ngs, farm-husbandry
was scarcely any longer the predominant species of economy
during this epoch in any region of Italy proper, with the exception
perhaps of the valleys of the Apennines and Abruzzi. As to
the management of estates, no material difference is perceptible
between the Catonian system formerly set forth(50) and that
described to us by Varro, except that the latter shows the traces
for better and for worse of the progress of city-life on a great scale
in Rome. "Formerly," says Varro, "the barn on the estate was larger
than the manor-house; now it is wont to be the reverse." In the domains
of Tusculum and Tibur, on the shores of Tarracina and Baiae--
where the old Latin and Italian farmers had sown and reaped--
there now rose in barren splendour the villas of the Roman nobles,
some of which covered the space of a moderate-sized town with their
appurtenances of garden-grounds and aqueducts, fresh and salt water ponds
for the preservation and breeding of river and marine fishes,
nurseries of snails and slugs, game-preserves for keeping hares,
rabbits, stags, roes, and wild boars, and aviaries in which even cranes
and peacocks were kept. But the luxury of a great city enriches also
many an industrious hand, and supports more poor than philanthropy
with its expenditure of alms. Those aviaries and fish-ponds
of the grandees were of course, as a rule, a very costly indulgence.
But this system was carried to such an extent and prosecuted
with so much keenness, that e. g. the stock of a pigeon-house
was valued at 100,000 sesterces (1000 pounds); a methodical system
of fattening had sprung up, and the manure got from the aviaries
became of importance in agriculture; a single bird-dealer
was able to furnish at once 5000 fieldfares--for they knew how
to rear these also--at three denarii (2 shillings) each, and a single
possessor of a fish-pond 2000 -muraenae-; and the fishes left behind
by Lucius Lucullus brought 40,000 sesterces (400 pounds).
As may readily be conceived, under such circumstances any one
who followed this occupation industriously and intelligently
might obtain very large profits with a comparatively small outlay
of capital. A small bee-breeder of this period sold from his thyme-
garden not larger than an acre in the neighbourhood of Falerii
honey to an average annual amount of at least 10,000 sesterces
(100 pounds). The rivalry of the growers of fruit was carried so far,
that in elegant villas th