo creditor scute damnatur, ubi plus ex alia causa abstulit quam ex crediti petit. 



