310 A fancy farm. Slaves 



menials, even my lord's pet eunuch, are happy enough. There are also 

 young home-bred slaves (vernae) probably the offspring of the farm- 

 slaves. The topsyturvydom of this epigram is so striking that one may 

 suspect Martial of laughing in his sleeve at the eccentric friend whose 

 farm he is praising. In any case this cannot be taken seriously as a 

 realistic picture of a country seat practically agricultural. The owner 

 evidently drew his income from other sources. And the sort of man 

 who treated himself to an eunuch can hardly have been much of a 

 farmer, even near Baiae. The mention of probi coloni illustrates what 

 has been said above as to tenants, and that a farm could be described 

 in such words as rure vero barbaroque is a candid admission that in too 

 many instances a place of the kind could only by courtesy be styled a 

 farm, since the intrusion of 'civilization ' (that is, of refined and luxurious 

 urban elements) destroyed its practical rustic character. That the estate 

 in question produced enough to feed the owner and his guests, his do- 

 mestics brought from Rome, and the resident rustic staff as well, is 

 credible. But there is nothing to shew that it produced any surplus for 

 the markets: it may have done something in this direction, but that it 

 really paid its way, yielding a moderate return on the capital sunk in 

 land slaves and other farm-stock, is utterly incredible. 



Whether in town or country, the life sketched by Martial is that 

 of a society resting on a basis of slavery. At the same time the supply 

 of new slaves 1 was not so plentiful as it had been in days before the 

 Roman Peace under Augustus. Serviceable rustic slaves were valuable 

 nowadays. Addressing Faustinus, the wealthy owner of the above 

 Baian villa and several others, the poet says 'you can send this book 2 

 to Marcellinus, who is now at the end of his campaign in the North 

 and has leisure to read: but let your messenger be a dainty Greek 

 page. Marcellinus will requite you by sending you a slave, captive 

 from the Danube country, who has the making of a shepherd in him, 

 to tend the flocks on your estate by Tibur/ Each friend is to send the 

 other what the other lacks and he is in a position to supply. This is a 

 single instance; but the suggested do ut des is significant. As wars 

 became rarer, and prisoners fewer, the disposal of captives would be a 

 perquisite of more and more value. That the normal treatment of 

 slaves was becoming more and more humane, is certain. But whether 

 humanitarian sentiment in Stoic forms, as preached by Seneca and 

 others, had much to do with this result, is more doubtful. The wisdom 

 of not provoking discontent among the slaves, particularly in the 

 country, was well understood. The decline of the free rustic popula- 



1 The story of the Usipian deserters who found their way back into Roman hands by 

 way of the slave-market is a curious episode of 83 AD. Tac Agr 28. See the chapter on 

 Tacitus. 2 vii 80. 



