"Legionary farmers" Topic

Pardon a thick question not directly wargaming related, but I suddenly found myself pondering…

Legionaries strove to complete their service & receive a land grant. Getting the chance to be a farmer was what every Roman hankered for.

So these guys join up as youngsters & spend 25 years travelling the world, meeting lots of interesting people & killing them. Most will be from the urban poor with no practical experience whatever of farming. Granted, their service will have given them great expertise in digging, probably some livestock management skills, but overall..?

I was struck by the case in Zimbabwe where the black population aspires to 'land' but when Mugabe handed out farms to his stooges it has not gone well… because they don't have the means or knowledge to farm-

Were the legions encouraging soldiers to learn these skills on service via cultivating small plots in spare time? Did they have 'consultants' who assisted retired legionaries? Or did success depend on buying slave(s) who knew how to farm?

Any expertise on this?

I recon they would expect to have slaves to do all the hard work for them.

Well, many of the recruits were farm boys…..

And eventually 'empty' land became scarce so that a cash gift was made.

And yeah, the retired guys became 'gentlemen' farmers and had people for all that hard digging and so on.

I don't think that they wanted to be as much a farmer (working the land themselves) as much as a landowner. I don't think the legions particularly gave them job training in agriculture; there was probably talk among the soldiers as to what to do when they got the land. Land was a source of wealth and opened the door to more possibilities (sell your surplus, rent to others, etc.). That's what the nobility did, and they were probably immitating them. And it was probably all the upward mobility that the proletarii could hope for, given the extreme barriers that the nobility kept in place to preserve their oligarchy.

I think you're right that many from the city would have little or limited farming experience and probably failed at running their farming businesses when they got their grants. Others probably adapted and were successful. Still others fromthe countryside might have had a better chance. A lot probably depended on the individual.

As stated above, I tend to think that the goal was probably often not so much to be a farmer in the sense that we know it now, but rather a farm owner.

Doug

Well, they spent very little time fighting, a little marching, and a lot of time in garrison. There's always a small village that built up around the garrisons with stores, small level manufacturing and gardens. I imagine in their down time there was plenty of time to learn to farm.

If they survived life of a soldier, the age that they were likely to acquire the farm would be beyond their prime. These farms would have to be worked by children or slaves.

Ancient people, even urban people, had to know much more about food production and the weather than a modern person. Farming would not require the extensive reinvention of oneself that it would today. As recently as 1790, 90% of the US labor force worked in agriculture. Prior to the modern era, that number has rarely been below 80% worldwide. With effort, nearly anyone could farm using ancient or medieval farming methods.

It was probably the lack of business acumen or passion for farming that caused many of the former soldiers to fail as farmers.

So the soldier would not be rearing his sons for the army life – he'd be priming them for his retirement plan?

Well, that's more a social historian question. If a retired vet already had children long before he got land, they probably had something else in mind (yeah, they're not supposed to marry and have kids, but I feel kinda certain it happened a bit). Children produced after he's a landowner would have more options (military, running the farm, pursuing some upward mobility if possible).

In many instances, an older, hard-working slave called a vilicus would run the farm if the owner was away. This is described in the writings of a Roman in De Agricultura. He would oversee the other slaves.

As for working the land, mostly slaves and maybe some freedmen. Slave-based agriculture seems to have really picked in the end to mid-4th century BC, noted from the diminishing issues of debt slavery, which was abolished at that time (a lot sooner than traditional notions that it was the Punic Wars that led to mass slavery in Italy). By imperial times, slaves were apparently very cheap.

so how much land did a legionary get?

Short answer: Not sure about the imperial period…in the period of the Republic conquered land was considered Ager Romanus, public land on which Roman citizens could farm. In the mid Republic there were laws passed as to how much public land a person could farm on, but (as usual) the rich took more than their share and left the poor with little. There were many episodes of political unrest amongst the plebs over this, the most famous being the Gracchi brothers in 133 and 123 BC.

As to the imperial period, I get the feeling the conquered land was doled and became private property. Surely there are figures or quotes that tell exactly how much.

I have seen 25-30 iugera speculated for the late 1st century. 1 iugerum = 0.625 acres. Pliny the Elder says that "The man must be looked upon as a dangerous citizen, for whom 7 iugera is not enough." 7 iugera seems about the size of a field for one family. So Cato's ideal farm of 16 workers seems about in keeping with land grants in the 15-20 acre range.

During times of early Imperial conquest, that would have been as high as 200 iugera, but the land was often marginal. After Augustus, the praemia, discharge payment, was generally taken in cash. It started as 3,000 denarii in the time of Augustus and increased over time as currency was devalued. It equated to 8 to 10 years of pay (stipend).

I want to know how many legionaries saved up their sesterces for retirement then started a chain of taverns/brothels/baths outside of permanent legion camps and called them "Thank Jupiter It's Saturnalia"! Good way to get rich off the troops and offer some r & r from a day of soldiering.