latifundium, any large ancient Roman agricultural estate that used a large number of peasant or slave labourers.
The ancient Roman latifundia originated from the allocation of land confiscated by Rome from certain conquered communities, beginning in the early 2nd century bc. Earlier, in classical Greece of the 5th century bc, sizable estates were cultivated for high profit, based on what was known of scientific agriculture. Later, in the Hellenistic Age (from 323 bc), large estates were held by rulers, ministers, and other wealthy people and by some great temples. On such estates there were a number of economic activities and, consequently, a wide division of labour, some slave, some free.
Upper-class Romans who owned latifundia had enough capital to improve their crops and livestock with new strains, putting peasant smallholders at a competitive disadvantage. Thus latifundia virtually supplanted the small farm as the regular agricultural unit in Italy and in the provinces by the 3rd century ad. On the latifundium stood the villa, or manor house; slaves were counted with the cattle, farm tools, and other movable property. In the later days of the empire, slave labour grew more expensive, and more coloni, or tenant farmers, who cultivated small plots, replaced them. As the empire declined and disappeared in the West (5th century ad), the latifundia assumed great importance not only as economic but also as local political and cultural centres.
In Latin America the latifundium (Spanish: latifundio) was introduced as a semifeudal institution by Iberian settlers and was widely perpetuated in the hacienda (q.v.).