In the early days of the Roman Republic (prior to the Empire) and even in early Greece, the nobility owned and worked their land alongside their servants and slaves. As the Republic expanded and encountered Carthaginian and Hellenistic Greek cultures, many of their ideas spread to Rome, and a decided shift in attitude took place among the Roman elites. Now, as had happened in Greece, contemplation of the spirit was seen as higher than mucking about with the material world. Roman nobles began developing large, slave-run plantations known as latifundia, in which they increasingly gave themselves
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