Debt. Agriculture honoured 437 



enabled them to outlast the pressure of bad times. How far the details 

 of this picture are to be taken literally as evidence of solid fact has 

 not unreasonably been doubted. But that a farmer in straits could 

 pledge not only his land but his person as security for a debt seems 

 hardly open to question. For we find the practice still existing in his- 

 torical periods, and political pressure exerted to procure mitigation of 

 the ancient severity. Now, if a man gave himself in bondage to a 

 creditor until such time as his debt should be discharged, he became 

 that creditor's slave for a period that might only end with his own life. 

 Here we have another way in which the man of property could get the 

 disposal of regular labour without buying a slave in the market or 

 turning to work himself. A later form of the practice, in which a debtor 

 worked off his liability 1 by service at an estimated rate, a method of 

 liquidation by the accumulation of unpaid wages, seems to have been 

 a compromise avoiding actual, slavery. Evidently subsequent to the 

 abolition of debt-slavery, it died out in Italy, perhaps partly owing to 

 the troublesome friction that would surely arise in enforcing the ob- 

 ligation. 



It is natural to ask, if we find small trace of eagerness to labour in 

 person on the land, and ample tradition of readiness to devolve that 

 labour on slaves and subjects, how comes it that we find agriculture in 

 honour, traditionally regarded as the manual labour beyond all others 

 not unworthy of a freeman? To reply that human life is supported by 

 the produce of the land is no sufficient answer. To recognize the fact 

 of necessity does not account for the sentiment of dignity. Now, in 

 the formation of such unions as may fairly be called States, the com- 

 monest if not universal phenomenon is the connexion of full citizenship 

 with ownership of land. Political movement towards democracy is 

 most significantly expressed in the struggles of landless members of 

 inferior right to gain political equality. Whether the claim is for allot- 

 ments of land, carrying a share of voting-power, or for divorcing the 

 voting-power from landholding, does not matter much here. At any 

 rate it was the rule that no alien could own land within the territory 

 of the state, and state and territory were coextensive. Only special 

 treaties between states, or a solemn act of the sovran power in a state, 

 could create exceptions to the rule. From this situation I would start 

 in attempting to find some answer to the above question. In a village 

 community I think it is generally agreed that all true members had a 

 share of the produce, the great majority as cultivators, holding lots of 

 land, not as tenants at will or by contract, but in their own right, though 

 the parcels might be allotted differently from time to time. If a few 

 craftsmen were left to specialize in necessary trades for the service of 



1 Varro RR l 1 7 2 on oba&rarii or obaerati. 



