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Latifundia are pieces of landed property covering tremendous areas. The latifundia [Latin lātifundium: lātus, "spacious" + fundus, "farm, estate"] of Roman history were great landed estates, specialising in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil or wine. They were characteristic of Magna Graecia and Sicily, of Egypt and the North African Maghreb and of Hispania Baetica in southern Spain. The latifundia were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon slave labour. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Motto: Senatus Populusque Romanus (SPQR) The Roman Empire at its greatest extent, c. ... Landed property or landed estates is a real estate term that usually refers to a property that generates income for the owner without himself having to do the actual work at the estate. ... Magna Graecia around 280 b. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian and Sicilian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,708 km² (9,926 sq. ... The Algerian bay (view from the west). ... Roman province of Hispania Baetica, 120 CE In Hispania, which in Greek is called Iberia, there were three Imperial Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica in the south, Lusitania, corresponding to modern Portugal, in the west, and Hispania Tarraconensis in the north and northeast. ... Slavery is any of a number of related conditions involving control of a person against his or her will, enforced by violence or other clear forms of coercion. ...

Today, latifundia are only found in Latin America and the term is often extended to describe the haciendas of colonial and post-colonial Mexico, Venezuela, Chile (called "Latifundio" or simply "Fundo") and Argentina. These originated under colonial law allowing forced labor recruitment and land grants for military services. In post-colonial times, ending the dominance of the latifundia system by implementing agrarian reforms became a popular goal of several governments in the region. Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... Hacienda is a Spanish word describing a vast ranch, common in the Pampa. ... Agrarian reform can refer either, narrowly, to government-initiated or government-backed redistribution of agricultural land (see land reform) or can refer more broadly to an overall redirection of the agrarian system of the country, which often includes land reform measures. ...

Hellenistic Latifundia

The landscape of the Greek mainland does not lend itself to large estates. Trade in olive oil and wine were typically the produce of 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. Map showing Thessaly periphery in Greece Thessaly (Θεσσαλια; modern Greek Thessalía; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is one of the 13 peripheries of Greece, and is further sub-divided into 4 prefectures. ... Macedons regions and towns Macedon or Macedonia (from Greek ; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was the name of an ancient kingdom in the northern-most part of ancient Greece, bordering the kingdom of Epirus on the west and the region of Thrace to the east[1...

The Hellenistic latifundia were more typical of the export-oriented agriculture of coastal Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt. The Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt began following Alexander the Greats conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. It was founded when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt, creating a powerful Hellenistic state from southern Syria...

Roman Latifundia

The basis of the latifundia in Italy 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 Ager publicus is the Latin language name for the public land of the Roman Republic and Empire. ... (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 1st century BC started on January 1, 100 BC and ended on December 31, 1 BC. An alternative name for this century is the last century BC. The AD/BC notation does not use a year zero. ... The 1st century was that century which lasted from 1 to 100 according the Gregorian calendar. ...

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 Younger (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. 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 grain, 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. (2nd millennium BC - 1st millennium BC - 1st millennium) The 2nd century BC started on January 1, 200 BC and ended on December 31, 101 BC. // Coin of Antiochus IV. Reverse shows Apollo seated on an omphalos. ... Magna Graecia around 280 b. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian and Sicilian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,708 km² (9,926 sq. ... Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (63-ca. ... AD79 Events June 23 - Titus succeeds his father Vespasian as Roman emperor. ... The Algerian bay (view from the west). ... Roman province of Hispania Baetica, 120 CE In Hispania, which in Greek is called Iberia, there were three Imperial Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica in the south, Lusitania, corresponding to modern Portugal, in the west, and Hispania Tarraconensis in the north and northeast. ... Fish sauce is a condiment derived from fish that have been allowed to ferment. ... A colonia was a Roman outpost, usually established by veterans of a Roman Legion, who received land as a part of their retirement from the Legions. ...

Latifundia could be devoted to livestock (sheep and cattle) or to cultivation of olive oil, wine and grain. 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. Sheep are commonly bred as livestock. ... Species See text. ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (often called cows in vernacular and contemporary usage, or kye as the Scots plural of cou) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... A senate is a deliberative body, often the upper house or chamber of a legislature. ...

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. Such increased productivity enabled single farm laborer to produce enough cereals to feed an estimated^{[citation needed]} 30 people. It was a level of worker productivity unsurpassed before the 19th century. Economies of scale characterizes a production process in which an increase in the number of units produced causes a decrease in the average cost of each unit. ... In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various businesses involved in the food production chain, including farming, seed, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesaling, processing, distribution, and retail sales. ... The 2nd century is the period from 101 - 200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Such consolidation was not universally approved, as it consolidated more and more land into fewer and fewer hands, mainly Senators and the Roman emperor. 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^[1]. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19c portrait. ... Categories: Historical stubs | Ancient Roman provinces ...

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) Pliny the Elder: an imaginative 19c portrait. ... Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (Gades in Hispania Baetica, 4 AD - ca. ...

European Latifundia

In the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the largely self-sufficient villa-system of the latifundia remained among the few political-cultural centres of a fragmented Europe. These latifundia had been of great importance economically, until the long-distance shipping of wine and oil, grain and garum disintegrated, but extensive lands controlled in a single pair of hands still constituted power: it can be argued that the latifundia formed part of the economic basis of the European social feudal system. The gift of a villa, or of a series of them, owned by a powerful patron was at the basis of all the great monasteries and abbeys founded in Western Europe until the time of Charlemagne, when the land-gifts, significantly, tended to be of forest instead. In the 6th century Cassiodorus was able to apply his own latifundia to support his short-lived Vivarium in the heel of Italy. Shortly thereafter, Monte Cassino was founded in a former Imperial villa. But in the 10th century the Abbey of Cluny was founded on a gift of the duke of Aquitaine's chase, or hunting forest. The Western Roman Empire is the western half of the Roman Empire after its division by Diocletian in 286. ... The Roman Empire contained many kinds of villas. ... Garum is a type of fish sauce condiment popular in Ancient Roman society. ... Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum, itself borrowed from a Germanic root *fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. ... Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (ca 484/490 - ca585), commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and great writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ... The restored Abbey. ... The abbey today The Abbey of Cluny (or Cluni, or Clugny) was founded on 2 September 909 by the Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Auvergne, William I, who placed it under the immediate authority of Pope Sergius III. The Abbey and its constellation of dependencies soon came to exemplify...

In the Iberian Peninsula, the Castilian Reconquista of Muslim territories provided the Christian kingdom with sudden extensions of land, which the kings ceded as rewards to nobility, mercenaries and military orders to exploit as latifundia, which had been first established as the commercial olive oil and grain latifundia of Roman Hispania Baetica. The gifts finished the traditional small private ownership of land, eliminating a social class that had also been typical of the Al-Andalus period. The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe. ... A former kingdom of Spain, Castile comprises the two regions of Old Castile in north-western Spain, and New Castile in the centre of the country. ... Conquista redirects here. ... Flag of the Knights Templar A military order is a Christian order of knighthood that is founded for crusading, i. ... Roman province of Hispania Baetica, 120 CE In Hispania, which in Greek is called Iberia, there were three Imperial Roman provinces, Hispania Baetica in the south, Lusitania, corresponding to modern Portugal, in the west, and Hispania Tarraconensis in the north and northeast. ... Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given the Iberian Peninsula by its Muslim conquerors; it refers to both the Caliphate proper and the general period of Muslim rule (711–1492). ...

The possessions of the Church did not pass to private ownership until the desamortización, the "secularization" of church-owned latifundia, which proceeded in pulses through the 19th century.

Big areas of Andalusia are still populated by an underclass of jornaleros, landless peasants who are hired by the latifundists as "day workers" for specific seasonal campaigns. Motto: Andalucía por sí, para España y la humanidad (Andalusia by herself, for Spain, and for humankind) Capital Seville Official language(s) Spanish Area  â€“ Total  â€“ % of Spain Ranked 2nd  87,268 km²  17. ...

The jornalero class has been fertile ground for socialism and anarchism. Still today, among the main Andalusian trade unions is the Rural Workers Union (Sindicato Obrero del Campo), a far-left group famous for their squatting campaigns in the town of Marinaleda, in Seville province. Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control. ... It has been suggested that Origins of anarchism and History of anarchism be merged into this article or section. ... Marinaleda is a town and municipio of the province of Seville, Andalusia, Spain. ...

American "Latifundia"

A comparable social system exists in agricultural California, where the latifundia of the Central Valley are the basis of corporate agribusiness. Small holdings persist in the corporate-owned landscape, as they had persisted in al-Andalus. Official language(s) English Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Area  Ranked 3rd  - Total 158,302 sq mi (410,000 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 770 miles (1,240 km)  - % water 4. ... In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various businesses involved in the food production chain, including farming, seed, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesaling, processing, distribution, and retail sales. ... Al-Andalus is the Arabic name given the Iberian Peninsula by its Muslim conquerors; it refers to both the Caliphate proper and the general period of Muslim rule (711–1492). ...

Latifundios in Spanish-speaking Latin America are commonly called "haciendas", and those in Brazil "latifúndios". Such quasi-feudal estates were prevalent in the colonial era. Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum, itself borrowed from a Germanic root *fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. ...

That the large corporate hacienda farms of international agribusiness have similarities with the Roman latifundia in the extent of holdings, and efficiencies in mass production that drive out small competitors is a cliché of ideology with some truth in it. The parallels are more useful for ideological purposes; the differences inform authentic history. Modern South American latifundios are blamed for economic inequality and strife. Hacienda is a Spanish word describing a vast ranch, common in the Pampa. ... In agriculture, agribusiness is a generic term that refers to the various businesses involved in the food production chain, including farming, seed, agrichemicals, farm machinery, wholesaling, processing, distribution, and retail sales. ... A latifundio is a large landed estate in Latin America, like a latifundium in ancient Rome. ...

See also

Latifundio–minifundio land tenure structure There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

Notes

1. ^ "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).

Naturalis Historia Pliny the Elders Natural History is an encyclopedia written by Pliny the Elder. ...

External links

• On Roman wealth: gentleman farmers
• Kautsky, Karl (1908) "The Technological Inferiority of the Slave Economy" from I. The Slave Economy, Book Two: Society In The Roman Empire, Foundations of Christianity. Published in English: Russell and Russell, 1953.
• Dr Frithjof Kuhnen, (University of Göttingen), "Latifundia (Hacienda)"
• Jonathan Conning (Hunter College), "Latifundia economics" Hunter College Department of Economics Working Papers with number 02/1.

Karl Kautsky (October 18, 1854 - October 17, 1938) was a leading theoretician of social democracy. ...

References

• Stephen L. Dyson, The Roman Countryside (Duckworth Debates in Archaeology)
• René Martin: Recherches sur les agronomes latins et leurs conceptions économiques et sociales, Paris, 1971.