Now the fact of Cincinnatus working with his own hands is the one material point in the story. We need not doubt that there were many such men, and that a name (perhaps correct) was necessary in order to keep the story current and to impress later generations with the virtues of their ancestors. But, if the man had under him a slave or slaves, the fact would be quite unimportant for the purpose of the legend. Therefore it is no wonder that the versions of the story in general say nothing of slaves. It is more remarkable that in the version of Dionysius we read that Cincinnatus, after selling off most of his property to meet the liabilities incurred through his son, ‘kept for himself one small farm beyond the Tiber, on which there was a mean cabin: there he was living a life of toil and hardship, tilling the soil with a few slaves.’ That Dionysius was a rhetorician with an eye for picturesque detail, and liable to overdraw a picture, is certain: but it is not evident how the mention of the slaves is to be accounted for by this tendency. The impression of the hero’s poverty and personal labour is rather weakened by mention of slaves. The writer derived his story from Roman sources. Now, did the original version include the slaves or not? Did Livy and the rest leave them out, or did Dionysius put them in? Were they omitted as useless or embarrassing for the uses of edifying, or were they casually inserted owing to the prepossessions of a Greek familiar only with a developed slave-system, to whom ‘with a few slaves’ would fitly connote poverty? To answer these questions with confidence is perhaps unwise. But to me it seems far more likely that Roman writers left the detail out than that a Greek student put it in.
If the tradition of the early wars is of any value at all, it may give a general support to this opinion through the frequent references to the existence of rustic slavery. The devastation of an enemy’s country is the normal occupation of hostile armies. The capture of slaves[584], as of flocks and herds and beasts of burden, is a common item in the tale of booty from the farms. That writers of a later age may have exaggerated the slave-element in the farm-labour of early times is highly probable. The picturesque was an object, and it was natural to attempt it with the use of touches suggested by daily circumstances of the world in which they were living. But that they so completely misrepresented the conditions of a past age as to foist into the picture so important a figure as the slave, without authority or probability, is hardly to be believed, unless there is good reason for thinking that slavery was unknown in the age and country of which they speak. And the contrary is the case. The dawn of Roman history shews us a people already advanced in civilization to the stage of family and clan organization, and the tradition allows for the presence of the slave in the familia from the first. True, he does not appear as the despised human chattel of later times, but as a man whom misfortune has placed in bondage. His master is aware that fortune may turn, and that his bondman is quite capable of resuming his former position if restored in freedom to his native home. The slave seems to be normally an Italian[585], a captive in some war; he may have passed by sale from one owner to another. But he is not a mere foreign animal, good bad or indifferent, a doubtful purchase from a roguish dealer. He bears a name[586] that connects him with his master, Publipor Lucipor Marcipor Olipor and so on, formed by adding the suffix por to the forename of Publius Lucius Marcus or Aulus. But, granting that all households might include a slave or two, and that many so did, also that agriculture was a common and honourable pursuit,—is it likely that a farming owner would himself plough or dig and leave his slave[587] to look on? I conclude therefore that the age was one in which agriculture prevailed and that the ordinary farmer worked himself and employed slave-labour side by side with his own so far as his means allowed. All was on a small scale. Passages of Livy or Dionysius that imply the presence of great slave-gangs, and desertions on a large scale in time of war are falsely coloured by ‘anticipation’ of phenomena well known from the experience of more recent times. But, on however small a scale, slavery was there. Until there came an impulse of an ‘industrial’ kind, prompting men to engage in wholesale production for a large market, the slave remained essentially a domestic, bearing a considerable share of the family labours, whatever the nature of those labours might be.
As there is no difficulty in believing that Cincinnatus and others of his type in the fifth century BC worked with slaves beside them, so it is evident that Curius and Fabricius in the first half of the third century are meant to illustrate the same frugal life and solid patriotism. In both cases the story lays particular stress on the hero’s incorruptibility and cheerful endurance of poverty. A well-known scene[588] represents Curius at his rustic villa eating a dinner of herbs and refusing a gift of gold from Samnite ambassadors. He is an honest farmer-citizen of the good old sort. Fabricius is another, famed especially for his calm defiance of the threats and cajolery of Pyrrhus, and impervious to bribes. Both these traditions received much legendary colouring in course of time. The passage bearing most directly on my present inquiry is a fragment[589] of Dionysius, in which Fabricius is spurning the offers of king Pyrrhus, who is very anxious to secure the good man’s services as his chief minister on liberal terms. He says ‘nor need I tell you of my poverty, that I have but a very small plot of land with a mean cottage, and that I get my living neither from money at interest (ἀπὸ δανεισμάτων) nor from slaves (ἀπ’ ἀνδραπόδων).’ Below he declares that living under Roman conditions he holds himself a happy man, ‘for with industry and thrift I find my poor little farm sufficient to provide me with necessaries.’ And his constitution (φύσις) does not constrain him to hanker after unnecessary things. Here we have a good specimen of the moral stories with which the later rhetoricians edified their readers. But what does ‘from slaves’ mean? Is Fabricius denying that he employs slave-labour on his farm? If so, I confess that I do not believe the denial as being his own genuine utterance. I take it to be put into his mouth by Dionysius, writing under the influence of the agricultural conditions of a much later time, when great slaveowners drew large incomes from the exploitation of slave-labour on great estates. But I am not sure that Dionysius means him to be saying more than ‘I am not a big capitalist farming on a large scale by slave-gangs.’ How far this writer really understood the state of things in the third century BC, is hard to say. In any case he is repeating what he has picked up from earlier writers and not letting it suffer in the repetition. Taken by himself, he is no more a sufficient witness to the practice of Fabricius than to that of Cincinnatus. That there was slavery is certain: that Fabricius had scruples against employing slaves is hardly credible.
In the ages during which Rome gradually won her way to the headship of Italy the Roman citizen was normally both farmer and soldier: the soldier generally a man called up from his farm for a campaign, the farmer of military age always potentially a soldier. This state of things was evidently not peculiar to Rome. What makes it striking in the case of Rome is the well-considered system by which the military machine was kept in working order. The development of fortress colonies and extension of roads gave to Roman farmers in the border-lands more security than any neighbouring power could give to its own citizens on its own side of the border. Mobilization was more prompt and effective on the Roman side under a central control: the fortresses served as a hindrance to hostile invaders, as refuges to the rustics at need, and as bases for Roman armies. It is no great stretch of imagination to see in this organization a reason for the prosperity of Roman agriculture. Farms were no doubt laid waste on both sides of the border, but the balance of the account was in the long run favourable to Rome. Among the numerous legends that gathered round the name of king Pyrrhus is a story[590] that in reply to some discontent on the part of his Italian allies, to whom his strategy seemed over-cautious, he said ‘the mere look of the country shews me the great difference between you and the Romans. In the parts subject to them are all manner of fruit-trees and vineyards: the land is cultivated and the farm-establishments are costly: but the estates of my friends are so laid waste that all signs of human occupation have disappeared.’ The saying may be not authentic or merely overdrawn in rhetorical transmission. But it probably contains the outlines of a true picture of the facts. It was the power of giving to her farmer-settlers a more effective protection than her rivals could give to their own farmers that enabled Rome to advance steadily and continuously. The organization was simple enough: the sword was ready to guard the plough, and the plough to occupy and hold the conquests of the sword.
From the time of the first Punic war we have a remarkable story relating to M Atilius Regulus, the man around whose name so much patriotic legend gathered. He appears as one of the good old farmer-heroes. His farm[591] of seven iugera lay in an unhealthy part of the country, and the soil was poor. His advice to agriculturists, not to buy good land in an unhealthy district nor bad land in a healthy one, was handed down as the opinion of a qualified judge. We are told[592] that after his victory in Africa he desired to be relieved and return home; but the Senate did not send out another commander, and so he had to stay on. He wrote and complained of his detention. Among other reasons he urged in particular his domestic anxiety. In the epitome of Livy XVIII this appears as ‘that his little farm had been abandoned by the hired men.’ In Valerius Maximus[593] we find a fuller account, thus ‘that the steward in charge of his little farm (seven iugera in the Pupinia) had died, and the hired man (mercennarium) had taken the opportunity to decamp, taking with him the farm-stock: therefore he asked them to relieve him of his command, for he feared his wife and children would have nothing to live on now the farm was abandoned.’ On hearing this, the Senate ordered that provision should at once be made at the cost of the state (a) for cultivation of his farm[594] by contract (b) for maintenance of his wife and children (c) for making good the losses he had suffered. The reference of Pliny[595] rather confirms the details of Valerius, who by himself is not a very satisfactory witness. Livy is probably the source of all these versions. They are part of the Roman tradition of the first Punic war. Polybius, whose narrative is from another line of tradition, says not a word of this story. Indeed, he declares[596] that Regulus, so far from wishing to be relieved, wanted to stay on, fearing that he might hand over the credit of a final victory to a successor. The two traditions cannot be reconciled as they stand. Probably neither is complete. If we suppose the account of Polybius to be true, it does not follow as a matter of course that the other story is a baseless fiction. In any case, the relation of Regulus to the agriculture of his day, as represented by the story, seemed credible to Romans of a later age, and deserves serious consideration.
We are told that in the middle of the third century BC a man of such position and recognized merit that he was specially chosen to fill the place of a deceased consul in the course of a great war was a farmer on an estate of seven iugera, from which he was supporting his wife and family. In his absence on public duty he had left the farm in charge of a vilicus. The only reference to the labour employed there speaks of hired men (wage-earners, mercennarii). It does not say that there were no slaves. But the natural inference is that the vilicus had the control of a staff consisting wholly or largely of free labourers. Now that a slave vilicus might in the ordinary run of business be left in control of labourers, slave or free, seems clear from directions given by Cato[597] in the next century. The vilicus in this story was therefore probably a slave, as they were generally if not always. His death left the hired men uncontrolled, and they took the opportunity of robbing their employer. Roused by the absent consul’s complaints (whether accompanied by a request for relief or not), the Senate took up the matter and arranged to secure him against loss. We do not hear of the punishment of the dishonest hirelings, or even of a search for them. This may be merely an omitted detail: at any rate they had probably left the neighbourhood. The curious thing is that we hear nothing of the wife of Regulus: that a Roman matron submitted tamely to such treatment is hard to believe. Was it she who made the complaints and set the Senate in motion? The general outcome of the story is a conclusion that hired labour was freely employed in this age, not to exclusion of slave labour, but combined with it: that is, that the wage-earning work of landless men, such as appears in the earlier traditions, still went on. It was not yet overlaid by the plantation-system, and degraded by the associations of the slave-gang and the ergastulum.
When we pass on to the second Punic war, of which we have a fuller and less legendary record, we find the circumstances somewhat changed, but the importance of the Roman farmer’s grip of the land is recognized as clearly as before. It is not unlikely that since the time of the Pyrrhic war the practise of large-scale farming with slave-labour had begun to appear[598] in Italy, but it can hardly as yet have been widespread. Large or small, the farms in a large part of the country had suffered from the ravages of Hannibal, and it would be the land of Romans and their faithful allies that suffered most. Many rustics had to seek shelter in walled towns, above all in Rome, and their presence was no doubt in many ways embarrassing. Naturally, as the failure of Hannibal became manifest, the Roman Senate was desirous of restoring these refugees to the land and relieving the pressure on the city. Livy, drawing no doubt from an earlier annalist, tells us[599] that in 206 BC the Senate instructed the consuls, before they left for the seat of war, to undertake the bringing back of the common folk (plebis) on to the land. They pointed out that this was desirable, and possible under the better conditions now prevailing. ‘But it was for the people (populo) not at all an easy matter; for the free farmers (cultoribus) had perished in the war, there was a shortage of slaves (inopia servitiorum), the live stock had been carried off, and the farmsteads (villis) wrecked or burnt. Yet under pressure from the consuls a good many did go back to the land.’ He adds that what had raised the question at this particular juncture was the appeal of a deputation from Placentia and Cremona. These two Latin colonies, founded twelve years before as fortresses to hold the region of the Po, had suffered from Gaulish raids and had no longer a sufficient population, many settlers having gone off elsewhere. The Roman commander in the district was charged to provide for their protection, and the truant colonists ordered to return to their posts. It was evidently thought that with full numbers and military support there would be an end to the derelict condition of their territories, and that the two colonies would soon revive.
This attempt to reestablish the rustic population lays stress upon the general identity of farmer and soldier and the disturbance of agriculture by the ravages of war. But most notable is the mention of the shortage of slave-labour as a hindrance to resumption of work on derelict farms. It has been held[600] that this clause refers only to large estates worked by slave-gangs, while the free farmers stand for the men on small holdings, who presumably employed no slaves. Now it is quite conceivable that this contrast may have been in Livy’s mind as he wrote in the days of Augustus. That it was the meaning of the older author from whom he took the facts is not an equally probable inference. No doubt lack of slaves would hinder or prevent the renewal of tillage on a big estate. But what of a small farm whose owner had fallen in the war? The absence of the father in the army would be a most serious blow to the efficient working of the farm. If the raids of the enemy drove his family to take refuge in Rome, and the farm was let down to weeds, more labour than ever would be needed to renew cultivation. When there was no longer any hope of his return, the supply of sufficient labour was the only chance of reviving the farm. Surely there must have been many cases in which the help of one or two slaves was the obvious means of supplying it. Therefore, if we recognize that slave-labour had long been a common institution in Roman households, we shall not venture to assert that only large estates are referred to. That such estates, worked by slave-gangs, were numerous in 206 BC, is not likely: that small farmers often (not always) eked out their own labour with the help of a slave, is far more so. The actual shortage of slaves[601] had been partly brought about by the employment of many in military service. Some had no doubt simply run away. And the period of great foreign conquests and a full slave-market had yet to come.
I do not venture to dispute that the accumulation of capital in the form of ready money available for speculation in state leases, farming of revenues, and other contracts, had already begun at Rome in the age of the great Punic wars. In the second war, contracts for the supply of necessaries to the armed forces played a considerable part, and we hear of contractors[602] who practised shameless frauds on the state. Greed was a plant that throve in the soil of Roman life: the scandals of the later Republic were merely the sinister developments of an old tendency favoured by opportunities. Land-grabbing in particular was, if consistent tradition may be believed, from early times a passion of Roman nobles: and the effect of a law[603] forbidding them to become ship-owners and engage in commerce was to concentrate their enterprise on the acquisition of great landed estates. Another notable fact is the large voluntary loans[604] which the government was able to raise in the critical period of the great war. In the year 210, when the financial strain was extreme, a very large contribution of the kind took place. In 204 the Senate arranged a scheme[605] for repayment in three instalments. In 200 the lenders, apparently alarmed by the delay in paying the second instalment, became clamorous. The Punic war was at an end, and war with Philip of Macedon just declared: they wanted to get their money back. We are told[606] that the state was not able to find the cash, and that the cry of many creditors was ‘there are plenty of farms for sale, and we want to buy.’ The Senate devised a middle way of satisfying them. They were to be offered the chance of acquiring the state domain-land within fifty miles of Rome at a valuation fixed by the consuls. This seems to mean, up to the amount of the instalment then in question. But they were not thereby to receive the land in full private[607] property. A quit-rent of one as was to be set on each iugerum, in evidence that the property still belonged to the state. Thus, when the state finances should admit, they might get back their ready money if they preferred it and give back the land to the state. The offer was gladly accepted, and the land taken over on these terms was called ‘third-part land’ (trientabulum) as representing ⅓ of the money lent. The final instalment appears to have been paid in cash[608] in the year 196.
That these patriotic creditors were men with a keen eye for a bargain, and that they made a good one in the above arrangement, is pretty clear. This is the only occasion on which we hear of the trientabula plan of settling a money claim by what was in effect a perpetual lease at a nominal rent terminable by reconversion into a money claim at the pleasure of the lessee. No doubt the valuation was so made as to give the creditor a good margin of security over and above the sum secured. There was therefore no temptation to call for the cash and surrender the land. From the reference[609] to trientabula in the agrarian law of 111 BC it would seem that some at least of these beneficial tenancies were still in existence after the lapse of nearly 90 years. They would pass by inheritance or sale as the ordinary possessiones of state domains did, and eventually become merged in the private properties that were the final result of the land-legislation of the revolutionary age. For the capitalists, already powerful in 200 BC, became more and more powerful as time went on. And this use of public land to discharge public debts was undoubtedly a step tending to promote the formation of the great estates (latifundia) which were the ruin of the wholesome old land-system in a great part of Italy. With this tendency the wholesale employment of slave-labour went hand in hand.