308 Whims of the wealthy 



a matter of course. It would rather seem that the landlord is represented 

 as relying on the complaisance of a dependent boor. If I interpret the 

 passage rightly, we have in it a vivid side-light on the position of some 

 at least of the coloni of the first century AD. That vilici and coloni alike 

 were usually clumsy rustics of small manual skill, is suggested by two 

 passages 1 in which they are credited with bungling workmanship in 

 wood or stone. Perhaps we may detect reference to a colonus in an 

 epigram on a man who spends his money lavishly on his own de- 

 baucheries but is meanly niggardly to necessitous friends. It says 'you 

 sell ancestral lands to pay for a passing gratification of your lust, while 

 your friend, left in the lurch, is tilling land 8 that is not his own.' That 

 is, you might have made him a present of a little farm, as many another 

 has done; but you have left him to sink into a mere colonus. Enough 

 has now been said to shew that these tenant-farmers were a humble 

 and dependent class of men, and that the picture drawn from passages 

 of Martial corresponds to that drawn above in Weber's interpretation 

 of Columella. 



It is not necessary to set out with the same fulness all the evidence 

 of Martial on agricultural matters regarded from various points of view. 

 The frequent reference to the land is a striking fact: like his fellow- 

 countryman Columella, he was clearly interested in the land-system of 

 Italy. He shews wide knowledge of the special products of different 

 districts; a knowledge probably picked up at first in the markets of 

 Rome, and afterwards increased by experience. No writer draws the 

 line more distinctly between productive and unproductive estates. That 

 we hear very much more of the latter is no wonder: so long as the 

 supremacy of Rome was unshaken, and money poured into Italy, a 

 great part of the country was held by wealthy owners to whom profit 

 was a less urgent motive than pleasure or pride. To what lengths os- 

 tentation could go is seen 8 in the perverse fancy of a millionaire to have 

 a real rus in urbe with grounds about his town house so spacious that 

 they included a real vineyard : here in sheltered seclusion he could have 

 a vintage in Rome. This is in truth the same vulgar ambition as that 

 (much commoner) of the man who prides himself on treating guests 

 at his country mansion to every luxury procurable in Rome. It is 

 merely inverted. 



At this point it is natural to ask whence came the vast sums lavished 

 on these and other forms of luxury. Italy was not a great manufac- 

 turing country. The regular dues from the Provinces flowed into the 

 treasuries, not openly into private pockets. Yet a good deal of these 

 monies no doubt did in the end become the reward of individuals, as 

 salaries or amounts payable to contractors, etc. These however would 



1 VI 73, X 92. 2 IX 2 haud sua deserlus rura sodalis arat. 3 xn 57. 



