334 African farms 



I had done so, what then? would not three freedmen be as sure a 

 mark of wealth as three slaves of indigence ? ' 



After this outburst the speaker is at pains to point out that to do 

 with few slaves is a philosopher's part, commended by examples not 

 of philosophers only but of men famed in Roman history. The well- 

 worn topic of the schools, that to need little is true riches, is set forth 

 at large, with instances in illustration. He then asserts 1 that he in- 

 herited a considerable property from his father, which has been much 

 reduced by the cost of his journeys and expenses as a student and 

 gifts to deserving friends. After this he turns upon his adversary. 

 ' But you and the men of your uneducated rustic class are worth just 

 what your property is worth and no more, like trees that bear no fruit 

 and are worth only the value of the timber in their stems. Henceforth 

 you had better not taunt any man with his poverty. Your father left 

 you nothing but a tiny farm at Zarat, and it is but the other day that 

 you were taking the opportunity of a shower of rain to give it a good 

 ploughing with the help of a single ass, and made it a three-days 2 job. 

 What has kept you on your legs is the quite recent windfalls of in- 

 heritances from kinsmen who died one after another.' These per- 

 sonalities, in the true vein of ancient advocacy, do not tell us much, 

 but it is interesting to note that the skilled pleader, a distinguished 

 man of the world, quite naturally sneers at his opponent for having 

 been a poor working farmer. Whether this was an especially effective 

 taunt in the Province Africa, the home of great estates, it is hardly 

 possible to guess. 



Of small farmers in Africa, working their own land, we have, pro- 

 bably by accident, hardly any other record. But the reference above, 

 to neighbours taking turns to help one another on their farms, comes 

 in so much as a matter of course that we may perhaps conclude that 

 there were such small free farmers, at least in some parts of the 

 Province. For slaves we need no special evidence. But the lady whom 

 Apuleius had married seems to have been a large slaveowner as well 

 as a large landowner. He declares that he with difficulty persuaded 

 her to quiet the claims of her sons by making over to them a great 

 part of her estate in land and other goods; and one item consists 3 of 

 400 slaves. We have also a reference to ergastula in a passage where 

 he is protesting that to charge him with practising magic arts with 

 the privity of fifteen slaves is on the face of it ridiculous 4 . 'Why, 15 



1 Apol 23. 2 triduo exarabas, to mark the smallness of the agellus. 



3 Apoltft. 



4 Apol 47 XV liberi homines populus est, totidem servi familia, totidem vincti ergastulum. 

 See Norden p 87. ergastulum = the inmates of a lock-up, regarded as a body. See quotations 

 from Columella p 263 and Pliny p 285, Mayor on Juvenal xiv 24, and cf Lucan n 95. So 

 operae is used= 'hands.' 



