Problem of management 251 



(Cadiz) was a recognized authority, and his treatise de re rustica is his 

 contribution to the service of Rome. 



The serious consequences of the decay of practical farming, and 

 the disappearance of the small landowners tilling their own land, had 

 long been recognized by thoughtful men. But the settlement of dis- 

 charged soldiers on allotted holdings had not repopulated the country- 

 side with free farmers. The old lamentations continued, but no means 

 was found for solving the problem how to recreate a patient and pros- 

 perous yeoman class, firmly planted on the soil. Technical knowledge 

 had gone on accumulating to some extent, though the authorities on 

 agriculture, Greek Carthaginian or Roman, appealed to by Columella 

 are mainly the same as those cited by Varro some eighty years before. 

 The difficulty at both epochs was not the absence of knowledge but 

 the neglect of its practical application. Columella, like his forerunners, 

 insists on the folly 1 of buying more land than you can profitably 

 manage. But it seems that the average wealthy landowner could not 

 resist the temptation to round off 2 a growing estate by buying up 

 more land when a favourable opportunity occurred. It is even hinted 

 that ill-treatment 3 of a neighbour, to quicken the process by driving 

 him to give up his land, was not obsolete. Moreover, great estates 

 often consisted of separate holdings in different parts of the country. 

 For owners of vast, and sometimes 4 scattered, estates to keep effective 

 control over them was an occupation calling for qualities never too 

 common, technical skill and indefatigable industry. The former could, 

 if combined with perfect honesty, be found in an ideal deputy ; but 

 the deputy, to be under complete control, must be a slave : and, the 

 more skilled the slave, the better able he was to conceal dishonesty. 

 Therefore, the more knowledge and watchful attentiveness was needed 

 in the master. Now it is just this genuine and painstaking interest 

 in the management of their estates that Columella finds lacking in 

 Roman landlords. They will not live 5 in the country, where they 

 are quickly bored and miss the excitements of the city, and My Lady 

 detests country life even more than My Lord. But they will not even 

 take the trouble to procure good 6 Stewards, let alone watching them 

 so as to keep them industrious and honest. Thus the management 

 of estates has generally passed from masters to viliri, and the domestic 

 part of the duties even more completely from house-mistresses to vilicae. 

 As to the disastrous effect of the change upon rustic economy, the 

 writer entertains no doubt. But the evil was no new phenomenon. It 



1 i 3 8-13. 



2 Cf Plin epist III 19 i pulchritude iungendi, and Mayor's note. Petron 77. 



3 i 3 6, 7, where he even refers to a very disobliging neighbour of his own estate. 



4 i I 20 longinqua ne dicam transmarine. rura...eic. 



5 ipraef 13-15, XII praef^ 8-10. ipraef% 12. 



