It remains to ask whether the identification of patres with patres familias exhausts the full meaning of the word. In the Aeneid (XII 520) a combatant slain is described as by craft a poor fisherman of Lerna, no dependant of the wealthy, and then follow the words conductaque pater tellure serebat. Now most commentators and translators seem determined to find in this a reference to the man’s father, which is surely flat and superfluous. The stress is not on pater but on conducta. Is not pater an honourable quality-term, referring to the man[851] himself? He would not be always fishing in the lake. He had a dwelling of some sort, most probably a patch of land, to grow his vegetables. The point is that even this was not his own, but hired from some landowner. I would render ‘and the land where the honest man used to grow a crop from seed was rented from another.’ That pater (Aeneas etc) is often used as a complimentary prefix, is well known, and I think it delicately expresses the poet’s kindly appreciation of the poor but honest and independent rustic. In the passage of Horace I am inclined to detect something of the same flavour. Some have supposed that the five ‘fathers’ were decurions of the local township of Varia, who went thither to meetings of the local senate. I shrink from reading this into the words of Horace, all the more as Nissen[852] has shewn good reason for doubting whether Varia was anything more than a subordinate hamlet (vicus) of Tibur.
The general effect of the words, taken in context with the rest of the epistle, is this: the vilicus, once a common slave-labourer (mediastinus) in Rome, hankers after town life, finding his rustic stewardship dull on a small estate such as that of Horace. To Horace the place is a charming retreat from the follies and worries of Rome. To him the estate with its quiet homestead and the five tenants of the outlying farms is an ideal property: he wants[853] a retreat, not urban excitements. To the steward it seems that there is ‘nothing doing,’ while the grandeur of a great estate is lacking. So the master is contented, while the slave is discontented, with this five-farm property looked at from their different points of view.
But the most serious problem that meets us in endeavouring to appraise the evidence of the Augustan literature is connected with the Georgics of Vergil. Passages from Horace will be helpful in this inquiry, in the course of which the remarkable difference between these two witnesses will appear. The stray references in other writers of the period are for the most part not worth citing. Tibullus speaks of the farmer[854] who has had his fill of steady ploughing, but this is in an ideal picture of the origins of agriculture. His rural scenes are not of much significance. In one place, speaking of hope[855] that sustains a man in uncertainties, for instance a farmer, he adds ‘Hope it is too that comforts one bound with a strong chain: the iron clanks on his legs, yet he sings as he works.’ A rustic slave, no doubt. But that his hope is hope of manumission is by no means clear: it may be hope of escape, and the words are indefinite, perhaps left so purposely. That Ovid[856] refers to the farmer statesmen and heroes of yore, who put their hands to the plough, is merely an illustration of the retrospective idealism of the Augustan age. Like Livy and the rest, he was conscious of the decay of Roman vitality, and amid the glories and dissipations of Rome recognized the vigour and simplicity of good old times. For him, and for Manilius, speculation[857] as to the origins of civilization, imaginings of a primitive communism, had attraction, as it had for Lucretius and Vergil. It was part of the common stock: and in connexion with the development of building it forms a topic of some interest[858] in the architectura of Vitruvius.
Vergil. All readers of Vergil’s Georgics are struck by the poet’s persistent glorification of labour and his insistence on the necessity and profit of personal action on the farmer’s part. Yet on one very important point there is singular obscurity. Is slave-labour meant to be a part of his res rustica, or not? When he bids the farmer do this or that, is he bidding him to do it with his own hands, or merely to see to the doing of it, or sometimes the one and sometimes the other? So far as I know, no sufficient attention[859] has been given to the curious, and surely deliberate, avoidance of direct reference to slavery in this poem. To this subject I propose to return after considering the references in his pastoral and epic poetry. For in the artificial world of piping shepherds and in the surroundings of heroic legend the mention of slaves and slavery is under no restraint. This I hope to make clear; and, in relation to the contrast presented by the Georgics, to emphasize, if not satisfactorily to explain, one of the subtle reticencies of Vergil.
The Bucolics place us in an unreal atmosphere. The scenic setting is a blend of Theocritean Sicily and the poet’s own lowlands of the Cisalpine. The characters and status of the rustics are confused in a remarkable degree. Thus in the first eclogue Tityrus appears as a slave who has bought his freedom late in life (lines 27-9), having neglected to amass a peculium in earlier years (31-2). It was only by a visit to Rome, and the favour of Octavian, that he gained relief. But this relief appears, not as manumission, but as the restoration of a landowner dispossessed by a military colonist. The inconsistency cannot be removed by treating the first version as symbolic or allegorical. It is there, and the poet seems to have felt no sufficient inducement to remove it. Corydon in the second eclogue has a dominus, and is therefore servus (2). Yet he boasts of his large property in flocks, which are presumably his peculium (19-22). His dwelling is a lowly cot in the rough grubby surroundings of the countryside (28-9). He is pastor (1), but there are evidently aratores on the estate (66). He is warned that, if it comes to buying favours with gifts, he cannot compete with his master Iollas (57). Had he not better do some basket-work and forget his passion (71-3)?
In the third eclogue the status of Damoetas is far from clear. He appears as alienus custos of a flock, the love-rival of the owner (ipse), whom he is robbing, profiting by the latter’s preoccupation with his amour (1-6). He is in short head-shepherd (101 pecoris magistro), and Tityrus (96) seems to be his underling. Menalcas in staking the cups explains that he dare not risk any of the flock under his charge, which belongs to his father and is jealously counted (32-43). He is owner’s son, with no opportunities of fraud; probably free, for we can hardly assume that the flock is a slave’s peculium. But whether Damoetas is (a) a free hireling or (b) a slave hired from another owner or (c) a slave of the flock-owner, is not to be inferred with confidence from so indistinct a picture. In the ninth eclogue we are again[860] brought across the rude military colonist (4) of the first eclogue. Moeris, who seems to be the steward of Menalcas, speaks of nostri (agelli, 2) and nostra (carmina, 12). Menalcas is ipse (16), and supposed to represent Vergil. I incline to believe that Moeris is a slave vilicus, but cannot feel sure. So also in the tenth, we hear of opilio and subulci (19), of custos gregis and vinitor (36). These would in the Italy of Vergil’s time be normally slaves. But it is not the question of their status that is uppermost in the poet’s mind. They appear in the picture merely as figures suggesting the rustic environment on which he loves to dwell. As for the fourth eclogue, it is only necessary to remark that, however interpreted, it points to the return (6) of a blissful age, and accordingly assumes the former existence of good old times.
It has been justly noted that the merry singing and easy life of the swains in the Bucolics are incongruous with the notorious condition of the rustic slaves of Italy. No doubt the contrast is painful. But we must not presume to impute to the great and generous poet a light-headed and callous indifference to the miseries daily inflicted by capitalist exploiters of labour on their human chattels. We must not forget that in hill districts, where large-scale farming did not pay, rural life was still going on in old-fashioned grooves. Nor must we forget that in his native Cisalpine slavery was probably of a mild character. Some hundred years later we hear[861] that chained gangs of slave-labourers were not employed there: and the great armies recruited there in Caesar’s time do not suggest that the free population had dwindled there as in Etruria or Lucania. The song-loving shepherds are an importation from the Sicily of Theocritus, an extinct past, an artificial world kept alive in literature by the genius of its singer. In the hands of his great imitator the rustic figures become even more unreal. Hence the extreme difficulty of extracting any sure evidence on the status of these characters, or signs of the poet’s own sentiments, from the language of the Bucolics.
In the Aeneid we have the legends of ancient Italy and the origin of Rome subjected to epic treatment. The drift of the poem is conditioned by modern influence, the desire of Augustus to gain support for the new Empire by fostering every germ of a national sentiment. The tale of Troy has to be exploited for the purpose, and with the tale of Troy comes the necessity of reproducing so far as possible the atmosphere of the ‘heroic’ age. There is therefore hardly any reference to the matters with which I am now concerned. When the poet speaks[862] of the peoples of ancient Italy it is in terms of general praise. Their warlike vigour and hardihood, the active life of hunters and farmers, can be admired without informing the reader whether they employed slave-labour or not. And in the rare references[863] to slavery in his own day Vergil has in mind the relation of master and slave simply, without any regard to agriculture. But in depicting the society of the ‘heroic’ times, in which the adventures of Aeneas are laid, a substratum of slavery was indispensable. It was therefore drawn from the Greek epic, where it lay ready to hand. Yet the references to slaves are less numerous than we might have expected. We find them employed in table-service (I 701-6), or as personal attendants (II 580, 712, IV 391, V 263, IX 329, XI 34). We hear of a woman skilled in handicrafts (V 284) given as a prize, and Camilla is dedicated as a famula of Diana (XI 558). These are not very significant references. But that slavery is assumed as an important element in the social scheme may be inferred from the references to captives in war (II 786, III 323, IX 272-3). They are liable to be offered up as inferiae to the dead (XI 81-2), and the victor takes the females as concubines at will (III 323-9, IX 546). A discarded concubine is handed over to a slave-consort (III 329), and the infant children of a serva form part of a common unit with their dam (V 285).
Two passages are worth notice from an economic point of view. In VIII 408-12, in a simile, we have the picture of a poor hard-working housewife who rises very early to set her famulae to work on their allotted tasks of wool, to ‘keep the little home together.’ One can hardly say that no such scene was possible in real life under the conditions of Vergil’s time, though we may fairly doubt the reality of a picture in which grim poverty and the desire to bring up a family of young children are combined with the ownership and employment of a staff of domestic slaves. For we find the not owning a single slave[864] used as the most characteristic sign of poverty. And I shrink from describing the situation industrially as the sweating of slave-labour to maintain respectability. I do not think any such notion was in the poet’s mind. That the simile is suggested by Greek models is pointed out by Conington, and to regard it as a borrowed ornament is probably the safest conclusion in general. It is however to be noted that the famulae are not borrowed, but an addition of Vergil’s own. The other passage, XII 517-20, relates the death in battle of an Arcadian, who in his home was a fisherman, of humble station. The last point is brought out in the words[865] conductaque pater tellure serebat. This seems to mean that he was a small tenant farmer, a colonus of the non-owning class. Such a man might or might not have a slave or two. But, even were there any indication (which there is not) to favour either alternative, the man’s home is in Arcadia, though the picture may be coloured by the poet’s familiarity with Italian details. Take it all in all, we are perhaps justified in saying that in the Aeneid the realities of slavery and of humble labour generally are very lightly touched. Is this wholly due to the assumed proprieties of the heroic epic, dealing with characters above the ordinary freeman in station or natural qualities? Or may we surmise that to Vergil, with his intense human sympathies, the topic was in itself also distasteful, only to be referred to when it was hardly possible to avoid it?
If little, in fact almost nothing, can be gleaned bearing on the subject of labour from the Bucolics and Aeneid, we might hope to find plenty of information in the didactic poem specially addressed to farmers. In the opening of the Georgics (I 41) Vergil plainly says that he feels sorry for the rustic folk, who know not the path to success in their vocation: he appeals to the gods interested in agriculture, and above all to Augustus, to look kindly on his bold endeavour to set farmers in the right way. When he comes to speak of the peace and plenty, the security and joys, of country life, he grows enthusiastic (II 458-74). But among the advantages he does not omit to reckon the freedom from the extravagance and garish display of city life, the freedom to drowse under trees, the enjoyment of rural sights and sounds, in short the freedom to take your ease with no lack of elbow-room (latis otia fundis). This hardly portrays the life of the working farmer, to whom throughout the poem he is ever preaching the gospel of toil and watchfulness. True, he adds ‘there you find forest-lands (saltus) with coverts for wild beasts, and a population inured to toil and used to scanty diet,’ among whom yet linger survivals of the piety and righteousness of old. It is fair to ask, who are these and what place do they fill in the poet’s picture? Surely they are not the men who have fled from the vain follies of the city: for they are genuine rustics. Surely not gang-slaves, driven out to labour in the fields and back again to be fed and locked up, like oxen or asses. To the urban slave transference to such a life was a dreaded punishment. Are they free small-scale farmers? No doubt there were still many of that class remaining in the upland parts of Italy. But were they men of leisure, able to take their ease at will on broad estates? I cannot think of them in such a character, unless I assume them to own farms of comfortable size (of course not latifundia) and to employ some labour of slaves or hirelings. And there is nothing in the context to justify such an assumption. Lastly, are they poor peasants, holding small plots of land and eking out a meagre subsistence by occasional wage-earning labour? Such persons seem to have existed, at least in certain parts of the country: but we know that some at least of this labour hired for the job was performed[866] by bands of non-resident labourers roaming in search of such employment. No, peasants of the ‘crofter’ type do not fit in with this picture of a rural life passed in plenty and peaceful ease. I am therefore driven to conclude that the poet was merely idealizing country life in general terms without troubling himself to exercise a rigid consistency in the combination of details. He has had many followers among poets and painters, naturally: but the claim of the Georgics to rank as a didactic treatise is exceptionally strong, owing to the citations of Columella and Pliny. If then the poem seems in any respect to pass lightly over questions of importance in the consideration of farming conditions, we are tempted rather to seek for a motive than to impute neglect.