The Latifundia System in Rome
The latifunda system, which established first in ancient Rome around 2nd century BC, were large farms which were owned by the wealthy classes. The latifundia became common in the Roman Empire as a result of the decline of Roman moral values and the political corruption that resulted from the acquisition of wealth and power that the Empire brought. With the breakdown of the Pax Romana and the inability of Roman law to provide security, small landowners increasingly turned to larger, more powerful estates for security.
Peasants turned over their land to the latifundia and formed a new class called the slaves. Slaves from conquered territory were bought and forced to manage and work. The abundant supply of slaves led to increase in worse labor condition and decrease in free laborers on these large estates. These estates turned plantation systems included a lot of working slaves, known as Latifundias, became popular and spread throughout many regions in the Roman. In my opinion, it is not ignorable that the latifundia led to huge increase in production and trade, so more profit and wealth. But these gains served only the wealthy landowners.
Latifundia benefited the elite class greatly, because it provided freedom as merchant traders and they used cheap slave labour force to gain more agricultural or animal product. With the latifundia, instead of previous demands to grow grain, a new age of farming was introduced, producing olive oil and wine, and herding sheep and cattle for trade. In my opinion the increasing gap between lords and slaves was a negative effect of latifunda that lead to some social problems. For instance, only the wealthy could afford to lease this land they eventually began treating it as if it were their own and not the states.
The small farmers and slaves became to depend on the wealthy class and lose their freedom. Sometimes there are several protests were all in attempt to lessen the power gap between the wealthy and poor, but, as the protests kept being overturned. However tension between the wealthy and peasants continued to increase. One of the important negative effects of latifundia system is “Over-farming”. As independent farmers were replaced by large slave-farmed estates the basis of farming became short-term profit; so there was little done in terms of conservation or properly fertilizing crops, so fertility decreased quickly in these agricultural areas. Large areas of southern Italy became literal dust bowls, as they remain today.
As a result, Italy could no longer feed itself. In sum, although the latifunda system raised the production and trade, it lead to negative social and environmental condition which would cause bigger problem in future in Rome.
