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The Productivity of Labour in Roman Agriculture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

K. D. White
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Extract

Some years ago, in a short review of some of the major questions concerning agricultural efficiency in Roman times, I pointed out that we do not possess the materials on which to base an accurate computation. In attempting to make an assessment of agricultural efficiency we should require as a minimum basis a body of statistical information on the following points: first, the numbers of persons engaged; second, average yields per acre of certain crops for comparison with average yields in other producing countries; and third, statistics of output measured in man-hours according to recognized methods of determining the productivity of labour. The type of dficulty mentioned here is not confined to research in ancient agriculture; lack of records, and paucity of precise information, make investigation difficult in almost every department of ancient economic history. But lack of precise information has not deterred historians from making rough analyses and generalizations. The evidence on wheat-yields showed, inter alia, that it is not legitimate to use Columella’s general average return on Italian wheat of four-fold as evidence of a generally low standard of productivity in cereals (De Re Rust., III, iii, 4). So far as crop-yields are concerned, the common postulate of a low level of agricultural technique cannot be upheld.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 39 , Issue 154 , June 1965 , pp. 102 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1965

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References

Notes

[1] ‘The efficiency of Roman farming under the empire’, Agricultural History, 30, 1956, 88.

[2] As claimed, for example, by A. H. M. Jones, Ancient Economic History (London, 1948), 18.

[3] See Colum., I, viii, 1–14 (the overseer); 15–19 (the slaves).

[4] See Bréhaut, E., Cato the Censor on Farming (New York, 1933), xxxiii–viiGoogle Scholar and passages cited; Varro Rer. rust., 1, xvii, xviii; Colum., 1, vii, viii.

[5] Dumont, R., Types of Rural Economy (London, 1957), 209–28.Google Scholar

[6] Dumont, op. cit., 218.

[7] See, for example, Cato, De Agri Cultura, 144–9.

[8] All the above figures are taken from R. Dumont, op. cit., 233 (Lombardy), 240–2 (Pegola estate), 202–4 (Cheliff), 226 (Guadalquivir), 236 (Ferrara).

[9] Energy and Society (New York, I955), 135–6. This book contains much valuable information, and provides much food for thought on the relative productivity of various systems of cultivation.

[10] ‘Rome’s fall reconsidered’, Political Science Quarterly, 21, 1916, 2, 203.

[11] Gray, L. CA History of Agriculture in the Southern United States to 1860, 1, 169.

[12] Gray, op. cit., 1, 170.

[13] From a private communication by R. Clark.

[14] Gray, op. cit., 1, 170–1.

[15] See the comparative table on p. 103 above.

[16] Boak, A. E. R., Man-power Shortage and the Decline of the Roman Empire in the West (Ann Arbor, 1955).Google Scholar

[17] E.g. by M. I. Finley in JRS, 48, 1958, 15664.

[18] See Gray, op. cit., 11, 601, and references cited.

[19] P. A. Brunt, review of W. L. Westermann and others, The Slave Systems of Classical Antiquity, JRS, 48, 1958, 164.

[20] E.g. Colum. IV, vi, 3.

[21] Pliny, XVIII, 172–3 (the wheeled plough); ibid., 296; Pallad., VII, ii, 2 (the reaping machine).

[22] See, for example, Digest, XXXII, 97, and Heitland, W. E., Agricola (Cambridge, 1921), 368–71 Google Scholar.

[23] Yeo, C. A., ‘The economics of Roman and American Slavery’, Finanzarchiv, n.f., 13, 3, 1952, 466 Google Scholar.

[24] Ibid., 467.

[25] Varro, op. cit., I, xvii, 3.