Prices of Italian Corn
The effects of this system are clearly evident. A year of extraordinary fertility like 504—when the people of the capital paid for 6 Roman -modii- (1 1/2 bush.) of spelt not more than 3/5 of a -denarius- (about 5 pence), and at the same price there were sold 180 Roman pounds (a pound = 11 oz.) of dried figs, 60 pounds of oil, 72 pounds of meat, and 6 -congii- (= 4 1/2 gallons) of wine—is scarcely by reason of its very singularity to be taken into account; but other facts speak more distinctly. Even in Cato's time Sicily was called the granary of Rome. In productive years Sicilian and Sardinian corn was disposed of in the Italian ports for the freight. In the richest corn districts of the peninsula—the modern Romagna and Lombardy —during the time of Polybius victuals and lodgings in an inn cost on an average half an -as- (1/3 pence) per day; a bushel and a half of wheat was there worth half a -denarius- (4 pence). The latter average price, about the twelfth part of the normal price elsewhere,(11) shows with indisputable clearness that the producers of grain in Italy were wholly destitute of a market for their produce, and in consequence corn and corn-land there were almost valueless.
Revolution in Roman Agriculture
In a great industrial state, whose agriculture cannot feed its population, such a result might perhaps be regarded as useful or at any rate as not absolutely injurious; but a country like Italy, where manufactures were inconsiderable and agriculture was altogether the mainstay of the state, was in this way systematically ruined, and the welfare of the nation as a whole was sacrificed in the most shameful fashion to the interests of the essentially unproductive population of the capital, to which in fact bread could never become too cheap. Nothing perhaps evinces so clearly as this, how wretched was the constitution and how incapable was the administration of this so-called golden age of the republic. Any representative system, however meagre, would have led at least to serious complaints and to a perception of the seat of the evil; but in those primary assemblies of the burgesses anything was listened to sooner than the warning voice of a foreboding patriot. Any government that deserved the name would of itself have interfered; but the mass of the Roman senate probably with well-meaning credulity regarded the low prices of grain as a real blessing for the people, and the Scipios and Flamininuses had, forsooth, more important things to do—to emancipate the Greeks, and to exercise the functions of republican kings. So the ship drove on unhindered towards the breakers.
Decay of the Farmers
When the small holdings ceased to yield any substantial clear return, the farmers were irretrievably ruined, and the more so that they gradually, although more slowly than the other classes, lost the moral tone and frugal habits of the earlier ages of the republic It was merely a question of time, how rapidly the hides of the Italian farmers would, by purchase or by resignation, become merged in the larger estates.
Culture of Oil and Wine, and Rearing of Cattle
The landlord was better able to maintain himself than the farmer. The former produced at a cheaper rate than the latter, when, instead of letting his land according to the older system to petty temporary lessees, he caused it according to the newer system to be cultivated by his slaves. Accordingly, where this course had not been adopted even at an earlier period,(12) the competition of Sicilian slave-corn compelled the Italian landlord to follow it, and to have the work performed by slaves without wife or child instead of families of free labourers. The landlord, moreover, could hold his ground better against competitors by means of improvements or changes in cultivation, and he could content himself with a smaller return from the soil than the farmer, who wanted capital and intelligence and who merely had what was requisite for his subsistence. Hence the Roman landholder comparatively neglected the culture of grain—which in many rases seems to have been restricted to the raising of the quantity required for the staff of labourers(13)—and gave increased attention to the production of oil and wine as well as to the breeding of cattle. These, under the favourable climate of Italy, had no need to fear foreign competition; Italian wine, Italian oil, Italian wool not only commanded the home markets, but were soon sent abroad; the valley of the Po, which could find no consumption for its corn, provided the half of Italy with swine and bacon. With this the statements that have reached us as to the economic results of the Roman husbandry very well agree. There is some ground for assuming that capital invested in land was reckoned to yield a good return at 6 per cent; this appears to accord with the average interest of capital at this period, which was about twice as much. The rearing of cattle yielded on the whole better results than arable husbandry: in the latter the vineyard gave the best return, next came the vegetable garden and the olive orchard, while meadows and corn-fields yielded least.(14)
It is of course presumed that each species of husbandry was prosecuted under the conditions that suited it, and on the soil which was adapted to its nature. These circumstances were already in themselves sufficient to supersede the husbandry of the petty farmer gradually by the system of farming on a great scale; and it was difficult by means of legislation to counteract them. But an injurious effect was produced by the Claudian law to be mentioned afterwards (shortly before 536), which excluded the senatorial houses from mercantile speculation, and thereby artificially compelled them to invest their enormous capitals mainly in land or, in other words, to replace the old homesteads of the farmers by estates under the management of land- stewards and by pastures for cattle. Moreover special circumstances tended to favour cattle-husbandry as contrasted with agriculture, although the former was far more injurious to the state. First of all, this form of extracting profit from the soil—the only one which in reality demanded and rewarded operations on a great scale—was alone in keeping with the mass of capital and with the spirit of the capitalists of this age. An estate under cultivation, although not demanding the presence of the master constantly, required his frequent appearance on the spot, while the circumstances did not well admit of his extending the estate or of his multiplying his possessions except within narrow limits; whereas an estate under pasture admitted of unlimited extension, and claimed little of the owner's attention. For this reason men already began to convert good arable land into pasture even at an economic loss—a practice which was prohibited by legislation (we know not when, perhaps about this period) but hardly with success. The growth of pastoral husbandry was favoured also by the occupation of domain-land. As the portions so occupied were ordinarily large, the system gave rise almost exclusively to great estates; and not only so, but the occupiers of these possessions, which might be resumed by the state at pleasure and were in law always insecure, were afraid to invest any considerable amount in their cultivation—by planting vines for instance, or olives. The consequence was, that these lands were mainly turned to account as pasture.
Management of Money