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A Great Agricultural Emigration from Italy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Extract

The lack of a statistical record compels us to base many of our conclusions in matters of ancient history on inference from casual notices. These notices, often obscure, are liable to misinterpretation. Even when rightly interpreted, their authority and their bearing on each other are often doubtful. In particular, there is an ever-present difficulty arising from the loss of other evidence, probably larger in bulk and not inferior in value. The discovery of new evidence sometimes upsets conclusions that at an earlier stage of inquiry were reasonable enough. Re-examination of old evidence often modifies them. But an early conclusion sometimes for lack of sufficient challenge glides into an assumption: if it falls in with the general views of historians, it imperceptibly affects their attitude as inquirers and gains authority by lapse of time.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright ©W. E. Heitland 1918. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

page 35 note 1 Plut. C. Gracchus 10, Appian, civ. i, 24; cf. Velleius, ii, 7, §5.

page 35 note 2 Appian, l. c..

page 35 note 3 Appian, l. c. Hardy, Six Roman Laws, p. 43.

page 35 note 4 Plut. C. Gr. 9 §2. Surely the πένητες in this passage are the Gracchan settlers, opposed to the ἄποροι of Drusus.

page 35 note 5 Plut. l. c. That this was proposed by Gracchus does not prove that it was carried out. See Hardy, pp. 45, 51. Was its lapse connected with repeal of the lex Rubria?

page 35 note 6 Plut. C. Gr. II.

page 35 note 7 Appian, civ. i, 24Google Scholar; Plut. l. c. II, 13Google Scholar.

page 35 note 8 ex lege Rubria quae fuit.

page 36 note 1 Diodor. xx, 8, 17 (Agathocles): cf. Justin, xxii, 5, 6, 7; Polyb. i, 29, §7 (Regulus); Liv. xxix, 25 (Scipio).

page 36 note 2 Varro, R.R. i, 1Google Scholar, §10; Plin. N.H. xviii, 35Google Scholar.

page 37 note 1 Rostowzew, Studien zur Geschichte des Römischen Kolonates, pp. 314–5. I cannot say that proof is given.

page 37 note 2 lex agr. 82–3.

page 37 note 3 It is perhaps not irrelevant to note that the having to deal with Roman citizens in the collection of dues was probably not welcome to the publicani, as is pointed out by Rostowzew, pp. 283–5, cf. P. 317. This would suggest that their interests were not, to say the least, favourable to the increase of citizen tenants.

page 38 note 1 Cf. Sall. Iug. 41, §8, Sen. epist. 90, §39, Iuv. xiv, 140–55, xvi, 36–9, and the case in Apul. Metam. ix, 35–8Google Scholar.

page 38 note 2 No doubt there were some. But in Cicero we only hear of them two or three times. In Caesar civ. i, 34, 56Google Scholar, we find them as the humble dependants of a great noble. The reference to armies of coloni, Rostowzew, p. 339, is greatly overdrawn. Mommsen, in Hermes, xv, 408Google Scholar, is more cautious.

page 38 note 3 Columella, i, 7.

page 38 note 4 It is to be remembered that Masinissa had already introduced his Numidian subjects to settled agriculture on a considerable scale. Polyb. xxxvii, 10, §§7, 8.

page 38 note 5 Cf. B. Afr. 36, 87–8, 90, 97, etc. Cf. Cic. pro Fonteio, §§11–15, where negotiatores aratores and publicani are classed with the coloni of Narbo.

page 38 note 6 B. Afr. I, 8, 20, 26, 67, 74, 87, 90, etc. For the word cf. Livy iv, 37, §2, xxvi, 47, §3.

page 39 note 1 B. Afr. 9, 65, and 40, villa permagna turribus iv instructa. Cf. the ΤεΤραπυρϒιαι in Syria and Asia Minor, Rostowzew, pp. 253–4, and the cases in Ammianus, xxix, 5, §§13, 25, xxx, 10, §4.

page 39 note 2 B. Afr. 20, stipendiarii aratores, cf. 36. They were not big possessors, Rostowzew, op. cit. p. 316.

page 39 note 3 lex agr. 60–1, Hardy, p. 51.

page 39 note 4 Rostowzew, p. 318.

page 39 note 5 Rostowzew, p. 378.

page 39 note 6 They were extraterritorial units. See the oft-cited passage Frontin. gromat, p. 53.

page 39 note 7 Plin. N.H. xviii, 35Google Scholar. The new organization of the imperial saltus is reasonably traced to Vespasian by Rostowzew, pp. 321 foll.

page 40 note 1 Appian, Pun. 136.

page 40 note 2 B. Afr. 32, 35, 56.

page 40 note 3 Caes. civ. i, 7Google Scholar.

page 40 note 4 Hardy, pp. 51, 54.

page 41 note 1 lex agr. 45, 60, 66.

page 41 note 2 lex agr. 60, 61.

page 41 note 3 Hardy, pp. 51, 54.

page 41 note 4 Hardy, p. 55.

page 42 note 1 Hardy, p. 81.

page 42 note 2 Sen. epist. 114, §26, unum videri putas ventrem cui et in Sicilia et in Africa seritur?

page 42 note 3 Included in Girard's Textes, ed. 4, pp. 200–1.

page 42 note 4 nonnullos cives etiam Romanos.

page 43 note 1 Rostowzew, pp. 388–9, rightly accounts for the failure of the empire by the fact that its needs grew faster than its means. He speaks of the effort to bring vast barbaric lands up to an imperial economic level so as not to be mere ballast. This effort exhausted the civilized old countries in the endeavour to develop the new. But he ascribes what was done mainly to the armies, which in the later age of which he is speaking were surely not drawn from the Italian or Greek populations whose exhaustion he displays. The whole passage seems to me a hasty utterance with no proof given.

page 43 note 2 Plin. epist. ii, 4Google Scholar, §3; iii, 19; v, 14, §8; viii, 2; vii, 30; ix, 36, 37; x, 8, §5.

page 43 note 3 See Seneca, de benef. vi, 4, §4; vii, 5, §3.

page 44 note 1 This seems to have been recognized by Tiberius Gracchus. Livy, ep. 58, Plut. Tib. Gr. 14, referring to the land-allotments in Italy. Nothing of the kind is recorded of Gaius. Mommsen, Staatsrecht,iii (under head das Gemeindevermögen) remarks that though only mentioned in an exceptional case (Liv. xl, 38, §6) the deductio of colonists can hardly have been carried out without grants of public money, and that the proposal of Tib. Gracchus as to the treasure of Attalus confirms this view.

page 44 note 2 Rostowzew, pp. 284–5 notes that appeals to the Senate from cities in Asia Minor seem mostly to have had a favourable answer. But he wisely adds that only favourable ones would be recorded.

page 44 note 3 The case of the agri decumates is of course exceptional, but I may note in passing that according to Tacitus, Germ. 29, the settlers there were Gaulish undesirables.

page 44 note 4 Given in Girard, Textes de droit Romain, ed. 47 pp. 200–1, 871–8, and Bruns, Fontes.

page 45 note 1 For this relation compare the case of Sicily, where the aratores sometimes sublet to coloni, Cic. ii in Verr. §55, cf. §27.

page 45 note 2 Livy, v, 12, §5, cf. vii, 25, §8, etc.

page 45 note 3 Dion. Cass. lii, 28.

page 46 note 1 See Gardthausen, , Augustus, i, pp. 768–9Google Scholar, citing schol. ad Juv. v, 3, for case of Maecenas.

page 46 note 2 Suet. Aug. 32.

page 46 note 3 Though slaves appear in most of his rustic scenes. See Sat. iii, 168–79, 223–9, vi, 55–7, xi, 64–76, 131–61.

page 46 note 4 Suet. Vesp. I.

page 47 note 1 Varro. R.R. iii, 16Google Scholar, §§10, 11. Plin. N.H. xiv, 4850Google Scholar.

page 47 note 2 Frontin. de aquis, 9, 11, 92.

page 47 note 3 Herod, vii, 4, cf. Capitolinus, Maximin, 14.

page 48 note 1 Frontin. grom. p. 53.

page 48 note 2 Gardthausen, , Augustus, i, p. 547Google Scholar.

page 48 note 3 Gardthausen, i, 549.

page 48 note 4 Sen. ad Helviam, 7, § 7, ubicumque vicit Romanus habitat.

page 48 note 5 Gardthausen, i, 551–2. For this class in the eastern Provinces see Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics Phrygia, pp. 71, 424–5. Such was Sittius in cic. pro Sulla, § 56 who sold his land in Italy to facilitate his financial aims in Mauritania.

page 48 note 6 Res gestae divi Augusti (1883), pp. 62–5, 119.

page 49 note 1 Dion. Cass. li, 4, § 6 ἐκείνων δὲ δὴ τοῖς μὲν πλείοσι τό τε Δυρράχιον καὶ τοὺς Φιλίππους ἄλλα τε ὲποικε̑ιν ἀντέδωκε, το̑ις δἐ λοιπο̑ις ἀντὶ τῆς χώρας τὸ μέν ἔνειμε τὸ δὑπέσχετο.

page 49 note 2 Gardthausen, i, 550.

page 49 note 3 The same caution is observable in the remarks of Vinogradoff, Growth of the Manor, p. 42.

page 49 note 4 In Hermes, xv, and in collected works.

page 49 note 5 C.I.L. viii, 577–603.

page 50 note 1 Mommsen, l. c. pp. 408–9. His appeal to the jurists of the Digest only proves that the tenancy-system had become common, not that it had always been so.

page 51 note 1 Verg. Buc. i, 70–2, ix, 4Google Scholar; Tac. Ann. xiv, 31Google Scholar; Juv. xvi; Apul. Met. ix, 39–42; Sulpic. Sever. dial. ii, 3.

page 51 note 2 Such as C.I.L. viii, 587, 8425–6, 8777, 8812.

page 51 note 3 Rostowzew, p. 339.

page 52 note 1 sowohl kapitalkräftige Unternehmer wie land-und arbeit-suchende Elemente aus Italien.

page 52 note 2 Rostowzew, l. c.

page 52 note 3 Rostowzew, pp. 62-75, speaking of Ptolemaic Egypt deals with the position of the Βασιλικοὶ γεωργοὶ and their constraints. On p. 73 he says plainly that the majority were the old native Fellahin of the villages.