All these difficulties, and others, suggest no great prosperity in Italian agriculture of the period. That on certain soils farming did not pay, was as well known[1472] to the jurists as to other writers. And one great cause of agricultural decline appears in their incidental remarks as clearly as in literature. It was the devotion of much of the best land in the best situations to the unproductive parks and pleasure-grounds of the rich. This can hardly be laid to the account of the still favoured financial position of Italy as compared with the Provinces, for we find the same state of things existing late in the fourth century, when Italy had long been provincialized and taxed accordingly. It was fashion, and fashion of long standing, that caused this evil. And this cause was itself an effect of the conditions of investment. The syndicates for exploiting provincial dues had gone with the Republic. State contracts and industrial enterprises were not enough to employ all the available capital. The ownership of land, now that politics were not a school of ambition, was more than ever the chief source of social importance. A man who could afford to own vast unremunerative estates was a great personage. We may add that such estates, being unremunerative, were less likely to attract the fatal attention of bad emperors, while good rulers deliberately encouraged rich men to invest fortunes in them as being an evidence of loyalty to the government. The uneconomic rural conditions thus created are plainly referred to in the staid remarks of the jurists. We read of estates owned for pleasure (voluptaria praedia)[1473]: of cases where it may be doubted[1474] whether the fundus does not rather belong to the villa than the villa to the fundus: and the use of the word praetorium[1475] (= great mansion, palace, ‘Court’) for the lord’s headquarters on his demesne becomes almost official in the mouth of lawyers. Meanwhile great estates abroad could be, and were, profitable to their owners, who drew rent from tenants and were normally non-resident. Yet praetoria were sometimes found even in the Provinces.
In connexion with this topic it is natural to consider the questions of upkeep and improvements. The former is simple. As the tenant has the disposal of the crops raised and gathered (fructus), he is bound[1476] to till the soil, to keep up the stock of plants, and to see that the drainage of the farm is in working order. Further detail is unnecessary, as his liability must be gauged by the state of the farm when he took it over. Improvements look to the future. From the lawyers we get only the legal point of view, which is of some interest as proving that the subject was of sufficient importance not to be overlooked. Now it seems certain that a conductor or colonus had a right of action to recover[1477] from the dominus not only compensation for unexhausted improvements, but his whole outlay on them, if shewn to have been beneficial. Or his claim might rest on the fact that the project had been approved[1478] by the landlord. But it might happen that a work beneficial to the particular estate was detrimental to a neighbouring one. In such a case, against whom—landlord or tenant—had the owner of that estate a legal remedy? It was held that, if the tenant had carried out the work in question[1479] without his landlord’s knowledge, he alone was liable. If, as some held, the landlord was bound to provide a particular remedy, he could recover the amount paid under this head from his tenant. To insure the owner against loss from the acts of his lessee was evidently an object of the first importance, and this is in harmony with the Roman lawyers’ intense respect for rights of property. The general impression left on the reader of their utterances on this subject is that a landlord, after providing a considerable instrumentum, had done all that could reasonably be expected from him. Improvements, the desirability of which was usually discovered through the tenant’s experience, were normally regarded as the tenant’s business: it was only necessary to prevent the landlord from arbitrarily confiscating what the tenant had done to improve his property. Obviously such ‘improvements’ were likely to occasion disputes as to the value of the work done: but it was the custom of the countryside to refer technical questions of this kind to the arbitration of an impartial umpire (vir bonus), no doubt a neighbour familiar with local circumstances. On the whole, it does not appear that the law treated the colonus badly under this head, and the difficulty of securing good tenants may be supposed to have guaranteed him against unfair administration.
A great many more details illustrating the position of coloni as they appear in the Digest could be added here, but I think the above will be found ample for my purpose. The next topic to be dealt with is that of labour, so far as the references of the lawyers give us any information. First it is to be noted that the two systems[1480] of estate-management, that of cultivation for landlord’s account by his actor or vilicus, and that of letting to tenant farmers, were existing side by side. The latter plan was to all appearance more commonly followed than it would seem to have been in the time of Columella, but the former was still working. A confident opinion as to the comparative frequency[1481] of the two systems is hardly to be formed on Digest evidence: for in rustic matters the interest of lawyers was almost solely concerned with the relations of landlord and tenant. What an owner did with his own property on his own account was almost entirely his own business. There are signs that a certain change in the traditional nomenclature represents a real change of function in the case of landlords’ managers. The term actor is superseding[1482] vilicus, but the vilicus still remains. He would seem to be now more of a mere farm-bailiff, charged with the cultivation of some part or parts of an estate that are not let to tenants. It may even be that he is left with a free hand and only required to pay a fixed[1483] yearly return. If so, this arrangement is not easily to be distinguished from the case of a slave colonus or quasi colonus[1484] occupying a farm. The financial and general supervision of the estate is in the hands of the actor[1485], who collects all dues, including rents of colonie and is held to full account[1486] for all these receipts as well as for the contents of the store-rooms. He is a slave, but a valuable and trusted man: it is significant that the manumission[1487] of actores is not seldom mentioned. Evidently the qualities looked for in such an agent were observed to develope most readily under a prospect of freedom. But, so long as he remained actor of an estate, he could be regarded as part of it: in a bequest the testator could include him as a part[1488], and often did so: and indeed his peculiar knowledge of local detail must often have been an important element in its value. To employ such a person in the management of an estate, with powerful inducements to good conduct, may have solved many a difficult problem. We may perhaps guess that it made the employment of a qualified legal agent (procurator) less often necessary, at least if the actor contrived to avoid friction with his master’s free tenants.
Whether an estate was farmed for the owner by his manager, or let to tenants, or partly on one system partly on the other, it is clear that slave-labour is assumed as the normal basis of working. For the colonus takes over slaves supplied by the dominus as an item of the instrumentum. And there was nothing to prevent him from adding slaves of his own, if he could afford it and thought it worth his while to employ a larger staff. Whether such additions were often or ever made, we must not expect the lawyers to tell us; but we do now and then hear[1489] of a slave who is the tenant’s own. Such a slave might as part of the tenant’s goods be pledged to the landlord as security for his rent, but he would not be a part of the estate of which the landlord could dispose by sale or bequest. In such a case the slaves might be regarded[1490] as accessories of the fundus, if it were so agreed. This raised questions as to the degree of connexion that should be treated as qualifying a slave to be considered an appurtenance of a farm. The answer was in effect that he must be a member of the regular staff. Mere temporary employment on the place did not so attach him, mere temporary absence on duty elsewhere did not detach him. A further question was whether all slaves in any sort of employment on the place were included, or only such as were actually engaged in farm work proper, cultivation of the soil, not those employed in various subsidiary[1491] industries. These questions the jurists discussed fully, but we cannot follow them here, as their legal importance is chiefly in connexion with property and can hardly have affected seriously the position of tenants. But it is interesting to observe that the lawyers were feeling the necessity of attempting some practical classification. The distinction[1492] between urbana and rustica mancipia was old enough as a loose conversational or literary one. But, when rights of inheritance or legacy of such valuable property were involved, it became important to define (if possible) the essential characteristics of a ‘rustic’ slave.
That the condition of the rustic slave was improving, and generally far better than it had been on the latifundia of Republican days, seems indicated by the jurists’ speaking of a slave as colonus or quasi colonus without any suggestion of strangeness in the relation. We may assume that only slaves of exceptional capacity and merit would be placed in a position of economic (if not legal) equality with free tenants. Still the growth of such a custom can hardly have been without some effect on the condition of rustic slaves in general. It was not new in the second century: it is referred to by a jurist[1493] of the Augustan age. The increasing difficulty of getting either good tenants or good slaves no doubt induced landlords to entrust farms to men who could and would work them profitably, whether freemen or slaves. And a slave had in agriculture, as in trades and finance, a point in his favour: his person and his goods[1494] remained in his master’s power. If by skilled and honest management he relieved his master of trouble and worry, and contributed by regular payment of rent to assure his income, it was reasonable to look for gratitude expressed, on the usual Roman lines, in his master’s will. Manumission, perhaps accompanied by bequest[1495] of the very farm that he had worked so well, was a probable reward. May we not guess that some of the best farming carried on in Italy under the earlier Empire was achieved by trusted slaves, in whom servile apathy was overcome by hope? Such a farmer-slave would surely have under him[1496] slave labourers, the property of his master; and he would have the strongest possible motives for tact and skill in their management, while his own capacity had been developed by practical experience. I can point to no arrangement in Roman agriculture so calculated to make it efficient on a basis of slavery as this.
The services (operae) of a slave, due to his owner or to some one in place of his owner, were a property capable of valuation, and therefore could be let and hired at a price. That is, the person to whom they were due could commute[1497] them for a merces. This might, as in the corresponding Greek case of ἀποφορά, be a paying business, if a slave had been bought cheap and trained so as to earn good wages. It was common enough in various trades: what concerns us is that the plan was evidently in use in the rustic world also. Now this is notable. We naturally ask, if the man’s services were worth so much to the hirer, why should they not have been worth as much (or even a little more) to his own master? Why should it pay to let him rather than to use him yourself? Of course the owner might have more slaves than he needed at the moment: or the hirer might be led by temporary need of labour to offer a fancy price for the accommodation: or two masters on neighbouring farms might engage in a reciprocity of cross-hirings to suit their mutual convenience at certain seasons. Further possibilities might be suggested, but are such occasional explanations sufficient to account for the prevalence of this hiring-system? I think not. Surely the principal influence, steadily operating in this direction, was one that implied an admission of the economic failure of slavery. If A’s slave worked for B so well that it paid A to let him do so and to receive a rent for his services, it follows that the slave had some inducement to exert his powers more fully as B’s hireling than in the course of ordinary duty under his own master. Either the nature and conditions of the work under B were pleasanter, or he received something for himself over and above the stipulated sum claimed by his master. In other words, as a mere slave he did not do his best: as a hired man he felt some of the stimulus that a free man gets from the prospect of his wage. So Slavery, already philanthropically questioned, was in this confession economically condemned.
These points considered, we are not surprised to find mention of slaves letting out their own[1498] operae. This must imply the consent of their masters, and it is perhaps not rash to see in such a situation a sign of weakening in the effective authority of masters. A master whose interest is bound up with the fullest development of his slave’s powers (as rentable property exposed to competition) will hardly act the martinet without forecasting the possible damage to his own pocket. A slave who knows that his master draws an income from his efficiency is in a strong position for gradually extorting privileges till he attains no small degree of independence. We may perhaps find traces of such an advance in the arrangement by which a slave hires his own operae[1499] from his master. He will thus make a profit out of hiring himself: in fact he is openly declaring that he will not work at full power for his master, but only compound with him for output on the scale of an ordinary slave. This arrangement was common in arts and handicrafts, and not specially characteristic of Rome. In rustic life, the slave put into a farm as tenant[1500] at a fixed rent, and taking profit and loss, may furnish an instance. Whether such cases were frequent we do not know. The general impression left by the Digest passages on hiring and letting of slaves is that, when we read of mercennarii, it is generally if not always hireling[1501] slaves, not free wage-earners, that are meant. In a passage[1502] where servus occurs as well as mercennarius, it is reference to the owner as well as to the hirer that necessitates the addition. If I have interpreted these points aright, the picture suggested is a state of things in which the rustic slave was steadily improving his position, supplying hired labour, at times entrusted with the charge of a farm, and with a fair prospect of becoming by manumission under his owner’s will a free colonus, or even his own landlord. How far this picture is really characteristic of rustic Italy, or of the Provinces (such as Gaul or Spain), is what one would like to know, but I can find no evidence.
In the foregoing paragraphs I have refrained from inquiring whether the colonus as he appears in the Digest was a farmer who worked with his own hands, or merely an employer and director of labour. The reason is that I have found in the texts no evidence whatever on the point. It was not the jurist’s business. We are left to guess at the truth as best we may, and we can only start from consideration of the farmer’s own interest, and assume that the average farmer knew his own interest and was guided thereby. Now, being bound to pay rent in some form or other and to make good any deficiencies in the instrumentum at the end of his tenancy, he had every inducement to get all he could out of the land while he held it. How best to do this, was his problem. And the answer no doubt varied according to the size of the farm, the kind of crops that could profitably be raised there, and the number and quality of the staff. In some rough operations, his constant presence on one spot and sharing the actual work might get the most out of his men. Where nicety of skill was the main thing, he might better spend his time in direction and minute watching of the hands. On a fairly large farm he would have enough to do as director. We may reasonably guess that he only toiled with his own hands if he thought it would pay him to do so. This a priori guesswork is not satisfactory. But I see nothing else to be said; for the African inscriptions do not help us. The circumstances of those great domains were exceptional.
So far we have been viewing agriculture as proceeding in times and under conditions assumed to be more or less normal, without taking account of the various disturbing elements in rustic life, by which both landlords and tenants were liable to suffer vexation and loss. Yet these were not a few. Even a lawyer could not ignore wild beasts. Wolves carried off some of A’s pigs. Dogs kept by B, colonus of a neighbouring villa, for protection of his own flocks, rescued the pigs. A legal question[1503] at once arises: are the rescued pigs regarded as wild game, and therefore belonging to the owner of the dogs? No, says the jurist. They were still within reach; A had not given them up for lost; if B tries to retain them, the law provides remedies to make him give them up. I presume that B would have a claim to some reward for his services. But the lawyer is silent, confining his opinion to the one question of property. References to depredations of robbers or brigands (latrones, grassatores,) occur often, and quite as a matter of course. The police of rural Italy, not to mention the Provinces, was an old scandal. Stock-thieves, who lifted a farmer’s cattle sheep or goats, and sometimes his crops, were important enough to have a descriptive name (abigei)[1504] and a title of the Digest to themselves. That bad neighbours made themselves unpleasant in many ways, and that their presence gave a bad name to properties near them, was an experience of all lands and all ages: but the jurists treat it gravely[1505] as a lawyer’s matter. Concealment of such a detrimental fact[1506] by the seller of an estate made the sale voidable. The rich (old offenders in this kind) were by a rescript of Hadrian[1507] awarded differential punishment for removing landmarks: in their case the purpose of encroachment was not a matter open to doubt.