Pliny and Columella 287 



labour-organization by which those processes were to be carried on. Now 

 Pliny records an immense mass of technical detail, but of labour- 

 organization he says hardly anything; for his laments over a vanished 

 past are only of use in relieving his own feelings. And yet the labour- 

 question, and the tenancy-question connected therewith, were the 

 central issues of the agricultural problem. It was not the knowledge 

 of technical details that was conspicuously lacking, but the will and 

 means to apply knowledge already copious. Not what to do, but how 

 to get it done, was the question which Columella tried to answer and 

 Pliny, like Vergil, did not really face. It is curious to turn out the 

 eight distinct references to Columella in Pliny. In none of these pas- 

 sages is there a single word of approval, and the general tone of them 

 is indifferent and grudging. Sometimes the words seem to suggest that 

 his authority is not of much weight, or pointedly remark that it stands 

 quite alone. In one place 1 he is flatly accused of ignorance. When we 

 consider that Pliny speaks of Varro with high respect, and positively 

 worships Cato and Vergil, it is clear that there must have been some 

 special reason for this unfriendly and half-contemptuous attitude. The 

 work of Columella did not deserve such treatment. It evidently held its 

 ground in spite of sneers, for Palladius in the fourth century cites it 

 repeatedly as one of the leading authorities. It is not difficult to con- 

 jecture possible causes for the attitude of Pliny: but none of those that 

 occur to me is sufficient, even if true, to justify it. I must leave it as 

 one of the weak points in the Natural History. 



XXXVII. TACITUS. 



P Cornelius Tacitus, one of the great figures of Roman literature, 

 passed through the time of the Flavian emperors, but his activity as a 

 writer belonged chiefly to the reign of Trajan. Like most historians, 

 he gave his attention to public and imperial affairs, and we get from 

 him very little as to the conditions of labour. Of emperors and their 

 doings evil or good, of the upper classes and their reactionary sympa- 

 thies, their intrigues and perils, we hear enough: but of the poor wage- 

 earners 2 and slaves hardly anything, for to one who still regretted the 

 Republic while accepting the Empire, an aristocrat at heart, the lower 

 orders were of no more importance than they had been to Cicero. 

 Indeed they were now less worthy of notice, as free political life had 

 ceased and the city rabble, no longer needed for voting and rioting, had 



1 NH xvin 70. 



2 The passing mention in Annals xvi 13 of the great mortality among the servitia and 

 ingemia plebes in the plague of 65 AD is a good specimen. The two classes are often thus spoken 

 of together. Cf Sueton Claud 22, Nero -22. 



