Nowadays, we mostly remember Rome for her republic declining into an empire, or her military prowess. However, Romans thought of themselves as peace-loving, and even violent figures such as Sulla or Pompey the Great retired (temporarily, in Pompey’s case) from public life to their farm, as did the idealized Cincinnatus. Festivals celebrated farming holidays, art depicts farming tools, and noble gentlemen wrote farming manuals. Perhaps this was because the Romans rarely had a hard time providing food for themselves, their own land was fertile, and as the empire expanded they were fed by north African farms, or perhaps it was because the city of Rome was started as a little military outpost to protect Italian farmers from their northern Etruscan neighbors.
Because farming was so idealized, it’s a difficult subject to cover extensively, I’m going to highlight some practices, inventions, and produce that could add realism to historical fiction or fantasy as well as distinguish it from the typical fantasy landscape, then go into some of the cultural implications (besides people having better things to do than starve to death).
Even if farming was an appropriate side hustle for patrician nobility, farming itself was difficult, and it yielded far less than it does now. Nearly half of the crop had to be used as seeds. Even still, Romans farmed so well that their farming methods were picked up by Britains and Gauls, which is appropriate since Romans built off efforts by the Greeks and people of the Near East. Additionally, despite the difficulties of the ancient world, the period between 500 BC and 500 AD had peak farming conditions in Europe (as opposed to the mini Ice Age that followed). Italy had other farming advantages; although rainfall can be spotty at times, it’s normally abundant, there are plenty of rivers and streams, and the soil is rich from volcanic ash.
The Romans grew wheat, spelt, barley, legumes like peans, peas, chickpeas, alfalfa, turnips, radishes, and fruit like figs. Wild fruits and nuts could be collected at will. Grapes and olive oil were popular and sold abundantly—both grow naturally in Italy—and with grain were the most important plants, sometimes called the “Mediterranean triad” (2). Though olive and grapes could be grown with little effort, grain—around 75% of a normal person’s calories—required extensive effort. Moreover, early Roman holdings were often as small as 1.25 acres or half a hectares. Normally, 1 acre will feed one person.
Because there’s a large difference in the temperature and rainfall in north and south Italy, there’s a good bit of variance in farming method. However, we can get the idea in broad strokes. Roman tools were bronze or iron, hand tools like hoes and mattocks, plows (with a forecarriage—an apparatus at the front that makes it steadier), carts, harrow, manure hampers and baskets, spades, shovels, rakes, scythes, axes, wedges, an olive-crushing mill and oil press.
The plow was used first to turn soil over, as it is now, and could invert soil if turned sideways; some plows had metal ‘ears’ on the bottom that improved them. In light soil it could be pulled by a donkey, otherwise, it might require a few oxen. That was followed with a mattock (which looks like a cross between a pick-axe and a wood-axe), which broke up large lumps of dirt so that the seeds could fall into the proper rows the plow had turned up. Fields were plowed at least twice to conserve moisture (called cry-farming, still a staple around the Mediterranean), and manure was laid down after the second plowing, which came from a compost pit with animal excrement and rotting leaves, weeds, or leftovers. Seeds were either thrown out (which is quicker), or placed by hand. They were then raked over with a harrow, which could be a tool with iron teeth like nails raking the ground, or a convenient thorn bush.
Harvesting was done with a sickle (curvy knife on a stick that looks like a bad guy’s weapon), which has changed little since then, and was then brought to the threshing floor. Threshing was done by animals stomping on the grain on a hard floor, or by being crushed by a tribulum, or wooden frame with metal on its belly which was pulled across the floor. Winnowing was done by tossing the threshed grain and letting the light chaff blow away while the heavier grain well back down. Grain was then usually ground with rocks, although there were some working water mills at the end of the empire.
On rainy days when not much farming could get done, Cato (one of the politicians writing farm manuals) says to make sure to remind the overseer of work that could be done “scrubbing and pitching wine vats, cleaning the farmstead, shifting grain, hauling out manure, making a manure pit, cleaning seed, mending old harness and making new; and that the hands ought to have mended their smocks and hoods. Remind him, also, that on feast days old ditches might have been cleaned, road work done, brambles cut, the garden spaded, a meadow cleared, faggots bundled, thorns rooted out, spelt ground, and general cleaning done.” (4)
Although vineyards and olive groves remained unchanging, the Romans realized that they couldn’t grow the same crop the same place forever as it depletes the soil, so they divided their fields and rotated crops between them. They also identified which soil was best for which plant, and paid attention to that as they were cordoning off sections; for instance, olives were to be planted in thinner soil and exposed to the sun, at intervals of twenty five feet. Forage crops were also planted, such as alfalfa, which also aided the farm animal’s fertility. Vegetables were also grown to supplement human and beast, though farmers would also forage for acorns or other foodstuff to feed their animals through winter.
To offset the dangers of a poor year, in the good year, farmers stored as much as they could—not just food, but animals and jewelry that could be sold. People also used each other as resources; when one person helped another, the person helped incurred an obligation to return the favor.
Certain plants were also grown for medicinal purposes: Pliny reports that garlic had 61 medicinal uses, radish 43, and lettuce 42. Parsnip relaxed the stomach and relieved swelling when used as a bandage, the onion’s juice was used to relieve pain from snake bites, the wild cucumber’s juice was used for tooth aches and to heal eyes, beets were boiled and eaten with raw garlic to cure tapeworm.
Farming evolved as Rome did. Initially, it was a family thing, with that small acre and change farm earlier described. However, as Rome grew and the need for soldiers increased, Rome turned to conscription. Young men were pressed into military service, and while they were gone those rich off of conquests bought up land that couldn’t be maintained without the citizen farmer, and used captured slaves as free labor. These slave run estates were so common, there was even a name for them, the latifundia. These latifundia undercut the family farm and forced the rural people to the city, where they struggled to find work and depended on the empire’s bread and circuses. However, this theory has come under fire recently from new archeology evidence which doesn’t seem to support a decrease in small farms, yet even if it wasn’t true, it was the narrative the poor Romans told themselves. Regardless, it is verifiably true that as the empire expanded, it depended more and more on fertile North Africa, such as Egypt, Tunisia (where Carthage was), and Algeria, as well as their own islands Sicily and Sardinia.
We can see a tension between Rome as it was originally, a farming outpost, and the military empire it became in Cato, who has nothing but praise for farmers, but still draws them from their farm claiming that they make the sturdiest soldiers. More subtly, in the Aeneid, Aeneas’ father Anchises tells him it’s the Roman legacy to conquer, and yet the author Virgil spends more time on the domestic scene, in romance and familiar love, than battle. Seeing as no culture can live up to its ideals (unless they have lame ideals like flaying people *cough* Assyrians), a good fantasy culture will have both what it wants to be, and what it is. Sometimes those two are even in conflict with each other, or ideas mutate without the (sophisticated, fancy smancy part of) culture realizing or noticing the difference. Moreover, even if you want to cast a nation as ‘the bad guys’ they’ve got good motivations; Roman expansion was initially defensive, or honoring treaties with allies.
We can also see that cultures love their origins. Rome seemed to be more proud of their agrarian roots, than of their military prowess, which they actually seemed almost ashamed of early in their history (the ‘victory arch’ began as a sort of atonement ceremony where soldiers had to purify themselves before entering the city). Which is why we see houses in the city decorating their houses with natural scenes rather than scenes of battle, so that they can pretend they were proper Roman farmers.
As always, the technical details can help with realism.
1. https://www.britannica.com/topic/agriculture/Improvements-in-agriculture-in-the-West-200-bce-to-1600-ce
2. https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~wstevens/history331texts/farming.html
3. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah20007
4. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/A*.html (Cato’s On Agriculture)
5. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+toc&redirect=true (Pliny’s Natural Histories)
6. http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub408/item2049.html
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