The latifundia is what? What was her role in Rome?

The latifundia is what? What was her role in Rome? It would seem that there might be an easier answer to this question. However, the opinions of researchers on this subject differ. Everyone interprets the notion of latifundia in his own way. Let's consider some interpretations of this notion in more detail.

The latifundia is what?

If we translate this word literally, we will get a "vast estate". At first glance, everything is quite simple. But modern historians have proposed several options for determining the latifundia. They were based on the fact that "a vast estate" can be called a site and in 100 south and 1000 south.

For example, K. Buecher meant a large farming under the latifundia, that is, an oikos with a huge number of slaves. Slaves were divided into groups led by overseers. These, in turn, lived in the barracks. And Grevs, giving a definition, stressed that the latifundia was a kind of fusion of small allotments into one huge economy. And Shulten expresses a different point of view. He argues that the latifundia is an allotment 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 latifundist called a man who owned estates in different parts of Italy. But later the so-called process of land concentration began to occur, and huge estates began to appear.

Definition of latifundia in the context of the economic life of Roman society

In Weber's works the latifundia is contrasted with the middle estates that Cato described. In particular, it was noted that the latifundia is a compact allotment of rather large sizes with an intensive type of management and rationally organized slave labor.

J. Salvioli was of the opinion that the latifundia is an allotment, the profit from which exceeded the needs of one family and which it could not independently process. At Cato latifundia was considered a donation of 150-200 south. The greatest spread of latifundia was in the sparsely populated areas. It is noteworthy that they used an extensive method of management. In general, the latifundia is a kind of feudal estate, similar to the manors of the times of Charlemagne.

Two types of latifundia - what is the difference?

Soviet scientists carried out fundamental research on Roman latifundia. So, M. Rostovtsev distinguished two types of farms. The first type is large estates, which far exceeded the farms described by Cato with thousands of slaves, a master's villa, colas, plows and even a village in which slaves who worked on plantations lived. Over time, the latifundia, organized according to this type, worked exclusively on the market according to the capitalist model. The Campanian latifundia is the second variant of the organization of management. This is not just one large estate, but a collection of several small plots. They were organized by the type found near Pompeii small villas.

They were, in fact, capitalist enterprises. However, such an option for the organization of latifundia was atypical for Rome and was rare.

Is it true that latifundia ruined Italy?

As in many cases, a mistake in translation can be the reason for 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 translated as "latifundia ruined Italy." This, undoubtedly, points to the deplorable state of agriculture in Italy, and M. Reinac prefers to translate this phrase as "italy begins to lose latifundia." In other words, large slaveholding estates 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 the latifundia is a large land plot with slaves working on it.