es of his own or of others--
conducted the gleaning and pressing under the inspection of some
persons appointed by the landlord for the purpose, and delivered the
produce to the master;(8) very frequently the landlord sold the
harvest on the tree or branch, and left the purchaser to look
after the ingathering.

Spirit of the System

The whole system was pervaded by the utter regardless-ness
characteristic of the power of capital. Slaves and cattle stood on
the same level; a good watchdog, it is said in a Roman writer on
agriculture, must not be on too friendly terms with his "fellow-
slaves." The slave and the ox were fed properly so long as they could
work, because it would not have been good economy to let them starve;
and they were sold like a worn-out ploughshare when they became unable
to work, because in like manner it would not have been good economy to
retain them longer. In earlier times religious considerations had
here also exercised an alleviating influence, and had released the
slave and the plough-ox from labour on the days enjoined for festivals
and for rest.(9) Nothing is more characteristic of the spirit of Cato
and those who shared his sentiments than the way in which they
inculcated the observance of the holiday in the letter, and evaded it
in reality, by advising that, while the plough should certainly be
allowed to rest on these days, the slaves should even then be
incessantly occupied with other labours not expressly prohibited.
On principle no freedom of movement whatever was allowed to them--a
slave, so runs one of Cato's maxims, must either work or sleep--and no
attempt was ever made to attach the slaves to the estate or to their
master by any bond of human sympathy. The letter of the law in all
its naked hideousness regulated the relation, and the Romans indulged
no illusions as to the consequences. "So many slaves, so many foes,"
said a Roman proverb. It was an economic maxim, that dissensions
among the slaves ought rather to be fostered than suppressed. In the
same spirit Plato and Aristotle, and no less strongly the oracle of
the landlords, the Carthaginian Mago, caution masters against bringing
together slaves of the same nationality, lest they should originate
combinations and perhaps conspiracies of their fellow-countrymen. The
landlord, as we have already said, governed his slaves exactly in the
same way as the Roman community governed its subjects in the "country
estates of t