Note 253 — SUBJECT-INDEX.
Reading edition
We must admit that we are not sure whether the facts of Roman agrarian history agree with our theory. In Rome slavery prevailed to a large extent at a time when the relative scarcity of land gave rise to the difficulties about the ager publicus.
We shall not attempt to solve this question. We will only mention our impression, on reading Weber’s Römische Agrargeschichte, viz. that, even in the time of the Empire, though some land fetched a high price, all disposable land had not yet been appropriated, and therefore the want of servile labour remained. At the beginning of the Empire free labourers were very scarce, and could only be got to help the landlords in sowing and at harvest time on condition of receiving a pretty considerable part of the harvest (Weber, l.c., pp. 236–238). Under Augustus and Tiberius the procuring of slaves from abroad became very difficult, and this led to kidnapping of men by the landlords (Ibid., p. 242). In the boundary provinces, even in later centuries, barbarians were imported and became coloni attached to the soil (Ibid., pp. 259, 260).
Slavery proper declined from the beginning of the Empire (Meyer, Altertum, p. 71); but the coloni, who originally seem to have been free tenants, gradually lost the right of removing from the manor they inhabited (Weber, l.c., pp. 242, 248–250, 256–258).
We must, however, bear in mind that the writers on the economic history of Rome still disagree very much, not only as to the explanation of the facts, but as to the facts themselves. See Max Weber’s article on “Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum”, in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, 3rd edition, Vol. I. ↑