Marcus Terentius Varro on Agriculture 205uplands, and are harvested earlier, while both sowing and reaping come later in the
uplands. Certain trees, such as the fir and the pine, flourish best and are sturdiest
in the mountains on account of the cold climate, while the poplar and the willow
thrive here where the climate is warmer; the arbute and the oak do better in the
uplands, the almond and the mariscan fig in the lowlands. On the foothills the
growth is nearer akin to that of the plains than to that of the mountains; on the
higher hills the opposite is true. Owing to these three types of configuration differ-
ent crops are planted, grain being considered best adapted to the plains, vines to
the hills, and forests to the mountains. Usually the winter is better for those who
live in the plains, because at that season the pastures are fresh, and pruning can be
carried on in more comfort. On the other hand, the summer is better in the moun-
tains, because there is abundant forage at that time, whereas it is dry in the plains,
and the cultivation of the trees is more convenient because of the cooler air. A
lowland farm that everywhere slopes regularly in one direction is better than one
that is perfectly level, because the latter, having no outlet for the water, tends to
become marshy. Even more unfavourable is one that is irregular, because pools are
liable to form in the depressions. These points and the like have their differing
importance for the cultivation of the three types of configuration.’
Notes
Marcus Cato on Agriculture
1 Others render, ‘Be careful not rashly to refuse to learn from others.’
2 A iugerum is approximately two-thirds of an acre.
3 It is most significant that Cato places grain farming sixth in importance. The second Punic War
had completely demoralized the Republic. The yeomanry had been conscripted and the fields
desolated and burned. ‘Roman farmers torn from their homes for years and demoralized by the
camps were unable or unwilling to settle down into the quiet routine of agricultural life... Their
farms passed into the hands of capitalists, and the rich lands of Italy fell back into pasture, and
half-naked slaves tended herds of cattle’ (Bosworth Smith, Rome and Carthage, p230). Grain
farming was no longer profitable, and it had become the custom to import grain from Sicily and
Africa. The new Rome that emerged from this horrible war centred around a nobility of wealth
and was in a state of demoralization. Such a condition naturally caused the cultivation of grain to
be less important than that of the vine, the olive, domestic vegetables or the rearing of cattle.
4 The word is used of a plantation of trees, to which the vines were ‘wedded’ or of an orchard.
Columella gives a description, Book V, Chapter 6, but Cato seems not to use the word in the sense
first given.
5 To furnish feed for livestock.
6 Possibly on the public roads, as in the French corvée.
7 It was the regular custom among the Romans to let out certain work by contract in contrast with
the work that was done by the farm organization under the management of the overseer.
8 The ‘planting’ is, of course, of trees and vines.
9 See Columella, I, 6; but Cato’s villa had only two units, the villa urbana, or dwelling-house, and
the villa rustica, for all other purposes.