Malaria and Rome: A History of Malaria in Ancient Italy, Robert Sallares [reading a book TXT] 📗

olive production even when the urban population was no more than 200,000 people or so; the same was doubtless true in antiquity.³⁷ If one assumes that the free population declined substantially during the Late Republic and the Empire, following Brunt’s conclusions, then a large slave-labour force on the land of Latium and southern Etruria is the main alternative, as Tiberius Gracchus observed on his way to Numantia. Cornell has recently summarized the population history of Latium as follows: The mass emigration of tens of thousands of poor peasant families must have led to a gradual depopulation of the old ager Romanus—a phenomenon that is in fact referred to in the sources of the classical period—and implies a radical change in the organization of landholdings and the manner of their exploitation. What must have happened is that the land was concentrated into larger holdings, which were worked by slaves who were brought in to replace the former peasant smallholders. The model therefore implies a continuous exchange of populations; poor Roman citizens were sent away to colonize lands whose original inhabitants were brought back to Roman territory as slaves. The process was complicated by a change in the relative distribution of the inhabitants in the old ager Romanus, with a greater proportion than before living in the city, and a corresponding reduction in the population of the countryside.³⁸

As far as it goes, this analysis is quite logical, in accordance with the totality of the evidence, and perfectly plausible. The people ³⁶ Pliny, NH 14.8.61 on Setian wine, the favourite of the emperors, states that it grew above Forum Appii ( nascitur supra Forum Appi), on the hills flanking the Pontine Marshes, the Monti Lepini, cf. 16.67.173; Martial, Epig. 10.74.10–11: nec quae paludes delicata Pomptinas ex arce clivi spectat uva Setini (nor the tender grape of Setia which from the hill slope overlooks the Pontine Marshes) and 13.112; Strabo 5.3.10.237C. The Monti Lepini reach altitudes of over 1500

metres.

³⁷ De Felice (1965: 70–82).

³⁸ Cornell (1995: 393–4).

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who ended up in colonies in other parts of Italy must have come from somewhere. The large numbers of slaves generated by Roman imperialism, most notably those from the Second Punic War and those from Epirus in 167 , must have been put to work somewhere. However, it leaves one fundamental issue unresolved; namely, what was the motivation for Romans and Latins to leave the countryside of Latium in the first place? Cornell considered that the peasants of the ager Romanus were impoverished, had inadequate landholdings, and consequently were ready to emigrate.

However, some parts of the old ager Romanus were potentially very good for farming (about a sixth), especially the valleys, as well as (potentially!) the coastal plains. Latium yielded everything in the way of agricultural produce, according to Strabo. It was also a well-watered lowland territory, an attribute that was rather unusual in relation to many other lowland Mediterranean regions characterized by a semi-arid climate.³⁹ In terms of its agricultural potential, Latium was surely much better off than Attica in Greece during the period of the Athenian empire in the fifth century , yet Thucydides noted that most Athenians still lived in the rural demes of Attica at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. In addition, Latium produced prize wines. Why should peasants in an agrarian society have wanted to emigrate from the district that produced the emperor Augustus’ favourite wine?

The answer to this question is clearly given by Strabo: because the district of Setia was pestilential. Setia had very rich agricultural land, the Campi Setini. However, it was always portrayed by the ancient sources as suffering from a shortage of manpower. This complaint was already made in 379 , according to Livy.⁴⁰ In 209

 Setia (along with other communities in the region such as Circeii and Ardea) was one of the rebellious Latin colonies which informed the Roman consuls that they were unable to supply soldiers for the war against Hannibal. The long-running manpower shortage at Setia in antiquity was almost certainly a consequence of malaria, which probably had a long history in at least some corners of the Pontine region.⁴¹ Livy wrote that Roman soldiers were reluctant to ³⁹ Garnsey (1988 a) on the effects of the Mediterranean climate on agriculture.

⁴⁰ Livy 6.30.9: Eodem anno Setiam ipsis querentibus penuriam hominum novi coloni adscripti (In the same year new colonists were sent to Setia, whose people were complaining themselves about a shortage of manpower.).

⁴¹ Livy 27.9.7 and 29.15.5 for the events of 209 ; Livy 41.8.7 for the movement of Latins 250

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return home after the siege of Capua in 342  because their land in Latium was pestilential.⁴² Dionysius of Halicarnassus also stated that one of the attractions of life in Campania for the Romans was the healthiness of the plain for farmers.⁴³ Those Roman soldiers were simply following the sort of advice already given by the consul Regulus in the third century  and by the later agronomists, namely to avoid pestilential land (see Ch. 11 below on other aspects of avoidance behaviour in relation to malaria). The unhealthiness of Latium was to remain a major aspect of its history for well over two millennia. Delumeau suggested that a recrudescence of malaria in the sixteenth century helped to explain migration from the countryside to the city of Rome in that period.⁴⁴

The agricultural potential of their land was certainly a consideration, but it was not the only important consideration in the minds of the peasants who formed the backbone of the Roman army, when they chose to emigrate from the Latin countryside. The final proof comes from a consideration of the fortunes of colonies in different regions and environments. Inland colonies were generally very successful. However, colonies located on the coast, including both the Latin colonies of Cosa and Paestum (founded in 273 ) and several small Roman colonies (besides Graviscae), were usually unsuccessful. The case of Cosa (modern Ansedonia), whose problems have