ABSTRACT
Skilled wage labor could be extremely valuable at certain crucial times in the agricultural year. This fact did not escape the fifth-centuryZ agronomist Palladius, who observed that 'five modii can be gathered from a full field in one day's labor by an experienced reaper, by a mediocre one only three, by a poor one even less'? Palladius' claim that his Opus Agriculturae is a treatise aimed at peasant farmers themselves should be treated with caution, but it seems likely that it was designed to be more than merely a theoretical work.4 On the basis of the organization of the work by month, rather than by theme, it has been plausibly suggested that the aim of the Opus Agriculturae was to provide its elite audience with a handbook for the management of their rural estates.5 It is reasonable, therefore, to expect that there might be some detailed discussion of the ways in which relations with rural laborers such as reapers could be contracted and maintained. Unfortunately, while Palladius provides further evidence of the existence of itinerant and specialist laborers in the rural landscape, he gives no clue as to how they might come into contact with elite landowners.6 Consequently, the historian is forced to tum to other genres to understand this aspect of rural labor relations in the fourth and fifth century West.
