ROMAN SLAVERY CATO S STEWARD. 37 



power of capital. Slaves and cattle were now placed on the 

 same level; they were fed as long as they could work as a mat 

 ter of economy, and sold when they were worn out, as a matter 

 of economy also.&quot; One of Cato s maxims was that a slave rnusi 

 either work or sleep, and no attempt was ever made to attach 

 the slaves to their estate or to their master by any bond of 

 human sympathy. The abject position of the practical husband 

 man, not enslaved, is further shown in Cato s description of 

 what a steward ought to be. 



&quot;He is the first to rise and the last to go to bed; he is strict 

 in dealing with himself as well as with those under him, espe 

 cially his stewardess; he is careful of his slaves and oxen; is 

 always at home; never borrows nor lends; makes no visits and 

 gives no entertainments; troubles himself about no worship, 

 save of the gods of the hearth and field; leaves all dealings with 

 the gods and with men to his master; he modestly meets that 

 master faithfully and simply, and conforms to his instructions.&quot; 

 B}^ this time, such of the yeomanry as were not swallowed up 

 by capital, held small parcels of land, and were generally so 

 poor that the hoe was substituted for the plow in their labors. 

 The farmers were irretrievably ruined, and the more so that 

 they gradually lost the moral tone and frugal habits of the 

 earlier ages of the republic. The other branches of industrial 

 arts were undeveloped, the force and energy of the population 

 being consumed in war and commerce. 



From the third to the fifth century of the Roman era, capital 

 had waged its warfare against labor by withdrawing the reve 

 nues of the soil from the working farmers, in the form of inter 

 est on debt, and transferring the capital thence derived to the 

 field of mercantile activity opened up by the commerce of the 

 Mediterranean. There was no longer an agricultural class 

 among the citizens; and although a high and even an improved 

 culture was maintained, it was simply the application of the 

 capitalist system to the produce of the soil. Cato, who regarded 

 himself as a reformer, and had declared that farmers made the 

 bravest men and the best soldiers, states that Italy at the end 

 of the sixth (Eoman) century, was far weaker in population than 

 at the end of the fifth, and no longer able to furnish its former 

 war levies. 



The half savage herdsman who confronts the traveler in the 

 Roman Campagna, is an unconscious witness of the estimation 



