Latifundia - what is it? What was her role in Rome? It would seem that it might be easier to answer this question. However, the opinions of researchers on this score differ. Each interprets the concept of latifundia in its own way. Let's consider some interpretations of this concept in more detail.
Latifundia - what is it?
If you translate this word literally, then we will get a "vast estate." At first glance, everything is quite simple. But modern historians have suggested several options for determining latifundia. They were based on the fact that a site in both 100 south and 1000 south can be called an “extensive estate”.
For example, C. Bucher meant latifundia an extensive economy, that is, oikos with a huge number of slaves. Slaves were divided into units led by overseers. These, in turn, lived in the barracks. And Grevs, giving a definition, emphasized that latifundia was a kind of merger of small plots into one huge economy. And Schulten expresses a different point of view. He claims that latifundia is a plot of land that was used as a pasture. But over time, this concept was transformed due to the fact that the allotment was divided into separate sections. At the same time, the person who owned estates in different parts of Italy was called a latifundist. But later the so-called process of land concentration began to take place, and huge estates began to appear.
The definition of latifundia in the context of the economic life of Roman society
In Weber's works, latifundia is contrasted with the middle estates described by Cato. In particular, it was noted that latifundia is a compact allotment of rather large sizes with an intensive type of management and rationally organized labor of slaves.
J. Salvioli was of the opinion that latifundia is an allotment, the profit from which exceeded the needs of one family and which she could not handle on her own. Under Cato, latifundia was considered an allotment in the 150-200 south. The most common latifundia received in sparsely populated areas. It is noteworthy that they used an extensive method of managing. In general terms, latifundia is a kind of feudal estate, similar to estates from the time of Charlemagne.
Two types of latifundia - what is the difference?
Soviet scientists conducted basic research on Roman latifundia. So, M. Rostovtsev singled out two types of farms. The first type is large estates, which significantly exceeded the Caton households with thousands of slaves, a master's villa, colas, plows and even the village where the slaves who worked on the plantations lived. Over time, latifundia organized by this type worked exclusively for the market according to the capitalist model. Campanian latifundia is the second option for organizing business. This is not one large estate, but a combination of several small plots. They were organized according to the type discovered near Pompeii's small villas.
They were, in fact, capitalist enterprises. However, this type of organization of latifundia was atypical for Rome and was not common.
Is it true that the latifundia destroyed Italy?
As in many cases, a translation error can cause a larger error. Analyzing the phrase "lalifundia perdidere Italiam", which belongs to Pliny the Elder, M. Reinak notes that it is out of the general context if we translate it as "latifundia destroyed Italy." This, no doubt, indicates the deplorable state of agriculture in Italy, and M. Reinak prefers to translate this phrase as "Italy begins to lose latifundia." In other words, large slaveholdings are declining. Moreover, this process took place not only in the vicinity of the capital, but also in the provinces. In any case, we can say that latifundia is a large land plot with slaves working on it.