quite profi table. Cato writes that the average profi t was 6
percent on invested capital.
ROMAN CROPS: GRAPES
Wild grapes grew throughout the ancient Mediterranean. Hu-
mans were cultivating grapes in the Middle East and in Mi-
noan Greece long before the Romans arrived on the scene; the
Greek authors Homer and Hesiod both mention wine in their
writings. Before the start of Rome, Etruscans in northern Italy
and Greek colonists in southern Italy grew grapes and made
wine. By the second century b.c.e. Romans were maintaining
and investing in vineyards throughout the Mediterranean,
and grapes had become a more profi table crop than grain. Th e
government was quick to notice that the wine industry was
extremely profi table, and as early as the fourth century b.c.e.
Rome had passed laws protecting local growers from foreign
wine imports. By 150 b.c.e. Rome had begun exporting wine
to the provinces; the wine sent to Gaul was traded for slaves
who came to Italy to work the large vineyards.
Th e source for most Roman knowledge on viticulture
came from a work that was written in Carthage and was
translated into Latin in 146 b.c.e. Ancients k new of many dif-
ferent species of grape. Grape plantations could include other
fruits and vegetables, but as time went on farmers specialized
in vines exclusively. Cato describes an ideal vineyard: It re-
quired 66 acres of land and was managed by a slave overseer,
his wife, sixteen slaves, two oxen, three donkeys, and a large
amount of equipment.
Starting a new vineyard was a complicated and time-
consuming process. Before planting the vines, the farmer
ploughed the fi elds, did any necessary terracing, and created
an irrigation system. He then planted the new vines and tied
them to stakes or trees for support. Aft er planting, he would
dig the ground in the entire vineyard to loosen the soil and
allow water to reach the roots and then cover the dirt with
manure for fertilizer. As the vines grew, the farmer would re-
move the young sterile shoots to nurture the productive parts
of the plant. Once the grape crop was ripe, the farmer tied up
the vines and watered the whole fi eld thoroughly before har-
vesting. Vines could live for many years but eventually would
die and have to be replaced. Good vines were valuable, and
farmers had to guard their fi elds against thieves. Farmers also
surrounded fi elds with walls or fences for protection.
Th e grapes had to be picked by hand. Once grapes were
harvested, slaves would crush them to extract their juice, ei-
ther by using a wine press or by stomping on the grapes with
their feet. Th en the new wine was left to ferment. Ancient Ro-
man winemakers used many of the techniques that are still
employed by winemakers today. To create sweet wines, they
would leave the grapes on the vine well into autumn to de-
velop natural sugars. Weak wines were aged in large clay con-
tainers buried underground. Robust wines fermented in the
open air, where the sun, rain, and other elements helped them
develop fl avor. Vintners added honey or spices to wines for
fl avoring and as preservatives. Once the wine was fi nished,
the vintner poured it into large clay jars called amphorae and
either stored it to age it or sent it away for sale. It was much
easier to transport wine by sea than by land, so most vine-
yards were located near the coast or on rivers.OTHER CROPS
In addition to wheat, grapes, and olives, Romans grew a
number of other plants. Beans, chickpeas, and lentils were
the main sources of protein in most people’s diets. Farmers
grew numerous vegetables to eat fresh or to preserve. Th e
most common vegetables included onions, garlic, radishes,
celery, asparagus, carrots, beets, and zucchini. Typical fruits
included fi gs, grapes, dates, apples, pears, mulberries, peach-
es, apricots, and cherries. Walnuts and almonds were popu-
lar nuts. Roman cooks loved to add herbs and spices to food,
so farmers grew a range of them: oregano, cumin, coriander,
fennel, lovage, rue, and silphium, or asafetida, the resin of a
plant related to fennel. Roman farmers did not grow either to-
matoes or potatoes, which are New World vegetables. Farm-
ers also kept chickens and other fowl for their eggs and meat,
and they raised some goats and sheep for their milk and wool.
Italy’s terrain is not good for growing large livestock, so few
farmers would have kept herds of cattle.
Honey was the most common sweetener, so many farm-
ers kept bees. Th e Greeks had already been keeping bees for
centuries, and the Romans continued their work in selecting
breeds of bees and maximizing honey production. A single
beehive could produce between six and 18 pints of honey ev-
ery season. Romans sought out honey from the best areas,
which included Sicily (especially the area near Syracuse), Li-
guria, and the south of Spain. Th ey also imported honey from
Rhodes, Cyprus, several regions of Greece, and Syria. Th e Ro-
man authors Virgil and Varro both wrote about the practical
details of beekeeping.TYPES OF FARMS
Th e most common type of farm was known as a villa. Th is
traditional farm was located in a rural area and consisted of a
house, stables, and workshops with a central courtyard. Th e
author Varro describes villas in some detail in his writing.
Villas were usually maintained by slaves for an urban owner,
but small farms owned by their residents were also common
and were built according to the same structure.
Life on a farm was fairly simple, with none of the glam-
our that went with living in Rome. A farmer and his wife who
owned their own small farm had jobs to keep them busy from
morning until night. Th ey had to till fi elds, sow crops, weed,
fetch water, and occasionally guard their plants from thieves.
At harvest time they had to gather all the crops and process
them, threshing the grain and drying or preserving any veg-
etables they could not eat fresh. Farm wives would spin their
own thread and weave their own cloth to make clothing. Dur-
ing lengthy military campaigns the wives of soldiers would be
forced to run the farms themselves for months or years while
their husbands fought in distant wars.42 agriculture: Rome