286 Labour. Vergil 



economic bases of society. He saw its inferiority to free labour, but a 

 passing protest seemed to him enough. Had he been asked, Why don't 

 you recommend free labour directly? I think he would have answered, 

 Where are you going to find it in any quantity? And it is obvious that, 

 slave labour once assumed, the great thing was to have enough of it. 

 Nor again have I found him using colonus in the sense of tenant farmer. 

 In that of 'cultivator' it occurs several times, as in the quotation 1 from 

 Cato, that to call a man bonum colonum was of old the height of praise. 

 Figuratively it appears in comparisons, as when the guilt of the slayer 

 of an ox is emphasized 2 by the addition 'as if he had made away with 

 his colonus! So of the fertilizing Nile he says 'discharging the duty 3 of 

 a colonus! In the passage where he warns his readers against too high 

 farming 4 he remarks 'There are some crops that it does not pay to gather, 

 unless the owner is employing his own children or a colonus of his own 

 or hands that have on other grounds to be fed I mean, if you balance 

 the cost against the gain.' Here it is just possible that he means ' a 

 tenant of his own,' that is a tenant long attached to the estate, like the 

 coloni indigenae of Columella : but I think it is quite neutral, and pro- 

 bably he has in mind either a relative or a slave. The 'persons for whose 

 keep he is responsible' sums up to the effect that if you have mouths 

 to fill you may as well use their labour, for it will add nothing to your 

 labour-bill. So far as I have seen, the difference between ownership and 

 tenancy is not a point of interest to Pliny. 



In continuation of what has been said above as to the relations of 

 Vergil and Columella, it is necessary to discuss briefly the attitude of 

 Pliny towards these two writers. The indices to the Natural History 

 at once disclose the fact that citations of Vergil 5 are about six times as 

 numerous as those of Columella. Indeed he seldom refers to the latter; 

 very often to Varro, even more often to Cato. The frequent references 

 to Vergil may reasonably be explained as arising from a wish to claim 

 whenever possible the moral support of the now recognized chief figure 

 of Roman literature. This was all the more easy, inasmuch as Vergil's 

 precepts in the Georgics* are mostly old or borrowed doctrine cast into 

 a perfect form. Columella had used them in a like spirit, but in dealing 

 with the labour-question he faced facts, not only instructing his readers 

 in the technical processes of agriculture, but setting forth the forms of 



1 NH xvui ii. 2 NHvui 1 80 tamquam colono suo inter empto. 



3 Nffxvui 167 coloni vicefungens. 



4 NH xvni 38 praeterquam subole suo colono aut pascendis alioqui colente domino aliquas 

 messis colligere non expedit, si computetur impendium operae. 



6 In NH xvin 120 he cites Vergil as giving a piece of advice based on the usage of the Po 

 country. Pliny as a Transpadane may have been prejudiced in Vergil's favour and possibly 

 jealous of the Spanish Columella. 



6 In NH xvni 170 he cites Verg G I 53, calling it oraculum illud, but with a textual slip. 



