Abstract
Scholarship generally places peasants on a spectrum of socio-economic independence and dependence. While opinions are shifting away from subsistence, self-sufficiency, and socio-political autarky as mainstays of the peasant condition, the conventional focus on hierarchical relations persists, leaving horizontal or ‘relational’ ones neglected. To address this imbalance, I first detail our need to deal with literary (self-) representations of rural non-elite life. I use Dio Chrysostom’s Euboean discourse to develop a non-exhaustive range of peer-level interactions including hospitality, reciprocity, and cooperative work. Archaeology can help unravel how these played out, but as site 9 from the Ager Lunensis shows, we need better evidence. Nevertheless, I offer tentative possibilities about veteran interactions and the dynamics between villa and small farm workers from site 154 from the Ager Capenas and Case Nuove from the Roman Peasant Project. I close by alluding to the potential of integrating horizontal social relations in broader historical narratives.
Highlights
In a memorable scene from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur meets two field workers and asks who their ‘lord’ is
Despite significant methodological issues regarding both kinds of evidence, I suggest that hospitality, reciprocity, and cooperative work form a baseline of reasonably-expected horizontal social relations among peasants which have been neglected
Romanists continue to adopt these essentially negative definitions which can coexist neatly with subsistence assumptions (Garnsey 1988: 44; Finley 1999: 105; van Dommelen 1993: 172–173; McCarthy 2013: 8; Gallego 2007 gives a Greek take), preserving them as unchallenged paradigms, despite recent positive re-framings of peasant identities (Bernstein et al 2018: 701; see Bernstein and Bryes 2001 for a summary of recent peasant studies). All this means that scholarship on the rural poor remains restricted to an interpretative spectrum between socio-economic independence and dependence
Summary
In a memorable scene from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur meets two field workers and asks who their ‘lord’ is. Dennis, infuriates him by claiming to live in an ‘autonomous collective’ and questioning his kingly authority. Subsistence, self-sufficiency, and dependence on social superiors are conventional in discussions about the rural poor, limiting our understanding of the peasant to a spectrum of socio-economic independence and dependence. I consolidate the key literary and archaeological evidence which suggest the importance of social relationships between peasants in the Late Republican and Early Imperial Italy. Despite significant methodological issues regarding both kinds of evidence, I suggest that hospitality, reciprocity, and cooperative work form a baseline of reasonably-expected horizontal social relations among peasants which have been neglected. Better and further consolidation of evidence is needed before we can re-evaluate the significance of horizontal social relations within broader historical narratives
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