In these early ages of the Roman commonwealth, when the greatest men possessed but a few acres, the lands were laboured by the proprietors themselves. The introduction of commerce, and the consequent acquisition of wealth, had not yet enabled individuals to purchase the estates of their fellow-citizens, and to obtain a revenue from the rent of land rather than from its cultivation.
The patricians, who, in the city, were so distinct from the plebeian orders, were thus confounded with them in the country, in the common avocations of husbandry. After having presided over the civil affairs of the republic, or commanded its armies, the most distinguished citizens returned, without repining, to till the lands of their forefathers. Cincinnatus, who was found at labour in his fields by those who came to announce his election to the dictatorship, was not a singular example of the same hand which held the plough guiding also the helm of the state, and erecting the standard of its legions. So late as the time of the first Carthaginian war, Regulus, in the midst of his victorious career in Africa, asked leave from the senate to return to Italy, in order to cultivate his farm of seven acres, which had been neglected during his absence[7]. Many illustrious names among the Romans originated in agricultural employments, or some circumstances of rustic skill and labour, by which the founders of families were distinguished. The Fabii and Lentuli were supposed to have been celebrated for the culture of pulses, and the Asinii and Vitellii for the art of rearing animals. In the time of the elder Cato, though the manual operations were performed for the most part by servants, the great men resided chiefly on their farms[8]; and they continued to apply to the study and practice of agriculture long after they had carried the victorious arms of their country beyond the confines of Italy. They did not, indeed, follow agriculture as their sole avocation; but they prose[pg 9]cuted it during the intervals of peace, and in the vacations of the Forum. The art being thus exercised by men of high capacity, received the benefit of all the discoveries, inventions, or experiments suggested by talents and force of intellect. The Roman warriors tilled their fields with the same intelligence as they pitched their camps, and sowed corn with the same care with which they drew up their armies for battle. Hence, as a modern Latin poet observes, dilating on the expression of Pliny, the earth yielded such an exuberant return, that she seemed as it were to delight in being ploughed with a share adorned with laurels, and by a ploughman who had earned a triumph:—
“Hanc etiam, ut perhibent, sese formabat ad artem,
Cùm domito Fabius Dictator ab hoste redibat:
Non veritus, medio dederat qui jura Senatu,
Ferre idem arboribusque suis, terræque colendæ,
Victricesque manus ruri præstare serendo.
Ipsa triumphales tellus experta colonos,
Atque ducum manibus quondam versata suorum,
Majores fructus, majora arbusta ferebat[9].”