Roman Farm Management | Page 3

proverbs "Romanus sedendo vincit," which illustrates my
present point. The Romans achieved their results by thoroughness and
patience. It was thus that they defeated Hannibal and it was thus that
they built their farm houses and fences, cultivated their fields, their
vineyards and their oliveyards, and bred and fed their live stock. They
seem to have realized that there are no short cuts in the processes of
nature, and that the law of compensations is invariable. The foundation
of their agriculture was the fallow[1] and one finds them constantly
using it as a simile--in the advice not to breed a mare every year, as in
that not to exact too much tribute from a bee hive. Ovid even warns a
lover to allow fallow seasons to intervene in his courtship.
While one can find instruction in their practice even today, one can
benefit even more from their agricultural philosophy, for the
characteristic of the American farmer is that he is in too much of a
hurry.
The ancient literature of farm management was voluminous. Varro

cites fifty Greek authors on the subject whose works he knew,
beginning with Hesiod and Xenophon. Mago of Carthage wrote a
treatise in the Punic tongue which was so highly esteemed that the
Roman Senate ordered it translated into Latin, but, like most of the
Greeks,[2] it is now lost to us except in the literary tradition.
Columella says that it was Cato who taught Agriculture to speak Latin.
Cato's book, written in the middle of the second century B. C, was the
first on the subject in Latin; indeed, it was one of the very first books
written in that vernacular at all. Of the other Latin writers whose
bucolic works have survived, Varro and Virgil wrote at the beginning
of the Augustan Age and were followed by the Spanish Columella
under Tiberius, and by Pliny (with his Natural History) under Titus.
After them (and "a long way after," as Mr. Punch says) came in the
fourth century the worthy but dull Palladius, who supplied the
hornbook used by the agricultural monks throughout the Dark Ages.
MARCUS PORCIUS CATO (B.C. 234-149), known in history as the
elder Cato, was the type of Roman produced by the most vigorous days
of the Republic. Born at Tusculum on the narrow acres which his
peasant forefathers had tilled in the intervals of military service, he
commenced advocate at the country assizes, followed his fortunes to
Rome and there became a leader of the metropolitan bar. He saw
gallant military service in Spain and in Greece, commanded an army,
held all the curule offices of state and ended a contentious life in the
Senate denouncing Carthage and the degeneracy of the times.
He was an upstanding man, but as coarse as he was vigorous in mind
and in body. Roman literature is full of anecdotes about him and his
wise and witty sayings.
Unlike many men who have devoted a toilsome youth to agricultural
labour, when he attained fame and fortune he maintained his interest in
his farm, and wrote his De re rustica in green old age. It tells what sort
of farm manager he himself was, or wanted to be thought to be, and,
though a mere collection of random notes, sets forth more shrewd
common sense and agricultural experience than it is possible to pack
into the same number of English words. It remains today of much more
than antiquarian interest.
MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO (B.C. 116-28) whom Quintilian
called "the most learned of the Romans," and Petrarch "il terzo gran

lume Romano," ranking him with Cicero and Virgil, probably studied
agriculture before he studied any thing else, for he was born on a
Sabine farm, and although of a well to do family, was bred in the habits
of simplicity and rural industry with which the poets have made that
name synonymous. All his life he amused the leisure snatched from his
studies with intelligent supervision of the farming of his several estates:
and he wrote his treatise Rerum Rusticarum in his eightieth year.[3]
He had his share of active life, but it was as a scholar that he
distinguished himself.[4] Belonging to the aristocratic party, he became
a friend and supporter of Pompey, and, after holding a naval command
under him in the war against the Pirates in B.C. 67, was his legatus in
Spain at the beginning of the civil wars and there surrendered to Caesar.
He was again on the losing side at the battle of Pharsalia, but was
pardoned by Caesar, who selected him to be librarian of the public
library he proposed to establish at Rome.[5] From this time Varro
eschewed politics and devoted himself to letters, although his troubles
were not yet at an end: after the death of Caesar, the