Chapter 4 — New Lands For Old

CHAPTER IV

NEW LANDS FOR OLD

The intensity of the effort to reclaim small bits of eroding land was proof of overpopulation and of a dangerous drain upon the productive qualities of the soil.¹ The danger of soil exhaustion was peculiarly great in Latium for several reasons. The soil there had not had a long time for accumulation. Along the extensive ridges of lava that radiate from the Alban hills toward the Anio, along the Appian Way, and down toward Ardea, the surface was so hard that soil-making was well-nigh impossible. In such places the plow cannot now be driven. A mere scratch in the thin turf exposes the lava. In other places conditions were more favorable, since the ash and tufa are fairly productive for plants of powerful roots when covered with a humus of proper physical consistency and containing some nitrogenous matter. The surface was, however, new and therefore thin everywhere except in alluvial valleys. To add to these unfortunate conditions, the ash had fallen unevenly in knolls that time has not yet shaped down into a peneplain. In consequence, the Campagna presents to the abrading rains of winter a very uneven surface, and when the Latin settlers had once stripped the turf and forest from that surface, the thin soil was in danger of washing away.

¹ See Chapter I.

It is not surprising that the Latin farmer found it necessary to entice the thieving rainwater into underground channels with the utmost speed. The surface loam was very precious and had to be saved. Notwithstanding his efforts, however, the exhausting harvests and continual erosion did their work, and Latin agriculture was doomed, and with it the thick adornment of prosperous Latin villages. The situation could well be illustrated by the history of agriculture in the sandy districts of central Pennsylvania, where the traveler today passes through large areas of country almost uninhabited, though well studded with barns and farmhouses now abandoned and falling into ruin. Here the settlers of two centuries ago found a rich but thin alluvial soil lying over a subsoil of sand. A century of reckless tilling drew great wealth from the soil, but when that had been exploited, the land was of little value and the farmers left it.

The situation in Latium never grew equally desperate, nor will it, since the subsoil there, even though slow to yield its wealth to the feeble roots of mere annual vegetation, is nevertheless comparatively rich. Yet, to judge from the constant cries of distress reported by the early books of Livy, the fifth and fourth centuries before our era were years of increasing exhaustion. To add to the desperate situation, the extensive forests² which had ensured rainfall well into the summer and had helped husband the moisture in the dry season were ever giving way to the axe. The pressing demand for land resulted in the clearing of every tract that could be made arable; the abundant population laid large demands upon the forests for lumber; and commerce, as we have seen, carried Latin timber as far as Greece, now well stripped of trees. The deforestation of the Volscian mountains south of the Campagna resulted in the ruin of that whole region, for the rains washed the mountainsides clear of soil, carried the detritus down into the flat plain below, choked the course of the streams, and turned what was once the garden spot of several large cities into malarial marshes—a pest not only to its own dwindling population but also to villages as far off as Satricum and Astura. Norba, Cora, Setia, and Privernum dwindled into unimportant hamlets. The same process of deforestation turned the Sabine hills into bare rocks. Precipitation decreased, the dry seasons grew in length, the rain that fell found its quick course to the sea, and Latium gradually became the semi-arid plain that it is today.

² Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, I, 432.

While this change was in process, the farmers naturally sought remedies. There was a scarcity of manure because, during the period of very intensive tillage, when every acre was in use, it had not been profitable to keep cattle, since beef was rarely served as food and horses were not in general use. When, however, many farmers found the loam too thin for further cultivation, they had no choice but to seed their fields into pastureland, since turf could at least protect whatever loam remained. A few oxen were needed as draft animals, and the wealthy lords of the city provided some market for the meat. Sheep were also in demand for wool, though this had generally come by barter from the mountain pastures that were fit only for sheep-raising. Goats might be raised for milk and cheese.

The chief difficulty for the shepherd and herdsman was the lack of grass in August and September, which necessitated the laborious work of cutting leaves from trees.³ However, in the fourth and third centuries, when the neighboring mountain pastures of the Volscian and Sabine hills fell within the political sphere of Rome, a profitable combination of summer and winter pastures became possible. Whether it was the Latin landlord who sought to tide over the arid summer by resorting to the mountain pastures in the dry season, or whether it was, as in the middle of the nineteenth century, the Sabine flock owners who discovered green and warm winter pasturage for their flocks in the abandoned farms of the Campagna, we do not now know. But once the discovery was made, the Latin landlords were quick to seize the opportunity to find a newly profitable use for land that would no longer yield a reasonable harvest of grain. The earliest record we have of Roman slaves in great numbers shepherding on the mountains near Rome dates from the Second Punic War,⁴ but since such notices are incidental and rare, we need not assume that the custom was then of recent date. He who has had the misfortune of trying to make his way from Tivoli to Rome against the endless procession of sheep going mountainward during the first week of July knows well what Horace⁵ meant when he wrote:

Iam pastor umbras cum grege languido... quaerit

³ Pliny, H. N. XVIII, 314.

⁴ Livy, XXXII, 26.

⁵ Horace, Carm. III, 29, 21; cf. Varro, R. R. II, 1, 16; II, 2, 9; 5, 11; L. L. V, 36; Pliny, Epist. II, 17, 28.

This change, however, had serious consequences. Profitable sheep- and cattle-raising required capital, if indeed pastures were to be provided in two regions; and obviously, since the shepherding of a hundred sheep required little more labor than the care of half a dozen, the poor farmer with his small plot fell quite behind in the competition. Thus the small farmers gradually yielded ground to the master who could command the capital of large-scale ranching, and a general “enclosure” movement began at the expense of the grain fields. Again, since little skill was required, slaves were bought to care for the herds, and henceforth an area of a thousand acres, which in the days of profitable tillage had supported a hundred peasant families, now fell to the charge of a few foreign slaves living at random. The depopulation of the Campagna proceeded apace.

Another industry presently hurried the process of crowding agriculture out of the Alban region. Here the abrasion of the soil had been most rapid because the slopes were steeper, but it was discovered that while the weak roots of annual plants like wheat and barley could no longer cope with the soil, grapevines and olive trees⁶ could readily nourish themselves even in the tufa and ash that remained. All that is necessary is to hack out and crush the tufa and plant the roots deep with a handful of loam for the plant to feed upon when young. When the plant grows strong, it finds its own nourishment where grain fails in the struggle. From that time to this, the vineyards and olive groves have never disappeared from the hills and valleys about the Alban lake. Obviously, this industry also was developed by men of wealth who could afford to wait five years for the first vintage and fifteen years for the first returns on their investment in olive groves.

⁶ The festival of the Vinalia was recognized in the calendar of the regal period, but wine was not much used in the oldest cults. At the time of Pyrrhus the vineyards of the Alban hills are mentioned, Pliny, N. H. XIV, 12. In classical times the vine was cultivated farther down into the plains than it is today, for it is mentioned as a product even of Ardea (Colum. III, 9), Gabii (Galen, 6, p. 334), and other places now used solely for grain or pastureland.

The olive was imported later, its culture being connected with Castor and Pollux. Pliny quotes the price at Rome for 249 B.C. as being 10 asses for 12 lbs.—a very high price (XV, 2). Plautus’ (Capt. 489) joke about the “combine” of oil merchants in the Forum implies that olive oil had become a staple of the market before the second century. Latium, however, did not raise a surplus for export until Cicero’s day.

It is customary to say that when Rome gained possession of Sicily in the First Punic War, and thus inherited from Carthage the grain tithes of that island, she destroyed agriculture in Latium by flooding the Latin farmer’s market with cheap grain. But is it probable that the Roman landlords, who after all controlled the state, would have adopted a policy so ruinous to their own interests? Or is it likely that they were so stupid as not to see that this would be the result of bringing the Sicilian tithes to Rome? Is it not far more reasonable to suppose that the process we have sketched had actually progressed far by the middle of the third century, that Latium had already become a failure as a grain land, that the landlords had already turned to other industries, and that Sicilian grain filled a need already keenly felt?

The momentous changes here sketched in brief compass were the work of a long period, from the fifth to the second century. They necessitated, of course, a constant reshifting of a population which we have found reason to believe was very dense in the sixth century. A similar exhaustion of the soil in Greece somewhat earlier had driven large hordes to colonize foreign lands and had turned many toward commercial and industrial enterprises that revolutionized such cities as Athens and Corinth. Rome sought neither remedy directly. Her citizens did not abandon Rome for foreign lands, nor did Rome turn to manufacturing and commerce, although there seem to be signs in the building of Ostia and in the legislation of Appius Claudius⁷ that there was for a while a tendency in that direction. The surplusage of Roman population found an outlet instead in the territorial expansion which began under the vigorous democratic leaders who came to the fore in the middle of the fourth century, soon after the plebeians had won their contest for the consulship in 366.

⁷ Meyer, art. Plebs in Conrad’s Handwörterbuch, expresses the belief that when Appius, about 312, built the aqueduct into the lower sections of the city, paved the Appian Way, and permitted the liberti to register their vote in whatever ward they chose, he intended to encourage and to give political power to an industrial proletariat. In view of the present state of our archaeological knowledge of the period, the theory seems somewhat to outrun the evidence.

In 343 the Romans aided the Campanians in driving back the Samnite mountaineers. The war resulted after two years in an allied victory through which Rome received some territory north of Campania for colonization. The year after this war, the Latin peoples revolted from Rome’s hegemony and, being defeated, were incorporated into the Roman state, part as full citizens and part, for a probationary period, as non-voting citizens. There were, of course, losses of men on both sides, and some land was confiscated and settled by Romans. In 328 a new Samnite war broke out, which gradually spread through the whole of central Italy, including the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Sabine peoples. For forty years there was almost constant warfare. This was finally followed by the war with Pyrrhus, whose defeat left Rome the recognized leader of a federation extending from the Arno throughout the whole of Italy.

This era of territorial expansion followed, as we have seen, a period of overpopulation and land hunger which had expressed itself constantly in a clamor for economic and social amelioration. Historians who have written of the period have always been disposed to conclude that land hunger was the driving force which led to the expansion. Possibly this conclusion is correct. There can be no doubt of the desire for more land. An agricultural people, when hard-pressed economically, thinks in terms of territorial expansion, and the Romans, though very legalistic, were as quick as many other peoples have been to take mortal offense at a neighbor’s behavior when they needed their neighbor’s food.

However, we have no right to be induced to this conclusion either by the shortcut argument of post hoc ergo or by an a priori faith in the economic interpretation of history. It is only fair to point out first that the Roman people, who had for centuries to defend their titles to desirable plainlands against the inroads of hungry mountaineers, had thereby developed to a maximum the lowlander’s sense of property rights and justice.⁸ It is not by mere chance that Rome’s civil code has been adopted by all the world as the basis of law. Moreover, a careful study of Rome’s method of utilizing her victories reveals the behavior not of a land-hungry bandit but of a far-seeing political organizer. A parcel of land was often appropriated by way of indemnity, and it was frequently a fertile plot that would invite and retain its colonists, but the individual portions were generally very small, just sufficient for a military post, and among the settlers was always included a fair proportion of the allied peoples.

⁸ In Roman Imperialism, Chapters III and IV, I have tried to explain Rome’s foreign policy for this period.

The new settlements of the fourth century show unmistakably that the government kept the needs of the state foremost, not the cry of citizens for new allotments. The first settlements were made at the seaport towns of Antium and Tarracina, which had exposed Latium to the raids of sea rovers and of Greek and Etruscan fleets. But only three hundred men were sent to each, enough presumably to take political control and command the ports; and the allotments consisted of a few acres per man. Colonists were next settled on some land of Privernum to control the pass over the Volscian mountains behind Tarracina, land which was too exposed to the malaria of the Pontine marshes to be chosen as highly desirable for economic reasons.

Above Capua, in the territory taken from the Sidicini, allies of the Samnites, the Latin colony of Cales was planted. It contained 2,500 settlers, partly Romans who gave up their citizenship for the Latin status, and partly Latin and Campanian allies. Cales, in fact, is an instance of the typical border colony that Rome favored. Good enough land was chosen to induce the settlers to remain and guard a perilous spot; Romans and allies were mingled in recognition of mutual rights and to serve as a cohesive group in the federation; and the situation was selected chiefly for its strategic value: Cales guarded the inner road between Rome and Capua, and it separated the Samnites from the newly subjected Aurunci. Similar military colonies were planted at Luceria, Suessa, Interamna, and Alba.

Finally, the Falernian fields above Cumae, where the coast road debouches into Campania, were taken and settled by Roman citizens. The reason for the appropriation was partly strategic and partly punitive, for the inhabitants, apparently an old enclave of Etruscans,⁹ had aided the Samnites against Rome. The land was indeed excellent, but had good land been the chief concern, Rome need not have sent her citizens one hundred miles away.

⁹ Vergil, Aen. VIII, 724, makes Halaesus, a Faliscan, the leader of the troops of the ager Falernus; see Deecke, Rosch. Lex., sub voc. Halaesus.

These are the settlements made in the period of expansion during the fourth century, and they are fairly representative of Rome’s policy for the next century as well. The only difference is that in the third century the settlement of Romans alone is of infrequent occurrence, the military colony becomes the standard type, and some lands, such as the Ager Gallicus, fail for a long time to find takers. These are all indications that by the third century Rome suffered not from land hunger but from a scarcity of men needed for her task.

An adequate statement of how far Rome’s expansion was conditioned by economic pressure would be hazardous to attempt without a complete review of the whole history of Rome’s foreign policy. The close connection between the economic revolution and the political expansion cannot be denied. We may at least say that the overpopulation of Latium apparent in the early period, and the distress of the people due to a gradual deterioration of the soil, played an important part in setting into activity the instincts and impulses which led the government into an aggressive foreign policy in 343; subsequent ventures and the possession of a dense population of farmers enabled the government to build up an irresistible army which made conquest relatively easy. The wastage of the wars, however, and the requirements for military colonies at strategic points soon absorbed the surplusage to such an extent that the third century discloses an insufficiency rather than a congestion of population. Furthermore, the evidence shows clearly that the government from the beginning was controlled by a well-ordered policy which considered political and military needs paramount, and that it never betrayed these to the exigencies of the economic pressure exerted through individual citizens.

It is equally manifest, however, that the political expansion of Rome reacted permanently upon the economic life of the people. The constant availability of good lands which the state desired to have occupied against possible encroachment always attracted men and capital not otherwise occupied. Thus the Romans now felt no incentive to try new enterprises, to develop industries, or to enter commerce on land or sea. During this period of expansion, Rome almost isolated herself from transmarine influences. The contact with the outer world that Etruscan agencies had formerly encouraged was weakened. Temples built at Rome in the sixth century had been almost Ionic in style, but the art of the fourth century shows few traces of contemporaneous Aegean influence.¹⁰ The rude masonry of yellow tufa that remains from this period shows that Rome had ceased to follow the progress of Greek art; not until the second century did Roman architecture become aware of how far it had been outdistanced.

¹⁰ Pinza, Bull. Com. 1912, 53.

In the industrial arts the story is the same. Praeneste, the inland hill city only twenty miles away, developed in the third century a group of silversmiths whose skill and artistry are still a source of pleasure.¹¹ [OCR unclear: It 1! at Koouui crafts of the pcru^ L. tiiice both cttks were] equally Latin. The explanation of Praeneste’s new development probably lies in the fact that the city had limited its territorial bounds by a treaty of “equality” with Rome, which tied it for all time to the possession of some fifty square miles and compelled its surplus energies to find expression in industry. It might have been well for Rome had she, to some measure, been forced back upon her inventive skill in the same way. But through the results of Rome’s expansionist ventures, her citizens, always invited to settle new lands and to invest their excess capital in real property, became for all time farmers and real-estate capitalists. Necessity, the mother of crafts as well as of arts, never forced them into apprenticeship in those occupations that develop the love for artificial beauty and train the instincts for commercial enterprise.

¹¹ See Matthies, Praen. Spiegel, on Praenestine metalwork.

CHAPTER IV

NEW LANDS FOR OLD

The intense effort to reclaim small patches of eroding land proved both that the region was overpopulated and that its soil was being dangerously drained of its productive qualities.[1] The danger of soil exhaustion was especially great in Latium for several reasons. The soil there had not had a long period in which to accumulate. Along the extensive ridges of lava radiating from the Alban Hills toward the Anio, along the Appian Way, and south toward Ardea, the surface was so hard that soil formation was almost impossible. In such places, even now, a plow cannot be driven into the ground. A mere scratch in the thin turf exposes the lava.

Elsewhere, conditions were more favorable, since ash and tufa are fairly productive for deep-rooted plants when covered with humus of the proper physical consistency and containing some nitrogenous matter. However, except in the alluvial valleys, the surface soil was everywhere new and therefore thin. To make matters worse, the ash had fallen unevenly, forming knolls that time has not yet worn down into a peneplain. Consequently, the Campagna presents a very uneven surface to the eroding winter rains. Once the Latin settlers had stripped the turf and forest from that surface, the thin soil was in danger of being washed away.

[1] See Chapter I.

It is not surprising that the Latin farmer found it necessary to channel the thieving rainwater underground as quickly as possible. The surface loam was extremely precious and had to be saved. Despite his efforts, however, exhausting harvests and continual erosion did their work. Latin agriculture was doomed, along with the dense array of prosperous Latin villages.

The situation can be illustrated by the history of agriculture in the sandy districts of central Pennsylvania, where travelers today pass through large, almost uninhabited areas that are nevertheless dotted with barns and farmhouses, now abandoned and falling into ruin. There, settlers two centuries ago found a rich but thin alluvial soil lying over a sandy subsoil. A century of reckless cultivation drew great wealth from the soil, but once that wealth had been exploited, the land had little value and the farmers left it.

Conditions in Latium never became equally desperate, nor will they, since the subsoil there is comparatively rich, even though it yields its resources only slowly to the weak roots of annual plants. Yet, judging from the continual cries of distress reported in the early books of Livy, the fifth and fourth centuries before our era were years of increasing exhaustion. To make the desperate situation worse, the extensive forests,[2] which had ensured rainfall well into the summer and helped conserve moisture during the dry season, were continually giving way to the axe. The urgent demand for land led to the clearing of every tract that could be made arable. The large population required great quantities of lumber from the forests, and commerce, as we have seen, carried Latin timber as far as Greece, which by then had been largely stripped of trees.

The deforestation of the Volscian Mountains south of the Campagna ruined that entire region. Rain washed the mountainsides bare of soil, carried the debris down into the flat plain below, choked the courses of the streams, and transformed what had once been the garden district of several large cities into malarial marshes. These marshes afflicted not only their own dwindling population but also villages as far away as Satricum and Astura. Norba, Cora, Setia, and Privernum dwindled into unimportant hamlets. The same process of deforestation reduced the Sabine Hills to bare rock. Precipitation decreased, the dry seasons grew longer, and the rain that did fall quickly ran off to the sea. Latium gradually became the semi-arid plain it is today.

[2] Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, I, 432.

While this change was taking place, the farmers naturally looked for remedies. Manure was scarce because, during the period of very intensive cultivation when every acre was in use, it had not been profitable to keep cattle: beef was rarely served as food, and horses were not generally used. When many farmers found that the loam had become too thin for further cultivation, however, they had no choice but to sow their fields as pasture, since turf could at least protect whatever loam remained. A few oxen were needed as draft animals, and the wealthy lords of the city provided some market for meat. Sheep were also in demand for their wool, though wool had generally been acquired by barter from mountain pastures fit only for raising sheep. Goats could be raised for milk and cheese.

The main difficulty faced by shepherds and herdsmen was the lack of grass in August and September, which made it necessary to undertake the laborious work of cutting leaves from trees.[3] In the fourth and third centuries, however, the neighboring mountain pastures of the Volscian and Sabine Hills came within Rome’s political sphere, making a profitable combination of summer and winter pastures possible.

We do not now know whether Latin landlords, seeking to survive the arid summer, began using the mountain pastures during the dry season, or whether—as in the middle of the nineteenth century—Sabine flock owners discovered green, warm winter pastures for their flocks on the abandoned farms of the Campagna. But once the opportunity had been discovered, Latin landlords quickly seized it, finding a profitable use for land that could no longer produce a reasonable grain harvest.

The earliest surviving record of Roman slaves shepherding in large numbers on the mountains near Rome dates from the Second Punic War.[4] But because such notices are incidental and rare, we need not assume that the custom was then of recent origin. Anyone who has had the misfortune to make his way from Tivoli to Rome against the endless procession of sheep moving toward the mountains during the first week of July knows well what Horace meant when he wrote:

Iam pastor umbras cum grege languido... quaerit.

[3] Pliny, N. H. XVIII, 314.

[4] Livy, XXXII, 26.

[5] Horace, Carm. III, 29, 21; cf. Varro, R. R. II, 1, 16; II, 2, 9–11; 5, 11; L. L. V, 36; Pliny, Epist. II, 17, 28.

This change, however, had serious consequences. Profitable sheep and cattle raising required capital, particularly if pastures had to be provided in two different regions. Moreover, because shepherding a hundred sheep required little more labor than caring for half a dozen, the poor farmer with his small plot could not compete. Small farmers therefore gradually gave way to landowners who could command the capital needed for large-scale ranching, and a general “enclosure” movement began at the expense of the grain fields.

Again, because little skill was required, slaves were purchased to care for the herds. From that point onward, an area of a thousand acres that, during the days of profitable cultivation, had supported a hundred peasant families was placed in the charge of a few foreign slaves living scattered about. The depopulation of the Campagna proceeded rapidly.

Another industry soon accelerated the process by which agriculture was pushed out of the Alban region. There, the erosion of the soil had been most rapid because the slopes were steeper. But it was discovered that although the weak roots of annual plants such as wheat and barley could no longer cope with the soil, grapevines and olive trees[6] could easily nourish themselves even in the remaining tufa and ash.

All that was necessary was to break up and crush the tufa, then plant the roots deeply with a handful of loam to feed the young plant. Once the plant became strong, it found its own nourishment where grain failed in the struggle. From that time to the present, vineyards and olive groves have never disappeared from the hills and valleys around the Alban Lake. This industry, too, was obviously developed by wealthy men who could afford to wait five years for the first vintage and fifteen years for the first returns on their investment in olive groves.

[6] The festival of the Vinalia was recognized in the calendar of the regal period, but wine was not widely used in the oldest cults. At the time of Pyrrhus, the vineyards of the Alban Hills are mentioned by Pliny, N. H. XIV, 12. In classical times, vines were cultivated farther down into the plains than they are today, for wine is mentioned as a product even of Ardea (Colum. III, 9), Gabii (Galen, 6, p. 334), and other places now used solely for grain or pasture.

The olive was imported later, its cultivation being associated with Castor and Pollux. Pliny states that in 249 B.C. the price at Rome was 10 asses for 12 pounds—a very high price (XV, 2). Plautus’ joke about the “combine” of oil merchants in the Forum implies that olive oil had become a staple of the market before the second century (Capt. 489). Latium, however, did not produce a surplus for export until Cicero’s time.

It is customary to say that when Rome gained possession of Sicily in the First Punic War, and thus inherited from Carthage the island’s grain tithes, she destroyed agriculture in Latium by flooding the Latin farmer’s market with cheap grain. But is it likely that Roman landlords, who after all controlled the state, would have adopted a policy so ruinous to their own interests? Or is it likely that they were too stupid to foresee that importing the Sicilian tithes to Rome would have this result?

Is it not much more reasonable to suppose that the process outlined above had already advanced far by the middle of the third century; that Latium had already failed as a grain-producing region; that the landlords had already turned to other industries; and that Sicilian grain met a need that was already keenly felt?

The momentous changes briefly outlined here took place over a long period, from the fifth to the second century. They naturally required the continual redistribution of a population that, as we have found reason to believe, had been very dense in the sixth century. A similar but earlier exhaustion of the soil in Greece had driven large groups to colonize foreign lands. It had also turned many people toward commercial and industrial enterprises that revolutionized cities such as Athens and Corinth.

Rome directly pursued neither remedy. Her citizens did not abandon Rome for foreign lands, nor did Rome turn to manufacturing and commerce, although the building of Ostia and the legislation of Appius Claudius[7] seem to indicate that, for a time, there was a tendency in that direction. Instead, Rome’s surplus population found an outlet in the territorial expansion begun under the vigorous democratic leaders who came to the forefront in the middle of the fourth century, soon after the plebeians won their struggle for the consulship in 366.

[7] Meyer, article “Plebs” in Conrad’s Handwörterbuch, expresses the belief that when Appius, around 312, built the aqueduct into the lower sections of the city, paved the Appian Way, and allowed the liberti to register their votes in whichever ward they chose, he intended to encourage an industrial proletariat and give it political power. In view of the present state of our archaeological knowledge of the period, the theory seems to go somewhat beyond the evidence.

In 343, the Romans helped the Campanians repel the Samnite mountaineers. After two years, the war ended in an allied victory through which Rome received some territory north of Campania for colonization. In the year following this war, the Latin peoples revolted against Rome’s supremacy. After their defeat, they were incorporated into the Roman state, some as full citizens and others, for a probationary period, as non-voting citizens. There were, of course, losses of men on both sides, and some land was confiscated and settled by Romans.

In 328, a new Samnite war broke out. It gradually spread throughout central Italy and came to include the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Sabine peoples. For forty years, warfare was almost continuous. This was finally followed by the war with Pyrrhus, whose defeat left Rome the recognized leader of a federation extending from the Arno throughout the whole of Italy.

As we have seen, this era of territorial expansion followed a period of overpopulation and land hunger that had repeatedly expressed itself in demands for economic and social relief. Historians writing about the period have always been inclined to conclude that land hunger was the driving force behind the expansion. Possibly that conclusion is correct. There can be no doubt about the desire for more land. When an agricultural people is under severe economic pressure, it thinks in terms of territorial expansion. The Romans, though highly legalistic, were as quick as many other peoples have been to take mortal offense at a neighbor’s behavior when they needed that neighbor’s food.

However, we have no right to reach this conclusion either through the short-sighted argument of post hoc ergo or through an a priori faith in the economic interpretation of history. It is only fair to point out, first, that the Roman people had for centuries been forced to defend their claims to desirable lowland territory against the attacks of hungry mountaineers. This experience had developed to its highest degree the lowlander’s sense of property rights and justice.[8] It is not merely by chance that Rome’s civil code has been adopted throughout the world as a foundation of law.

Moreover, a careful study of the way Rome used her victories reveals the conduct not of a land-hungry bandit but of a far-sighted political organizer. A parcel of land was often appropriated as an indemnity, and it was frequently fertile land that would attract and retain colonists. But the individual allotments were generally very small—only large enough to support a military post—and the settlers always included a fair proportion of people from allied communities.

[8] In Roman Imperialism, Chapters III and IV, I have tried to explain Rome’s foreign policy during this period.

The new settlements of the fourth century clearly show that the government placed the needs of the state first, not the citizens’ demands for new allotments. The earliest settlements were established at the seaports of Antium and Tarracina, which had exposed Latium to raids by sea rovers and by Greek and Etruscan fleets. But only three hundred men were sent to each—presumably enough to take political control and command the ports—and each man’s allotment consisted of only a few acres.

Colonists were next settled on some of Privernum’s land to control the pass across the Volscian Mountains behind Tarracina. This land was too exposed to malaria from the Pontine Marshes to have been considered highly desirable for economic reasons. Above Capua, in territory taken from the Sidicini, who were allies of the Samnites, the Latin colony of Cales was established. It contained 2,500 settlers: partly Romans who surrendered their citizenship for Latin status, and partly Latin and Campanian allies.

Cales is, in fact, an example of the typical frontier colony favored by Rome. Land good enough to induce the settlers to remain and guard a dangerous point was selected. Romans and allies were mixed together in recognition of their mutual rights and to serve as a cohesive group within the federation. The site was chosen chiefly for its strategic value: Cales guarded the inland road between Rome and Capua and separated the Samnites from the recently subjected Aurunci. Similar military colonies were established at Luceria, Suessa, Interamna, and Alba.

Finally, the Falernian fields above Cumae, where the coastal road enters Campania, were seized and settled by Roman citizens. The reason for this appropriation was partly strategic and partly punitive, because the inhabitants—apparently an old Etruscan enclave[9]—had aided the Samnites against Rome. The land was certainly excellent, but if good land had been Rome’s chief concern, she would not have needed to send her citizens a hundred miles away.

[9] Vergil, Aen. VIII, 724, makes Halaesus, a Faliscan, the leader of the troops of the ager Falernus; see Deecke, Rosch. Lex., under “Halaesus.”

These were the settlements established during the period of expansion in the fourth century, and they fairly represent Rome’s policy during the following century as well. The only difference is that, in the third century, settlements consisting entirely of Romans became uncommon. The Latin military colony became the standard type, and some lands, such as the Ager Gallicus, failed for a long time to attract settlers. All these facts indicate that, by the third century, Rome suffered not from land hunger but from a shortage of the people needed to carry out her task.

It would be hazardous to attempt an adequate statement of the extent to which economic pressure shaped Rome’s expansion without completely reviewing the history of Rome’s foreign policy. The close connection between the economic revolution and political expansion cannot be denied. We may at least say that the overpopulation evident in early Latium, together with the distress caused by the gradual deterioration of the soil, played an important part in activating the instincts and impulses that led the government into an aggressive foreign policy in 343. Subsequent ventures, along with the existence of a dense farming population, enabled the government to build an irresistible army that made conquest comparatively easy.

The losses caused by war and the need for military colonies at strategic points, however, soon absorbed the surplus population so thoroughly that the third century reveals a shortage rather than a congestion of population. Furthermore, the evidence clearly shows that, from the beginning, the government was guided by an orderly policy that treated political and military needs as paramount. It never betrayed those needs to the demands of economic pressure exerted through individual citizens.

It is equally clear, however, that Rome’s political expansion had a permanent effect on the people’s economic life. Good lands, which the state wished to have occupied as protection against possible encroachment, were continually available and always attracted otherwise unoccupied people and capital. As a result, the Romans felt no incentive to attempt new enterprises, develop industries, or engage in commerce by land or sea.

During this period of expansion, Rome almost isolated herself from influences across the sea. Her contact with the outside world, formerly encouraged by Etruscan agencies, weakened. Temples built in Rome during the sixth century had been almost Ionic in style, but the art of the fourth century shows few traces of contemporary Aegean influence.[10] The crude yellow-tufa masonry surviving from this period shows that Rome had ceased to keep pace with the progress of Greek art. Not until the second century did Roman architecture become aware of how far it had been left behind.

[10] Pinza, Bull. Com. 1912, 53.

The story was the same in the industrial arts. Praeneste, an inland hill city only twenty miles away, developed during the third century a group of silversmiths whose skill and artistry remain a source of pleasure.[11] It is impossible to say the same about the Roman crafts of the period, even though both cities were equally Latin.

The explanation of Praeneste’s new development probably lies in the fact that a treaty of “equality” with Rome had restricted the city’s territorial boundaries. For all time, it was confined to the possession of about fifty square miles, forcing its surplus energies to find expression in industry. It might have been better for Rome if she had, to some extent, been similarly forced to rely on her own inventive skill.

Instead, as a result of Rome’s expansionist ventures, her citizens—continually invited to settle new lands and invest their surplus capital in real property—became permanently committed to farming and real-estate investment. Necessity, the mother of crafts as well as of arts, never forced them into apprenticeships in occupations that develop a love of artificial beauty and train the instincts for commercial enterprise.

[11] See Matthies, Praen. Spiegel, on Praenestine metalwork.