Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/577

 1922 569 Reviews of Books Ayricola ; a Study of Agriculture and Rustic Life in the Graeco-Roman World from the Point of View of Labour, By W. E. HEITLAND. (Cam- bridge : University Press, 1921.) MR. HEITLAND writes, in his introductory chapter, ' I do not apologize for putting my authorities in the witness box and questioning them one by one '. No apology in fact was needed : for albeit he is well versed in the voluminous literature of the subject which has accumulated in recent times though it is surprising that he was unable to procure Beaudouin's Les Grands Domaines dans V Empire Romain, or even to consult the articles of which it is a reprint in the Nouvelle Revue Historique et de Droit the real value of his book resides just in the fact that he takes us into the presence of the witnesses and elicits their evidence by a skilful examina- tion. Which of us, for example, has had the patience to dredge the Digest for the pearls of knowledge which may be found in its depths with regard to the conditions under whfch the tenant-farmer lived ? Mommsen brought his knowledge of the jurists to bear on these questions in a valuable paper on the alimenta ; but Mr. Heitland has brought out some fresh points and made a full collection of the relevant passages. On all the difficult questions which arise in the history of Roman husbandry Mr. Heitland gives a reasoned opinion based upon documents and without any trace of dogmatism ; but he clearly leans to the belief that slavery was in the main the economic base on which the agricultural edifice was raised, and that free labour was the exception rather than the rule. He squarely faces the problem of the relation of Vergil's Georgics to the realities of his time, and solves it by suggesting that the work was ' inspired ' by the rulers of the new dispensation. Certainly it is true that in one respect Vergil ignores conditions which can be proved to have existed, namely, in the absence of all reference to tenant-farming, which Mr. Heitland shows in various passages to have existed for half a century and more before the Georgics were written ; some of the most important references for this appear for the first time in a foot-note on p. 224, which should be read in connexion with pp. 194 f. We may agree with Mr. Heitland in the main on this point, noting that manumission, which Mr. Heitland regards as rare in the Ciceronian period (p. 195), came to play a part of some importance in the first and second centuries (pp. 257, 369). It would have been much to the point to refer to the interesting, if rather tantalizing, inscription of C. Castricius Calvus from Forli. 1 1 Corpus Inscript. Lat. xi. 600.