the imperfect processes of reaping and of threshing. This
result is probably attributable rather to the scanty development
of rational mechanics than to the obstinate clinging of the farmers
to use and wont; for mere kindly attachment to the system of tillage
transmitted with the patrimonial soil was far from influencing the
practical Italian, and obvious improvements in agriculture, such
as the cultivation of fodder-plants and the irrigation of meadows,
may have been early adopted from neighbouring peoples or independently
developed--Roman literature itself in fact began with the discussion
of the theory of agriculture. Welcome rest followed diligent and
judicious labour; and here too religion asserted her right to soothe
the toils of life even to the humble by pauses for recreation and
for freer human movement and intercourse. Every eighth day (-nonae-),
and therefore on an average four times a month, the farmer went
to town to buy and sell and transact his other business. But rest
from labour, in the strict sense, took place only on the several
festival days, and especially in the holiday-month after the completion
of the winter sowing (-feriae sementivae-): during these set times
the plough rested by command of the gods, and not the farmer only,
but also his slave and his ox, reposed in holiday idleness.

Such, probably, was the way in which the ordinary Roman farm was
cultivated in the earliest times. The next heirs had no protection
against bad management except the right of having the spendthrift
who squandered his inherited estate placed under wardship as if he
were a lunatic.(12) Women moreover were in substance divested of
their personal right of disposal, and, if they married, a member
of the same clan was ordinarily assigned as husband, in order to
retain the estate within the clan. The law sought to check the
overburdening of landed property with debt partly by ordaining, in
the case of a debt secured over the land, the provisional transference
of the ownership of the object pledged from the debtor to the
creditor, partly, in the case of a simple loan, by the rigour of the
proceedings in execution which speedily led to actual bankruptcy;
the latter means however, as the sequel will show, attained its
object but very imperfectly. No restriction was imposed by law on
the free divisibility of property. Desirable as it might be that
co-heirs should remain in the undivided possession of their heritage,