inferior members, was not his servant in the same sense as the rest. And such appears to be the state Jerome observes, iv. Pars i. 196, ad princ. Ep. ad Algasiam, Villicus autem proprie villæ gubernator est: unde et a villa villicus nomen accepit. oikovóμos autem tam pecuniæ, quam frugum et omnium quæ dominus possidet, dispensator est. unde et oikovoμikos Xenophontis pulcherrimus liber est, qui non gubernationem villæ, sed dispensationem universæ domus (Tullio interpretante) significat. Arrian, in Epictet. iii. 22. p. 443, 444, uses the word synonymously, apparently, with πíтpоπоs: οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐν οἰκίᾳ καλῶς οἰκουμένῃ παρελθών τις αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ λέγει, Εμὲ δεῖ οἰκονόμον εἶναι· εἰ δὲ μὴ, ἐπιστραφεὶς ὁ κύριος, καὶ ἰδὼν αὐτὸν σοβα ρῶς διατασσόμενον, ἑλκύσας ἔτεμεν. The enlarged sense of which it is capable appears from the Memorabilia of Xenophon, iii. iv. 7, where Socrates is arguing that the best οἰκονόμος would make the best στρατηγός, enumerating the following qualities as common to both, or at least as necessary to both; viz. the faculty of rendering their respective subjects tractable and obedient; of assigning to every one of them that kind of work and duty of which he is most capable; of distributing rewards and punishments, with due regard to the merits of the case; of conciliating the good-will of their inferiors or dependents; of providing themselves with proper helps and assistances; of taking care of what they have, and losing nothing; and the like. He concludes with the observation, that the management of an household differs not in the kind of its duties, but only in the nature of its subject-matter, and the extent of its jurisdiction, from that of a community; that the subjects of both are men, the instruments of both are men; and that the same talents, and the same wisdom or discretion, are requisite for the due discharge of the duties of the master of a family, as for those of the governor of a state. The Economica of Xenophon could not fail to speak of the duties of an éiтрожоs, who, for the purposes supposed in that treatise, relating, as it does entirely, to the ordering and management of an household in the country, would very nearly answer to the character of the Roman villicus. The first of his requisites which it enumerates, is that of his being well-disposed to his master, and his master's interests (cap. xii. sect. 5); the of the case in the present instance; where the party described as the steward of the rich man, is still plainly not represented as his servant. next, that he be careful of his property, industrious, and attentive to his duties; a quality of which, he observes, drunkards, sluggards, or persons addicted to women, are incapable, (ibid. 6); the next, the faculty of governing the labouring part of the household, appointing them their tasks, and seeing that they be duly discharged, xiii. 3; the next, thriftiness in the management of his master's property, honesty in abstaining from converting it to his own use-and the like, xiv. 2. Cato, De Re Rustica v. observes; Hæc erunt vilici officia. disciplina bona utatur. . . alieno manum abstineat. sua servet diligenter. si quis quid deliquerit, pro noxa bono modo vindicet. familiæ male ne sit, ne algeat, ne esuriat, opere bene exerceat, &c. &c. The same topics are much more fully discussed by Columella, locis citatis. The antiquity of a steward, an overseer, or a ruler of an household, next to the master in authority, and representing him in relation to the servants, is as great as the relation of master and servant, that is, slave. We read in Genesis, xv. 2, that Abraham had an head servant, Eliezer of Damascus, no doubt a slave as much as the rest of his family; and yet he had at least three hundred and eighteen vernæ, or servants born in his house, Gen. xiv. 4. This servant, we are told, Gen. xxiv. 2, 10, ruled over all that he had; all his master's goods were in his hand. He was, therefore, strictly his olkovóμos, in the same capacity as the person described by that name in either of our Saviour's parables. Such a kind of steward did Joseph become, in the household of Potiphar in Egypt, Gen. xxxix. 4; and such an one had Joseph himself in his own family, after his elevation to the government of Egypt, Gen. xliii. 16. We may presume too, that Obadiah, 1 Kings xviii. 3, stood in a similar relation to the household of Ahab; with this possible difference only, that the stewards in the former cases might be strictly slaves, but Obadiah was probably a native Jew. That part of the duties of the steward, or oikovóμos in ques It is a proof, therefore, of that attention to propriety, which may be discovered in all our Saviour's tion, which the parable, in the former instance, chiefly insisted on, was the giving the household of his master their meat in due season. Proverbs, xxxi. 15, it is reckoned among the other good qualities of a perfect housewife, that " she riseth also while "it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a por"tion to her maidens," Jerome, ii. 521. ad princip., Quæstiones Hebraicæ, explains Gen. xv. 2: of Abraham's steward, qui universa dispensat, et distribuit cibaria familiæ suæ. The due season in question, from very ancient times, was once a month. Thus Hesiod recommends the тpiakàs, or last day of the month, τριηκάδα μηνὸς ἀρίστην ἔργα τ ̓ ἐποπτεύειν, ἠδ ̓ ἁρμαλιὴν δατέασθαι. So Theocritus, Opera et dies 764. πολλοὶ ἐν ̓Αντιόχοιο δόμοις, καὶ ἄνακτος ̓Αλεύα, Idyll. xvi. 34. The Penesta were the native serf population of Thessaly. We find old Hesiod, among other maxims, advising to reduce by one half the allowance of the cattle in the winter months, and by something less the regular allowance of the men. τῆμος θώμισυ βούσ ̓ ἐπὶ δ ̓ ἀνέρι καὶ πλέον εἴη It is a precept of Phocylides, Opera et dies 557. γαστρὸς ὀφειλόμενον δασμὸν παρέχου θεράποντι. Fragm. 210. Theophrastus, Historia Plantar. viii. 4, mentions a particular kind of σîros (bread corn), which was more cœconomical for the use of slaves, than any other: εἶναι δὲ ἰσχυρὸν τοῦτον καὶ βαρὺν, οὐχ ὥσπερ τὸν τρίμηνον, κοῦφον· διὸ καὶ τοῖς οἰκέταις ὑπάρχειν. The daily allowance to a slave among the Greeks was a chœnix or a choenix and an half of flour: for which reason, the Corinthians, who once possessed great numbers of slaves, were called by the Pythian oracle, xowikoμéтpai: Athenæus, vi. 103. Seneca tells parables, that, at the commencement of a narrative, turning upon the conduct of a steward of this deus that a slave's allowance, once a month, was quinque modii and quinque denarii: Epp. 80. 7. A monthly payment of some kind is attested also by Lucian, as an usual thing, i. 679: De mercede conductis 23: ἀλλ ̓ ὁπόταν, ὦ βέλτιστε, τῆς νουμηνίας ἐπιστάσης, ἀναμιχθεὶς τῷ Πυῤῥίᾳ καὶ τῷ Ζωπυρίωνι, προτείνῃς τὴν χεῖρα ὁμοίως τοῖς ἄλλοις οἰκέταις, καὶ λάβῃς ἐκεῖνο ὅ τι δήποτε ᾖ τὸ διδόμενον, τοῦτο ἡ πράσις ἐστί. Est aliquid, says Seneca, quod dominus præstare servo debeat, ut cibaria, ut vestiarium: De Beneficiis, iii. xxi. 1—Familia vestiarium petit, victumque: tot ventres avidissimorum animalium tuendi sunt: emenda vestis, &c.: De Tranquillitate, viii. 5—Τί γάρ μοι κακὸν ἦν ; ἄλλος μ' ἐνέδυεν, ἄλλος μ ̓ ὑπέδει, ἄλλος ἔτρεφεν, ἄλλος ἐνοσοκόμει, ὀλίγα αὐτῷ ὑπηρέτουν: Arrian. Epictet. iv. 1. 537. 15-Cf. Xenoph. Cyri Dis. viii. iii. 41-Varro, De Re Rustica, i. 17. Deterior tamen hic, qui liber non erit illis Juvenal. ix. 121. Rogabat Denique cur unquam fugisset, cui satis una Horat. Serm. i. v. 67. Cf. Juvenal. iii. 141: 166. 167: xiv. 126. 127. Cum servis urbana diaria rodere mavis: Horat. Epp. i. xiv. 40. Cato, De Re Rustica, v. 56-59, classes the necessaries of a family under the head of cibaria, vinum, pulmentarium, vestimenta, which he recommends to be distributed in the following proportions at different times, respectively. In winter, four modii of triticum to the labouring slaves (per month ;) in summer four and an half. Of wine, mense quarto, that is, from the first to the fourth, an hemina a day, two congii and an half a month: mense quinto down to mense octavo, a sextarius a day, five congii a month, that is, twice the former allowance: mense nono-undecimo, three heminæ a day, an amphora a month; half as much more as the last. In the twelfth month, scription, it represents the superior to whom he stands in his proper relation, as a rich man; for including the allowance for the Saturnalia, something more still. In all, for every man, of wine ten quadrantalia annually. The pulmentarium included olea condita, halecem, acetum, and sal. The allowance he recommended was a sextarius of oleum to every man per month; a modius of sal per year. Lastly, under the head of vestimenta familiæ, he recommends tunicam P. iii. S: (that is, three feet and an half) saga alternis annis, &c. The custom previously established in private families, of supplying their various classes of dependents with monthly issues. of corn, &c., most probably first suggested the idea of making the whole of the plebs ingenua or libertina at Rome, corn-pensioners of the state; an idea nevertheless very likely to be combined with the promotion of party purposes, and in fact, attributed with that view, to Caius Gracchus, to Clodius, and even to Cato the younger, indifferently. Vide Cicero, De Officiis, ii. 21: Tusculanæ Disput. iii. 20: Pro P. Sextio, 48: Vell. Pat. ii. 6: Appian. De B. Civil. i. 21: Flor. Epitome lib. lx: Asconius in Ciceron. orat. contra Pisonem: Plutarch. Jul. Cæsar. 8: Cato min. 26: Operr. ix. 258: Reipublicæ gerendæ præcepta: Juvenal. viii. 117, 118: x. 79. 80. The corn-tickets also were granted once a month: though Suetonius tells us, Aug. 40. 3, that Augustus once thought of issuing them once in four months; Ac ne plebs frumentationum causa, frequentius a negotiis avocaretur, ter in annum quaternûm mensium tesseras dare destinavit: sed desideranti consuetudinem veterem concessit rursus, ut sui cujusque mensis acciperet. Indeed, from experience of the evil consequences of the custom, the same emperor thought seriously of abolishing it altogether. Impetum se cœpisse scribit, says Suetonius, frumentationes publicas in perpetuum abolendi, quod earum fiducia cultura agrorum cessaret: neque tamen perseverasse, quia certum haberet, posse per ambitionem quandoque restitui. Aug. 42. 4. This was not the only mischief resulting from the practice in question. The effect on the moral character of the plebs urbana |