Agricola

by William Emerton Heitland

XXIV. AGRICULTURE IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

From the death of Cato in 149 BC to the date of Varro’s book de re rustica (about 37 BC) is a space of more than a century. The one great fact of this momentous period in relation to agriculture is the public recognition of the decay of the small farmers over a large part of Italy, and the vain attempt to revive a class well known to have been the backbone of Roman strength. But the absorption of small holdings in large estates had already gone so far in the affected districts that there was practically only one direction in which land-reformers could move. To confiscate private property was forbidden by Roman respect for legal rights: it appears in Roman history only after the failure of the Gracchan movement, and as a phenomenon of civil war. There were however great areas of land of which the state was still in law proprietor, held by individuals (often in very large blocks) under a system of recognized occupation known as possessio. Tradition alleged that in Rome’s early days this ager publicus had been a cause of quarrels between the needy Commons who hungered for land and the rich nobles who strove to monopolize the land annexed by war and now state-property. It was known that one of the effects produced by the political equalization of the Orders in the fourth century BC had been legislation to restrain land-monopoly. But the Licinian laws of 367 BC had not made an end of the evil. Soon evaded, they had become in course of time wholly inoperative. The new Patricio-Plebeian nobility quieted the claims of the poor by colonial foundations and allotments of land in newly-conquered districts, while they continued to enrich themselves by ‘possession’ of the public land. Undisturbed possession gradually obscured the distinction between such holdings and the estates held in full ownership as ager privatus. Boundaries were confused: mixed estates changed hands by inheritance or sale without recognition of a legal difference in the tenure of different portions: where improvements had been carried out, they applied indistinguishably to lands owned or possessed. The greater part of these possessiones was probably not arable but pasture, grazed by numerous flocks and herds in charge of slave herdsmen. Now in Cato’s time the imports of foreign corn were already rendering the growth of cereal crops for the market an unremunerative enterprise in the most accessible parts of Italy. Grazing paid better. It required fewer hands, but considerable capital and wide areas of pasturage. It could be combined with the culture of the vine and olive; for the live-stock, brought down to the farmstead in the winter months, supplied plentiful manure. Moreover, the wholesale employment of slaves enabled a landlord to rely on a regular supply of labour. The slave was not liable to military service: so the master was not liable to have his staff called up at short notice. In short, economic influences, aided by selfish or corrupt administration of the laws under the rule of the nobility, gave every advantage to the rich landlords. No wonder that patriotic reformers viewed the prospect with alarm, and sought some way of promoting a revival of the peasant farmers.

The story of the Gracchan movement and the causes of its failure are set forth from various points of view in histories[707] of Rome and special monographs. What concerns us here is to remark that its remedial legislation dealt solely with land belonging to the state and occupied by individuals. Power was taken to ascertain its boundaries, to resume possession on behalf of the state, and to parcel it out in allotments among needy citizens. How far success in the aim of restoring a free citizen population in the denuded districts was ever possible, we cannot tell. But we know that it did not in fact succeed. By 111 BC whatever had been achieved[708] was finally annulled. The bulk of the ager publicus had disappeared. The sale of land-allotments, at first forbidden, had been permitted, and the process of buying out the newly created peasantry went on freely. But large estates formed under the new conditions were subject to no defect of title. They were strictly private property, though the term possessiones still remained in use. Slave-labour on such estates was normal as before. Indeed rustic slavery was now at its height. This short period of attempted land-reform comes between the two great Sicilian slave-wars (135-2 and 103-99 BC), in the events of which the horrors of contemporary agriculture were most vividly expressed. It was also a time of great wars abroad, in Gaul, in Africa, and against the barbarian invaders from the North. Roman armies suffered many defeats, and the prestige of Roman power was only restored by the military remodelling under Marius. When Marius finally threw over the principle that military service was a duty required of propertied citizens, and raised legions from the poorest classes, volunteering with an eye to profit, he in effect founded the Empire. We can hardly help asking[709] from what quarters he was able to draw these recruits. Some no doubt were idlers already living in Rome attracted by the distributions of cheap corn provided by the Government in order to keep quiet the city mob. But these can hardly have been a majority of the recruits of this class. Probably a number came in from rural districts, hearing that Marius was calling for volunteers and prepared to disregard altogether the obsolete rules which had on occasion been evaded by others before him. It is perhaps not too bold a conjecture to suggest that the casual wage-earners, the mercennarii referred to by Cato, were an important element in the New Model army of Marius. This landless class, living from hand to mouth, may have been declining in numbers, but they were by no means extinct. We meet them later in Varro and elsewhere. And no man knew better than Marius the military value of men hardened by field-labour, particularly when led to volunteer by hopes of earning a higher reward in a career of more perils and less monotony.

It can hardly be supposed that agriculture throve under the conditions prevailing in these troubled years. The tendency must have been to reduce the number of free rustic wage-earners, while each war would bring captives to the slave-market. We can only guess at these economic effects. The following period of civil wars, from the Italian rising in 90 BC to the death of Sulla in 78, led to a further and more serious disturbance of the land-system. The dictator had to reward his soldiery, and that promptly. The debt was discharged by grants of land, private land, the owners of which were either ejected for the purpose or had been put to death. Of the results of this wholesale confiscation and allotment we have abundant evidence, chiefly from Cicero. Making full allowance for exaggeration and partisan feeling, it remains sufficient to shew that Sulla’s military colonists were economically a disastrous failure, while both they and the men dispossessed to make room for them soon became a grave political danger. The discharged soldiers desired an easy life as proprietors, and the excitements of warfare had unfitted them for the patient economy of farming. They bought slaves; but slaves cost money, and the profitable direction of slave-labour was an art calling for a degree of watchfulness and skill that few landlords of any class were willing or able to exert. So this substitution of new landowners for old was an unmixed evil: the new men failed as farmers, and we hardly need to be told that the feeling of insecurity produced by the confiscations was a check on agricultural improvements for the time. Those of the ‘Sullan men’ who sold their allotments (evading the law) would certainly not get a good price, and the money would soon melt away.

It will be seen that the old Roman system, under which the ordinary citizen was a peasant farmer who served the state as a soldier when needed, was practically at an end. Compulsory levies were on certain occasions resorted to, for no abolition of the old liability to service had taken place: but voluntary enlistment of young men, and their conversion into professional soldiers by technical training, was henceforth the normal method of forming Roman armies. Armies were kept on foot for long campaigns, and the problem of their peaceful disbandment was one of the most serious difficulties of the revolutionary age. The treasury had no large income to spend on money-pensions, so the demand for allotments of land became a regular accompaniment of demobilization. Meanwhile the desperate condition of landlords in important districts, and the danger from the slave-gangs, were forcibly illustrated in the rising under Spartacus (73-1 BC) and the Catilinarian conspiracy. It is unfortunate that the scope of the land-bill of Rullus[710] in 63, defeated by Cicero, is uncertain, and the effect of Caesar’s land-law of 59 hardly less so. But one thing seems clear. In default of sufficient lands suitable for allotment, legislators were driven to propose the resumption of the rich Campanian domain. This public estate had long been let to tenants, real farmers, in small holdings; and the rents therefrom were one of the safest sources of public income. To disturb good tenants, and give the best land in Italy to untried men as owners, was surely a bad business. It shews to what straits rulers were driven to find land for distribution. To enter into the details of the various land-allotments between the abortive proposal of Rullus and the final settlement of Octavian would be out of place here. But it is well to note that the plan of purchasing private land for pension-allotments, proposed in the bill of Rullus, was actually carried out by the new Emperor and proudly recorded[711] by him in his famous record of the achievements of his life. The violent transfer of landed properties from present holders to discharged soldiers of the triumviral armies had evidently been both an economic failure and a political evil. To pay for estates taken for purpose of distribution was a notable step towards restoration of legality and public confidence. Whether it immediately brought about a revival of agriculture on a sound footing is a question on which opinions may justifiably differ. Much will depend on the view taken by this or that inquirer of the evidence of Varro and the Augustan poets Horace and Vergil.

Note—In Prendergast’s Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland (ed 2, 1870), chapter IV a, much interesting matter may be found. Cruel expulsions, corrupt influences, and the sale of their lots by soldiers to officers, their frequent failure as cultivators, etc, stand out clearly. The analogy to the Roman cases must of course not be too closely pressed, as the conditions were not identical.