398 A rudimentary reaping-machine 



where 368-373) announcing severe punishment for the offence and 

 declaring that it had become a regular practice. The law of 328, 

 enacting 1 that no farmer (agricola) was to be impressed for special 

 service in the seasons of seed-time or harvest, is on rather a different 

 footing. It expressly justifies the prohibition on the ground of agri- 

 cultural necessity : in short, it is not to protect the farmer, but to leave 

 him no excuse for not producing food. 



A great critic 2 has commented severely on the intellectual stagnation 

 that fell upon the Roman empire and was one of the most effective 

 causes of its decline. That literature fed upon the past and dwindled 

 into general imbecility is commonly recognized : but the lack of material 

 inventions and the paucity of improvements is perhaps not less signi- 

 ficant than the decay of literature and art. The department of agri- 

 culture was no exception to this sterile traditionality. Since the days 

 of Varro there had been no considerable change. So far as labour is 

 concerned, the system of Columella can hardly be called an advance ; 

 for it employs directly none but slave labour, a resource already be- 

 ginning to fail, and causing landlords to seek help from the development 

 of tenancies. In modern times the dearness of labour has stimulated 

 human ingenuity to produce machines by which the efficiency of human 

 labour is increased and therefore fewer hands required for a given 

 output. But in the world under the Roman supremacy centuries went 

 by with hardly any modification of the mechanical equipment. A small 

 exception may perhaps be found in a sort of rudimentary reaping- 

 machine. It was briefly referred to by the elder Pliny 3 in the first 

 century of our era, and described by Palladius in the fourth. The device 

 was in use on the large estates in the lowlands of Gaul, and was per- 

 haps a Gaulish invention. It is said to have been a labour-saving 4 

 appliance. From the description it seems to have been clumsy ; and, 

 since it cut off the ears and left the straw standing, it was only suited 

 to farms on which no special use was made of the straw. Its structure 

 (for it was driven by an ox from behind) must have made it unwork- 

 able on sloping ground. That we hear nothing of its general adoption 

 may be due to these or other defects. But I believe there is no record 

 of attempts to improve the original design. The lack of interest in 

 improvement of tools has been noted as a phenomenon accompanying 

 the dependence on slave labour. And when under the Roman empire 

 we see the free tenant passing into the condition of a serf-tenant, we 

 are witnessing a process that steadily tended to reduce him to the 

 moral labour-level of the apathetic and hopeless slave. To make the 



1 Cod Th xi 16 4, cod Just xi 48 i. 



2 Seeck I, chapter on die Ausrottung der Besten. 



3 Pliny NH XVI II 296. Palladius vii 2. 4 hoc compendia. Pall. 



