he Roman people," the provinces; and the world learned by
experience, that the ruling state had modelled its new system of
government on that of the slave-holder. If, moreover, we have risen
to that little-to-be-envied elevation of thought which values no
feature of an economy save the capital invested in it, we cannot deny
to the management of the Roman estates the praise of consistency,
energy, punctuality, frugality, and solidity. The pithy practical
husbandman is reflected in Cato's description of the steward, as he
ought to be. He is the first on the farm to rise and the last to go
to bed; he is strict in dealing with himself as well as with those
under him, and knows more especially how to keep the stewardess in
order, but is also careful of his labourers and his cattle, and in
particular of the ox that draws the plough; he puts his hand
frequently to work and to every kind of it, but never works himself
weary like a slave; he is always at home, never borrows nor lends,
gives no entertainments, troubles himself about no other worship than
that of the gods of the hearth and the field, and like a true slave
leaves all dealings with the gods as well as with men to his master;
lastly and above all, he modestly meets that master and faithfully and
simply, without exercising too little or too much of thought, conforms
to the instructions which that master has given. He is a bad
husbandman, it is elsewhere said, who buys what he can raise on his
own land; a bad father of a household, who takes in hand by day what
can be done by candle-light, unless the weather be bad; a still worse,
who does on a working-day what might be done on a holiday; but worst
of all is he, who in good weather allows work to go on within doors
instead of in the open air. The characteristic enthusiasm too of high
farming is not wanting; and the golden rules are laid down, that the
soil was given to the husbandman not to be scoured and swept but to be
sown and reaped, and that the farmer therefore ought first to plant
vines and olives and only thereafter, and that not too early in life,
to build himself a villa. A certain boorishness marks the system,
and, instead of the rational investigation of causes and effects, the
well-known rules of rustic experience are uniformly brought forward;
yet there is an evident endeavour to appropriate the experience of
others and the products of foreign lands: in Cato's list of the
sorts of fruit trees, for in