This may explain the epithet of "durus et invictus" applied to the vinedresser in Horace, as being notorious for his insolent and stubborn manners, "Tum Prænestinus salso multumque fluenti What is of most importance however is, that the several departments of rural labour should be kept as much as possible distinct, so that the work done by each gang may be separately noted. Such are the principal points that seem worthy of notice in the 1st Book of Columella's Treatise; but before I conclude this Lecture it may be worth while to consider the relative value of slave and free labour in a country like Italy, so far as can be gathered from the statements of ancient writers. Columella states, that the ordinary price of a slave employed as a vine-dresser was 8000 sesterces, equal to £66 13s. 4d., and as it is mentioned as a proof of Cato's frugality, that he never gave more than 1500 drachmas for a slave, which is about equal to £50, the price of the slaves h According to Dr. Arbuthnot, who states the drachma to be equal to the denarius, and rates the latter at 74d. Hussey however reckons the drachma at 9 d., so that in this case, the price employed in rural labours may be supposed to have varied from £50 to £70, or taking the average £60. The interest of money at Rome being as high as 6 per cent. we must calculate £3 10s. for the annual value of the original purchase money; but as a slave is a perishable commodity, this should at least be doubled. About £7 a year must therefore be set down as the interest of the money spent. Each slave was allowed in winter 4 pounds of bread a day, in summer 5; so that, if the Roman libra was of ours, we may reckon the first equal to 3, and the latter to about 3lb. 12 onnces avoirdupois. They were also allowed 1 pints of a weak wine per day, and during the vintage they had moreover an allowance of pulmentarium, made of olives that had dropt from the tree, and when this was consumed, an allowance of salt-fish and oil. To this must be added the expense of their clothes and dwelling places. It is stated by Pliny that a modius of wheat weighed 24 lb., but that by the addition to it of other matters which cost little, such as bran, it made 32 lbs. of bread. Now Columella states that a modius of flour cost 2s. 8d., so that we may reckon the 4 pounds of bread which formed the average consumption of a Roman slave at 4 a day, or £6 17s. a year. If we add to this £3 3s. given for a slave by Cato would be somewhat more than £60 sterling. more for the other demands, including clothes and dwelling, each slave will have cost his master about 6d. a day or 3s. 10d. a week. This it is true is little more than the third of an English labourer's wages; but after adding about 2s. 8d. a week for the interest of the cost price of the slave, and the wear and tear, together making 6s. 6d. per week, I suspect that the balance of economy lies on the side of free labour, especially considering that the former has to support a wife and family out of his wages. But a more accurate mode of calculating will perhaps be to ascertain how much bread the English labourer with 10s. a week could command. This at present prices would purchase about 60lbs. avoirdupois, whilst the Roman slave received on an average a quantity of bread per week equivalent to 24 of the same lb., which I have reckoned at less than half of the whole cost of his maintenance, together with the interest of money, &c. Hence the entire expense of a slave would be equivalent to the cost of 59 lbs. of bread, which, as we have seen, approaches very nearly to the amount which an English labourer's wages would procure. i 4 libræ on an average per day, or 31 libræ per week, which deducting d. for the difference between the English and Roman pound would give about 24 lbs. 4 shillings worth at the present prices. k Viz. 98. 10d. at the present price. According to this calculation then, the advantage would be much greater in favour of free labour; for the master must maintain the family of the slave, and the slave himself when ill or superannuated, unless indeed he resorted to the unfeeling practice of selling him off when he became old or diseased. But this is only a part of the question; for it remains still to be determined, what might be the relative value of the work of the slave as compared to that of a free labourer: and in the climate of Italy, there can be but little doubt that, in this respect, the balance would be much in favour of the latter. At any rate, the amount of produce obtained by field-labour does not seem to have been so great as it is with us; for Columella states, that 5 modii of wheat being sown, 50 was the usual return, and the largest 75, the first equal to 13 bushels, the latter to 18; the Roman acre being to ours as 32 to 48. Hence as 32: 48: : 13: 19.5, and as 32:48 18:27.0. : So that 19.5 bushels to an English acre would be about the mean return, and 27 the largest. Now I believe that 30 bushels of wheat to an acre is regarded by no means an uncommon return with us, and that the average on good land rates perhaps as high as 25 bushels1. 1 Fifty-six bushels to the acre have been in some cases obtained. Hence whilst the expense of slave-labour was scarcely less, its productiveness fell considerably short of that by means of freemen; and indeed, as we have seen, the declension of Agriculture in Italy dates from the time when slaves became abundant. It is therefore perhaps not wonderful that, in spite of the fertility of the greater part of Italy, the culture of the Cerealia did not flourish, and that the Romans were accustomed to depend for their supply of corn on Sicily, Africa, and other regions; the very opposite system being pursued from that, which, till within the last changes in politics, has prevailed with us, and this staple of life being actually provided to the citizens of Rome at a lower sum than the cost of production, instead of having its price enhanced by artificial regulations. In my two next Lectures, I shall present you with an analysis of the second Book of Columella, in which the different kinds of soil, the varieties of crop cultivated, and the modes of conducting the various acts of husbandry amongst the Romans, are severally described. |