第9章 Chapter II(7)

In the philosophers,whom Cicero,Seneca,and the elder Pliny sufficiently represent (the last indeed being rather a learnedencyclopaedist or polyhistor than a philosopher),we find a general consciousness of the decay of industry,the relaxation ofmorals,and the growing spirit of self-indulgence amongst their contemporaries,who are represented as deeply tainted withthe imported vices of the conquered nations.This sentiment,both in these writers and in the poetry and miscellaneousliterature of their times,is accompanied by a half-factitious enthusiasm for agriculture and an exaggerated estimate ofcountry life and of early Roman habits,which are principally,no doubt,to be regarded as a form of protest against existingabuses,and,from this point of view,remind us of the declamations of Rousseau in a not dissimilar age.But there is little oflarger or just thinking on the prevalent economic evils and their proper remedies.Pliny,still further in the spirit of Rousseau,is of opinion that the introduction of gold as a medium of exchange was a thing to be deplored,and that the age of barterwas preferable to that of money.He expresses views on the necessity of preventing the efflux of money similar to those ofthe modern mercantile school --views which Cicero also,though not so clearly,appears to have entertained.Cato,Varro,and Columella concern themselves more with the technical precepts of husbandry than with the general conditions ofindustrial success and social well-being.But the two last named have the great merit of having seen and proclaimed thesuperior value of free to slave labour,and Columella is convinced that to the use of the latter the decline of the agriculturaleconomy of the Romans was in a great measure to be attributed.These three writers agree in the belief that it was chiefly bythe revival and reform of agriculture that the threatening inroads of moral corruption could be stayed,the old Roman virtuesfostered,and the foundations of the commonwealth strengthened.Their attitude is thus similar to that of the Frenchphysiocrats invoking the improvement and zealous pursuit of agriculture alike against the material evils and the socialdegeneracy of their time.The question of the comparative merits of the large and small systems of cultivation appears tohave been much discussed in the old Roman,as in the modern European world;Columella is a decided advocate of thepetite culture.The jurists were led by the coincidence which sometimes takes place between their point of view and that ofeconomic science to make certain classifications and establish some more or less refined distinctions which the moderneconomists have either adopted from them or used independently.They appear also (though this has been disputed,Neri andCarli maintaining the affirmative,Pagnini the negative)to have had correct notions of the nature of money as having a valueof its own,determined by economic conditions,and incapable of being impressed upon it by convention or arbitrarily alteredby public authority.But in general we find in these writers,as might be expected,not so much the results of independentthought as documents illustrating the facts of Roman economic life,and the historical policy of the nation with respect toeconomic subjects.From the latter point of view they are of much interest;and by the information they supply as to theCourse of legislation relating to property generally,to sumptuary control,to the restrictions imposed on spendthrifts,toslavery,to the encouragement of population,and the like,they give us much clearer insight than we should otherwisepossess into influences long potent in the history of Rome and of the Western world at large.But,as it is with the morelimited field of systematic thought on political economy that we are here occupied,we cannot enter into these subjects.Onematter,however,ought to be adverted to,because it was not only repeatedly dealt with by legislation,but is treated more orless fully by all Roman writers of note,namely,the interest on money loans.The rate was fixed by the laws of the TwelveTables;but lending on interest was afterwards (B.C.341)entirely prohibited by the Genucian Law,In the legislation ofJustinian,rates were sanctioned varying from four to eight per cent according to the nature of the case,the latter being fixedas the ordinary mercantile rate,whilst compound interest was forbidden.The Roman theorists,almost without exception,disapprove of lending on interest altogether.Cato,as Cicero tells us,thought it as bad as murder ("Quid fenerari?Quidhominem occidere?"De Off ,ii.25);and Cicero,Seneca,Pliny,Columella all join in condemning it.It is not difficult to seehow in early states of society the trade of money-lending becomes,and not unjustly,the object of popular odium;but thatthese writers,at a period when commercial enterprise had made considerable progress,should continue to reprobate itargues very imperfect or confused ideas on the nature and functions of capital.It is probable that practice took little heedeither of these speculative ideas or of legislation on the subject,which experience shows can always be easily evaded.Thetraffic in money seems to have gone on all through Roman history,and the rate to have fluctuated according to the conditionof the market.