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A latifundium is a very extensive parcel of privately owned land. The latifundia (Latin: ''lātus'', "spacious" + ''fundus'', "farm, estate")〔The singular '' *latifundium'' occurs but once (in Pliny's Natural History 13.92, with the meaning "estate", suggesting to Anton J.L. van Hoofff an undefined, colloquial deprecating term, rather than a description of a particular type of farm. To the linguistic evidence presented by K.D. White, (''Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies'' 14 ()), who found only seven instances of the rare word ''latifundia'' in Roman texts, Van Hooff added five more instances in "Some More Latifundia" ''Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte'' 31,1 (1st Quarter 1982:126-128), and found that two were "in a neutral, almost technical way" (p. 128).〕 of Roman history were great landed estates specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic of Magna Graecia and Sicily, Egypt, the Greater Maghreb and Hispania Baetica. The ''latifundia'' were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon slavery. During the modern colonial period, the European monarchies often rewarded services with extensive land grants in their empires. The forced recruitment of local laborers allowed by colonial law made these land grants particularly lucrative for their owners. These grants, ''fazendas'' (in Portuguese) or ''haciendas'' (in Spanish), were also borrowed as loanwords, Portuguese ''latifúndios'' and Spanish ''latifundios'' or simply ''fundos''. Agrarian reforms aimed at ending the dominance of the latifundia system are still a popular goal of several national governments around the world. ==Ancient Rome== The basis of the latifundia in Spain and Sicily was the ''ager publicus'' that fell to the dispensation of the state through Rome's policy of war in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. As much as a third of the arable land of a new province was taken for ''agri publici'' and then divided up with at least the fiction of a competitive auction for leaseholdings rather than outright ownership. Later in the Empire, as leases were inherited, ownership of the former common lands became established by tradition, and the leases became taxable. The first latifundia were accumulated from the spoils of war, confiscated from conquered peoples beginning in the early 2nd century BC. The prototypical latifundia were the Roman estates in Magna Graecia (the south of Italy) and in Sicily, which distressed Pliny the Elder (died AD 79) as he travelled, seeing only slaves working the land, not the sturdy Roman farmers who had been the backbone of the Republic's army.〔Pliny's six occurrences of ''latifundia'' are in his ''Natural History'', 13.92, 17.192, 18.17, 18.35, 18.261 and 18.296.〕 Latifundia expanded with conquest, to the Roman provinces of the Maghreb and in Hispania Baetica, the south of Spain. Large villa holdings in the Campania around Rome, in the valley of the Po and in southern Gaul organized populations in a self-sufficient economy, more similar to the ''haciendas'' of Latin America, while they produced oil, wine or garum for exportation. The practice of establishing agricultural ''coloniae'' as a way to compensate Roman soldiers formed smaller landholdings, which would be accumulated by large landholders in times of want. Thus the direction, over time, was in larger consolidations of landholdings. Latifundia could be devoted to livestock (sheep and cattle) or to cultivation of olive oil, grain, and wine. However, in Rome, they did not produce grain and Rome had to import grain (in the Republican period, from Sicily and North Africa, in the Imperial era, from Egypt). Ownership of land, organized in the latifundia, defined the Roman Senatorial class. It was the only acceptable source of wealth for senators, though Romans of the elite class would set up their freedmen as merchant traders, and participate as silent partners in profits to which ''senatores'' were disqualified. The latifundia quickly started economic consolidation as larger estates achieved greater economies of scale and senators did not pay land taxes. Owners re-invested their profits by purchasing smaller neighbouring farms, since smaller farms had a lower productivity and could not compete, in an ancient precursor of agribusiness. By the 2nd century AD, latifundia had in fact displaced small farms as the agricultural foundation of the Roman Empire. This effect contributed to the destabilizing of Roman society as well. As the small farms of the Roman peasantry were bought up by the wealthy and with their vast supply of slaves, the landless peasantry were forced to idle and squat around the city of Rome, relying greatly on handouts. Overall, the latifundia increased productivity. It was one of the greatest levels of worker productivity before the 19th century. Such consolidation was not universally approved, as it consolidated more and more land into fewer and fewer hands, mainly Senators and the Roman emperor. Efforts to reverse the trend by agrarian laws were generally unsuccessful. Pliny the Elder argued that the latifundia had ruined Italy and would ruin the Roman provinces as well. He reported that at one point just six owners possessed half of the province of Africa.〔"The men of olden times believed that above all moderation should be observed in landholding, for indeed it was their judgment that it was better to sow less and plow more intensively. Virgil, too, I see agreed with this view. To confess the truth, the latifundia have ruined Italy, and soon will ruin the provinces as well. Six owners were in possession of half of the province of Africa at the time when the Emperor Nero had them put to death." (''Pliny's Natural History'' 18.7.35).〕 But then again, Pliny the Elder was very much against the profit-oriented villas as presented in the writings of Columella. His writings can be seen as a part of the 'conservative' reaction to the gain- and profit-oriented new attitudes of the upper classes of the Early Empire. (Martin 1971) ==Ancient Greece== The landscape of the Greek mainland does not lend itself to large estates.〔See agriculture of ancient Greece.〕 Olive oil and wine for trade were typically produced by many small groves and vineyards, concentrated in fewer hands at the presses and shipping ports. The grasslands of Thessaly and Macedon were pasture for grazing horses. Meat was not a staple in Mediterranean diets.〔See Ancient Greek cuisine.〕 During the Hellenistic period, ''latifundia'' were typical of the export-oriented agriculture of coastal Syria and the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「latifundium」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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