404 Troubles of agriculture 



rationing at the tables of the rich. But in appealing to the gods for 

 succour he rather suggests that human benevolence would be unequal 

 to the strain. 



That agriculture was not on a sound footing in most of Italy is 

 evident from several passages in the letters. In one of the earliest 

 (before 376) he tells his father that, though he finds Campania charming, 

 he should like to join him at Praeneste. * But ' he adds ' I am in trouble 

 about my property. I must go and inspect it wherever it lies, not in 

 hope of making it remunerative, but in order to realize the promise of 

 the land by further outlay. For things are nowadays come to such a 

 pass 1 that an owner has to feed the farm that once fed him.' Some of 

 the references to the management of estates are rather obscure. In 

 speaking of one near Tibur he mentions 2 stewards (vilicorum) and 

 complains of their neglect. ' The land is badly farmed, and great part 

 of the returns (fructuum) is in arrear (debetur) : the coloni have no means 

 left 3 to enable them to clear their accounts or to carry on cultivation.' 

 The exact status of these stewards and tenants and their relations to 

 each other are far from clear, and the case may have been a peculiar 

 one. Again, writing to bespeak the good offices of an influential man 

 on behalf of an applicant, he says ' I do this for him rather as a duty* 

 than as an act of free grace, for he is a farm-tenant of mine.' The 

 tenant's name is Theodulus, which invites a conjecture that this was a 

 case of an oriental Greek slave placed as tenant on a farm, either for 

 his master's account, or for his own at a rent, and afterwards manu- 

 mitted. A reference to servt, dependants (obnoxii)* who are owing him 

 rents which his agents on the distant estate in question do not take 

 the trouble to collect, may point to the same sort of arrangement. In 

 another passage he mentions 6 a man who was for a long time colonus 

 under a certain landlord, but here too the lack of detail forbids inference 

 as to the exact nature of the relation. That slave labour was still em- 

 ployed on some Italian farms appears from a request 7 for help in re- 

 covering some runaways. They may have been house slaves, but if a 

 neighbouring landlord gave them shelter no doubt he made them pay 

 for it in work. The control of slaves in the country was never easy, 

 and the quasi-military discipline described by Columella was aconfession 

 of this. And it was only on a large scale that a staff of overseers 

 sufficient to work it could be provided. The time for it was indeed 



1 epist I 5 ut rus quod solebat alere nunc alatur. Cf cod Th XI i 4. 



2 epist vi 82 (81). 



3 nihilque iam colonis superest facultatum quod aut rationi opituletur aut cultui. 



4 epist VII 56 cum sit colonus agrorum meorum atque illi debita magis quam precaria ctira, 

 praestetur. 



8 epist ix 6. Cf ix ii. 6 epist ix 47 (50). 



7 epist \K 140 (x 18). 



