Latifundia

[Zeke]

How did the Latifunda contribute to the fall of the Republic in your opinion and how did it help the latter growth of the Empire?

 

Do you think the Latifunda was a good or bad system, explain why or why not.

 

Hopfully we can have a disscussion from this,

 

Sorry about spelling

Zeke

[Germanicus]

Sorry about spelling

Zeke

 

You can take this off your signature now

 

I've noticed you put this at the end of almost every post, and frankly your recent spelling has been excellent - no mistakes in the post you just made worthy of mention.

 

The Latifunda ? I don't know much about these other than that they were often vast estates own by the rich, and farmed by their slaves. I guess they pushed a lot of people off the land and into the cities, increasing the grain dole queues. No doubt there were other effects that others can elaborate on ?

[Favonius Cornelius]

The heart and soul of the Roman Republic in so many ways lay in its landed citizen farmers. It was the citizen farmer who supplied the city with the vital food stuff to keep it going, and it was the citizen farmer who took up the spear and shield when the Republic called upon its people to wage war.

 

Each landed citizen farmer can be seen to be a vital political unit which made up a Republic. In an abstract way you could think of these early times as a spread of true absolute power, where each individual did indeed make a difference. Each citizen had a vote, and could choose those magistrates they trusted not to make rash decisions about war and power.

 

After the consolidation of Italy and the second Punic war, Rome witnessed a great influx of wealth that permitted victorious generals to buy out these individual citizen farmers gradually over the course of 200 BC to the time of the Gracchi. The latifundia were born, where you could farm the land more efficiently with slave labor on large scale, handing over handsome dividends to their rich politician owners. Gradually the number of people who were actual landed citizens who could be called to serve in the army dwindled, and when Marius had to deal with the Cimbri, the only final solution was to open the army's ranks to anyone who was willing to fight.

 

Now you have an army which is composed of men who have no stake in life other than their pay check from their general, but yet can still vote. This distorts the system such that rather than having votes and public opinion based on the risk to their own personal property and land, you have votes and public opinion being more based on the ability to make war, gain spoil and support from your benefactor. Thus were born the politician-generals of the late Republic.

 

Though the latifundia could be said to have resulted in greater agricultural output for the Republic as a whole, the cost was her soul.

Edited December 14, 2005 by Favonius Cornelius

[Pertinax]

We have various travellers descriptions of the heart of a prosperous Empire as a "wasteland", meaning the abscence of true free farming citizens,just " factories" .The comfortable Roman had a strikingly similar bucolic ideal to an English Gent of the late Victorian/Edwardian period ( and a lot of contemporary Upper Middle Class Britons) ie: a cosmopolitan home in town but a country seat or retreat ideally feeding yourself with the produce.In many ways this illustrates the divorce of the wealthy citizen from the land , but shows a superficial desire to return to the "Republican" sentiment. Andrew Dalby's "Empire of Pleasures" is very good on this subject The fashion for holding dinner parties in the fruit store of ones country estate was a notable "back to rusticity" posing of the Imperial fast set-even to the point of buying the fruit in for display! (Pliny)

I would personally suggest that the latifundia was the real seismic shift away from Republicanism toward the mindset of Imperium.

Pliny discourses at great length as to how noble the husbandry of land is and what a central moral item it is to justly rewarded soldiery.(excerpts from The Natural History).

 

Favonius Cornelius is, I think, most apposite in his remarks

Edited December 14, 2005 by Pertinax

[sullafelix]

How did the Latifunda contribute to the fall of the Republic in your opinion and how did it help the latter growth of the Empire?

 

Do you think the Latifunda was a good or bad system, explain why or why not.

 

Hopfully we can have a disscussion from this,

 

Sorry about spelling

Zeke

 

The Latifundia (spelling humbly corrected ) are supposed to ahve been large slave run estates that started in the middle of the second century. The traditional view (known as the Gracchan Tradition) is that rich landowners dripping in gold from the spoils of Rome's new empire were desperate for somewhere to invest their new money. So they pushed the poor landowners off the land. This led Tiberius Gracchus to bring in agrarian reforms in 133BC portioning up the public land (much of which was being occupied by these rich landowners) and handing out to the poor. Of course the legislation didn't work, Tiberius got bumped off as did his brother ten years later and the rich contiunued to expand their ownnership of the Italian countryside. This meant that the legions would have had problems recruiting until the Marian army reforms some 25 years later. Why? because the Roman army had a property qualification for citizens wishing to join up. OK so in summary of the first bit the traditonal view is that large slave run estates caused problems for the Republic by causing a large landless underclass to form and reducing the numbers of men available for the Roman Legions.

 

BUT (and its a big one)

 

The archaeological record does not support the traditional view. Although large scale depopulation of some areas of Italy can be found it is much more difficult to find latifundia. These do not seem to have appeared until the middle of the first century.

 

ALSO (yup there is more)

 

Studying the agricultural writiers like Varro, Columella and Cato it does not really appear that slave run estates were any more productive than free labour methods.

 

AND.......

 

We have to remember that while we think in terms of an economy, the term and the concept did not exist in the ancient world and so it may not be the most efficient form of production that won out. There were plenty of other considerations as well like religion, status etc.

 

Finally....(Oh Thank God they sigh!)

 

What was their impact on the Republic? It is hard to say because we do not yet understand what happened. Why was there depopulation? What was the attraction of slave methods of production? When did the latifundia actually start? Were the agricultural writers writing about the actuality or about the ideal way of farming?

 

Just in case you hadn't guessed you have stumbled upon a hot topic in current Republican History and Italian Archaelogy.......The jury is still out

 

 

Nice topic

 

SullaFelix

Edited December 15, 2005 by sullafelix

[Pertinax]

Yes very interesting stuff-my remark about the "wasteland" is qualified by this observation, the writers description was a social commentary- not one suggesting actual reduced numbers of persons on the land.Though if we have slave centred estates perhaps we will have the destuction of small villages and markets no longer required as distributive infrastructure.The concept of economy( as a full blown theoretical system of thought) was not extant-this is very true,I suggest that the concept of citizenship was paramount.

Edited December 15, 2005 by Pertinax

[Favonius Cornelius]

The archaeological record does not support the traditional view. Although large scale depopulation of some areas of Italy can be found it is much more difficult to find latifundia. These do not seem to have appeared until the middle of the first century.

 

I am not familiar with the particulars of archaeological sites and latifundia, but did not the Gracchi brothers on numbers of occasions mention them by their time? Perhaps in other areas of Italy where non-Roman citizens lived, you have a healthy spread of landed farmers, which as you both point out were not citizens. But the classic areas where Roman citizens use to farm, I would ask do these areas have traces of latifundia? This would be the general Latium area.

 

 

 

ALSO (yup there is more)

 

Studying the agricultural writiers like Varro, Columella and Cato it does not really appear that slave run estates were any more productive than free labour methods.

 

Hm, but wouldn't it be cheaper to rather than hire free farmers, to own them and be able to use them as you see fit? Also simply the mentality or belief that it was more productive this way would be enough to have it a popular thing to do.

 

 

AND.......

 

We have to remember that while we think in terms of an economy, the term and the concept did not exist in the ancient world and so it may not be the most efficient form of production that won out. There were plenty of other considerations as well like religion, status etc.

 

I fully agree that there are many other considerations, but I do not agree that the concept of economy was unknown. Perhaps not to the science it is today of course, but as you mention Cato and Varro clearly they are concerned with maximal output, which itself is an expression of economy.

[sullafelix]

I am not familiar with the particulars of archaeological sites and latifundia, but did not the Gracchi brothers on numbers of occasions mention them by their time? Perhaps in other areas of Italy where non-Roman citizens lived, you have a healthy spread of landed farmers, which as you both point out were not citizens. But the classic areas where Roman citizens use to farm, I would ask do these areas have traces of latifundia? This would be the general Latium area.

 

Surprisingly the Gracchi never mention latifundia by name, the name iself is a later invention. Nor do they mention what we would think of as large slave run estates. But Tiberius Gracchus is supposed to have travelled through Etruria and seen nothing but barbarian slaves and not a free man tilling the soil. So it is an implication perhaps, but we have to be careful not to assume. As for the archeological sites, latifundia definately existed but it would appear not until later. We have foud a fair few but virtually none pre-date the mid-first century, so some hundred years after the legislation of Gracchus. Personally I suspect that we are missing the "birth" sites of the latifundia and there is some kind of missing link, probably we are misinterpreting some of the medium size farms. After all the latifundia method of farming was very complex and must have developed rather than sprung ready made from the pen of Cato.

 

Hm, but wouldn't it be cheaper to rather than hire free farmers, to own them and be able to use them as you see fit? Also simply the mentality or belief that it was more productive this way would be enough to have it a popular thing to do.

 

Not neccessarily, free labour has an incentive to work , slave labour does not. The average life expectancy of these first generation barbarian slaves was only about 18 months after capture, They were kept in terrible conditions and the number of slave revolts that started with agricultural slaves at about this time is testament to that. Think forced labour or concentration camps and you will get the idea. Also many jobs in agricutlure especially something like viticulture are extremely skilled and it is thought that slaves did not neccessarily have experience of the right kinds of agriculture. Then of course there is the fact that you have to feed slaves, that significantly reduced the profitability of a farm as you needed more land to feed the slaves and not only did that land not make a profit itself but also it took manhours away from profit making activities.

 

 

I fully agree that there are many other considerations, but I do not agree that the concept of economy was unknown. Perhaps not to the science it is today of course, but as you mention Cato and Varro clearly they are concerned with maximal output, which itself is an expression of economy.

 

maximal output may have nothing to do with economy, it may be a matter of pride or status. However, I am being unduly pedantic, I know! Cato and Varro certainly wrote about making a profit. the problems is when you follow the sums through, it does not appear that they would have done! This may have come as a shock to them I'll grant you but nevertheless it seems as though they were paying too much for land and that the extra cost of purchasing and then looking after laves would have made the slave method of production unprofitable. Why did they do it? Dunno I'll let you know when I figure it out!

 

Cheers

SullaFelix

Edited December 16, 2005 by sullafelix

[Ludovicus]

How did the Latifunda contribute to the fall of the Republic in your opinion and how did it help the latter growth of the Empire?

 

Do you think the Latifunda was a good or bad system, explain why or why not.

 

Hopfully we can have a disscussion from this,

 

Sorry about spelling

Zeke

 

 

Zeke, this is an excellent question with relevance for today's world.

 

From Montesquieu:

 

"You cannot maintain a republic and empire simultaneously."

 

Seems like the latifundia system undermined the independent Roman citizen farmer's social position, drove him and his family into the large pool of unemployed in Rome. Off the land and into the hands of unscrupulous politicians and power players. Sounds like an old tune that survived classical times down to the present era.

Edited December 16, 2005 by Ludovicus