BOOK XVIII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF GRAIN.
CHAP. 1. (1.)—TASTE OF THE ANCIENTS FOR AGRICULTURE.
WE now pass on to the Natural History of the various grains,
of the garden plants and flowers, and indeed of all the other
productions, with the exception of the trees and shrubs, which
the Earth, in her bounteousness, affords us—a boundless field
for contemplation, if even we regard the herbs alone, when we
take into consideration the varieties of them, their numbers,
the flowers they produce, their odours, their colours, their
juices, and the numerous properties they possess—all of which
have been engendered by her with a view to either the preservation or the gratification of the human race.
On entering, however, upon this branch of my subject, it is
my wish in the first place to plead the cause of the Earth, and
to act as the advocate of her who is the common parent of all,
although in the earlier
1 part of this work I have already had
occasion to speak in her defence. For my subject matter, as I
proceed in the fulfillment of my task, will now lead me to consider her in the light of being the producer of various noxious
substances as well; in consequence of which it is that we are
in the habit of charging her with our crimes, and imputing to
her a guilt that is our own. She has produced poisons, it is
true; but who is it but man that has found them out? For
the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, it is sufficient to
be on their guard against them, and to keep at a distance from
them. The elephant, we find, and the gurus, know how to
sharpen
2 and renovate their teeth against the trunks of trees,
and the rhinoceros against rocks; wild boars, again, point
their tusks like so many poniards by the aid of both rocks and
trees; and all animals, in fact, are aware how to prepare themselves for the infliction of injury upon others; but still, which
is there among them all, with the exception of man, that dips
his weapons in poison? As for ourselves, we envenom the
point of the arrow,
3 and we contrive to add to the destructive
powers of iron itself; by the aid of poisons we taint the waters
of the stream, and we infect the various elements of Nature;
indeed, the very air even, which is the main support of life,
we turn into a medium for the destruction of life.
And it is not that we are to suppose that animals are ignorant of these means of defence, for we have already had occasion to point out
4 the preparations which they make against the
attacks of the serpent, and the methods they devise for effecting
a cure when wounded by it; and yet, among them all, there
is not one that fights by the aid of the poison that belongs to
another, with the sole exception of man. Let us then candidly
confess our guilt, we who are not contented even with the
poisons as Nature has produced them; for by far the greater
portion of them, in fact, are artificially prepared by the human
hand!
And then besides, is it not the fact, that there are many
men, the very existence of whom is a baneful poison, as it
were? Like that of the serpent, they dart their livid tongue,
and the venom of their disposition corrodes every object upon
which it concentrates itself. Ever vilifying and maligning,
like the ill-omened birds of the night, they disturb the repose
of that darkness which is so peculiarly their own, and break
in upon the quiet of the night even, by their moans and wailings, the only sounds they are ever heard to emit. Like
animals of inauspicious presage, they only cross our path to
prevent us from employing our energies or becoming useful to
our fellow-men; and the only enjoyment that is sought by
their abominable aspirations is centred in their universal hatred
of mankind.
Still, however, even in this respect Nature has asserted her
majestic sway; for how much more numerous
5 are the good
and estimable characters which she has produced! just in the
same proportion that we find her giving birth to productions
which are at once both salutary and nutritious to man. It is in
our high esteem for men such as these, and the commendations
they bestow, that we shall be content to leave the others, like
so many brakes and brambles, to the devouring flames of their
own bad passions, and to persist in promoting the welfare of
the human race; and this, with all the more energy and perseverance, from the circumstance that it has been our object
throughout, rather to produce a work of lasting utility than to
ensure ourselves a widely-spread renown. We have only to
speak, it is true, of the fields and of rustic operations; but
still, it is upon these that the enjoyment of life so materially
depends, and that the ancients conferred the very highest rank
in their honors and commendations.
CHAP. 2. (2.)—WHEN THE FIRST WREATHS OF CORN WERE USED AT ROME.
Romulus was the first who established the Arval
6 priesthood
at Rome. This order consisted of the eleven sons of Accra
Placentia, his nurse,
7 together with Romulus himself, who assumed the appellation of the twelfth of the brotherhood. Upon
this priesthood he bestowed, as being the most august dis-
tinction that he could confer upon it, a wreath of years of corn,
tied together with a white fillet; and this in fact, was the
first chaplet that was ever used at Rome.This dignity is only
ended with life itself, and whether in exile or in captivity, it
always attends its owner. In those early days, two jugera of
land were considered enough for a citizen of Rome, and to none
was a larger portion than this allotted. And yet, at the present
day, men who but lately were the slaves of the Emperor Nero
have been hardly content with pleasure-gardens that occupied
the same space as this; while they must have fishponds, forsooth, of still greater extent, and in some instances I might
add, perhaps, kitchens even as well.
Numa first established the custom of offering corn to the
gods, and of propitiating them with the salted
8 cake; he was
the first, too, as we learn from Hemina, to parch spelt, from
the fact that, when in this state, it is more wholesome as an
aliment
9 This method, however, he could only establish one
way: by making an enactment, to the effect that spelt is not
in a pure state for offering, except when parched. He it was,
too, who instituted the Fornacalia,
10 festivals appropriated
for the parching of corn, and others,
11 observed with equal
solemnity, for the erection and preservation of the "termini,"
or boundaries of the fields: for these termini, in those days,
they particularly regarded as gods; while to other divinities
they gave the names of Seia,
12 from "sero," "to sow," and of
Segesta, from tile "segetes," or "crops of standing corn," the
statues of which goddesses we still see erected in the Circus.
A third divinity it is forbidden by the rules of our religion to
name even
13 beneath a roof. In former days, too, they would
not so much as taste the corn when newly cut, nor yet wine
when just made, before the priests had made a libation of the
first-fruits.
CHAP. 3. (3.—THE JUGERUM OF LAND.
That portion of land used to be known as a "jugerum,"
which was capable of being ploughed by a single "jugum," or
yoke of oxen, in one day; an "actus"
14 being as much as the
oxen could plough at a single spell, fairly estimated, without
stopping. This last was one hundred and twenty feet in length;
and two in length made a jugerum. The most considerable
recompense that could be bestowed upon generals and valiant
citizens, was the utmost extent of land around which a person
could trace a furrow with the plough in a single day. The
whole population, too, used to contribute a quarter
15 of a sextarius of spelt, or else half a one, per head.
From agriculture the earliest surnames were derived. Thus,
for instance, the name of Pilumnus was given to him who invented the "pilum," or pestle of the bake-house, for pounding
corn; that of Piso was derived from "piso," to grind corn;
and those of Fabius, Lentulus, and Cicero, from the several
varieties
16 of leguminous plants in the cultivation of which respectively these individuals excelled. One individual of the
family of the Junii received the name of "Bubuleus,"
17 from
the skill he displayed in breeding oxen. Among the sacred
ceremonials, too, there was nothing that was held more holy
than the marriage by confarreation,
18 and the woman just
married used to present a cake made of spelt.
19 Careless cultivation of the land was in those times an offence that came
under the cognizance of the censors; and, as we learn from
Cato,
20 when it was said that such and such a man was a good
agriculturist or a good husbandman, it was looked upon as the
very highest compliment that could be paid him. A man
came to be called "locuples," or "rich," from being "loci
plenus," or "full of earth." Money, too, received its name
of "pecunia,"
21 from "pecus," "cattle." At the present
day, even, in the registers of the censors, we find set down
under the head of "pascua," or "pasture lands," everything
from which the public revenues are derived, from the fact that
for a long period of time pasture lands were the only sources
of the public revenue. Fines, too, were only imposed in the
shape of paying so many sheep or so many oxen; and the benevolent spirit of the ancient laws deserves remark, which
most considerately enjoined that the magistrate, when he in-
flicted a penalty, should never impose a fine of an ox before
having first condemned the same party to the payment of a
sheep.
Those who celebrated the public games in honour of the ox
received the name of Bubetii.
22 King Servius was the first
who impressed upon our copper coin
23 the figures of sheep and
oxen. To depasture cattle secretly by night upon the unripe
crops on plough lands, or to cut them in that state, was made
by the Twelve Tables
24 a capital offence in the case of an
adult; and it was enacted that the person guilty of it should
be hanged, in order to make due reparation to the goddess
Ceres, a punishment more severe, even, than that inflicted for
murder. If, on the other hand, the offender was not an adult,
he was beaten at the discretion of the prætor; a penalty double
the amount of the damage was also exacted.
The various ranks, too, and distinctions in the state had no
other origin than the pursuits of agriculture. The rural
tribes held the foremost rank, and were composed of those
who possessed lands; while those of the city, a place to which
it was looked upon as ignominious to be transferred, had the
discredit thrown upon them of being an indolent race. Hence
it was that these last were only four in number, and received
their names from the several parts of the City which they respectively inhabited; being the Suburran, the Palatine, Colline, and Exquiline tribes. Every ninth day
25 the rural tribes
used to visit the city for the purpose of marketing, and it was
for this reason that it was made illegal to hold the comitia upon
the Nundinaæ; the object being that the country people might
not be called away thereby from the transaction of their business. In those days repose and sleep were enjoyed upon
straw. Even to glory itself, in compliment to corn, the name
was given of "adorea."
26
For my own part, I greatly admire
27 the modes of expression employed in our ancient language: thus, for instance,
we read in the Commentaries of the Priesthood to the follow-
ing effect:—"For deriving an augury from the sacrifice of a
bitch,
28 a day should be set apart before the ear of corn appears
from out of the sheath,
29 and then again before it enters the
sheath."
CHAP. 4.—HOW OFTEN AND ON WHAT OCCASIONS CORN HAS SOLD AT A REMARKABLY LOW PRICE.
The consequence was, that when the Roman manners were
such as these, the corn that Italy produced was sufficient for
its wants, and it had to be indebted to no province for its
food; and not only this, but the price of provisions was incredibly cheap. Manius Marcius, the ædile
30 of the people,
was the first who gave corn to the people at the price of one
as for the modius. L. Minutius Augurinus,
31 the same who
detected, when eleventh tribune of the people, the projects of
Spurius Mælius, reduced the price of corn on three market
days,
32 to one as per modius; for which reason a statue was
erected in honour of him, by public subscription, without the
Trigeminian Gate.
33 T. Seius distributed corn to the people,
in his ædileship,
34 at one as per modius, in remembrance of
which statues were erected in honour of him also in the Capitol and the Palatium: on the day of his funeral he was borne to
the pile on the shoulders of the Roman people. In the year,
35
too, in which the Mother of the Gods was brought to Rome, the
harvest of that summer, it is said, was more abundant than it
had been for ten years before. M. Yarro informs us, that in the
year
36 in which L. Metellus exhibited so many elephants in
his triumphal procession, a modius of spelt was sold for one as,
which was the standard price also of a congius of wine, thirty
pounds' weight of dried figs, ten pounds of olive oil, and
twelve pounds of flesh meat. Nor did this cheapness originate
in the wide-spread domains of individuals encroaching continually upon their neighbours, for by a law proposed by Licinius Stolo, the landed property of each individual was limited
to five hundred jugera; and he himself was convicted under
his own law of being the owner of more than that amount,
having as a disguise prevailed upon his son to lend him his
name. Such were the prices of commodities at a time when
the fortunes of the republic were rapidly on the increase. The
words, too, that were uttered by Manius Curius
37 after his
triumphs and the addition of an immense extent of territory
to the Roman sway, are well known: "The man must be
looked upon," said he, "as a dangerous citizen, for whom
seven jugera of land are not enough;" such being the amount
of land that had been allotted to the people after the expulsion
of the kings.
What, then, was the cause of a fertility so remarkable as
this? The fact, we have every reason to believe, that in
those days the lands were tilled by the hands of generals
even, the soil exulting beneath a plough-share crowned with
wreaths of laurel, and guided by a husbandman graced with
triumphs: whether it is that they tended the seed with the
same care that they had displayed in the conduct of wars, and
manifested the same diligent attention in the management of
their fields that they had done in the arrangement of the camp,
or whether it is that under the hands of honest men everything prospers all the better, from being attended to with a
scrupulous exactness. The honours awarded to Serranus
38
found him engaged in sowing his fields, a circumstance to
which he owes his surname.
39 Cincinnatus was ploughing his
four jugera of land upon the Vaticanian Hill—the same that are
still known as the "Quintian Meadows,"
40 when the messenger brought him the dictatorship—finding him, the tradition says, stripped to the work, and his very face begrimed
with dust. "Put on your clothes," said he, "that I may deliver to you the mandates of the senate and people of Rome."
In those days these messengers bore the name of "viator," or
"wayfarer," from the circumstance that their usual employ-
ment was to fetch the senators and generals from their fields.
But at the present day these same lands are tilled by slaves
whose legs are in chains, by the hands of malefactors and men
with a branded face! And yet the Earth is not deaf to our
adjurations, when we address her by the name of "parent,"
and say that she receives our homage
41 in being tilled by
hands such as these; as though, forsooth, we ought not to believe that she is reluctant and indignant at being tended in
such a manner as this! Indeed, ought we to feel any surprise
were the recompense she gives us when worked by chastised
slaves,
42 not the same that she used to bestow upon the labours
of warriors?
CHAP. 5.—ILLUSTRIOUS MEN WHO HAVE WRITTEN UPON AGRICULTURE.
Hence it was that to give precepts upon agriculture became
one of the principal occupations among men of the highest
rank, and that in foreign nations even. For among those who
have written on this subject we find the names of kings even,
Hiero, for instance, Attalus Philometor, and Archelaüs, as well as
of generals, Xenophon, for example, and Mago the Carthaginian.
Indeed, to this last writer did the Roman senate award such
high honours, that, after the capture of Carthage, when it
bestowed the libraries of that city upon the petty kings of
Africa, it gave orders, in his case only, that his thirty-two
Books should be translated into the Latin language, and this,
although M. Cato had already compiled his Book of Precepts;
it took every care also to entrust the execution of this task to
men who were well versed in the Carthaginian tongue, among
whom was pre-eminent D. Silanus, a member of one of the
most illustrious families of Rome. I have already indicated,
43
at the commencement of this work, the numerous learned
authors and writers in verse, together with other illustrious
men, whose authority it is any intention to follow; but among
the number I may here more particularly distinguish M. Yarro,
who, at the advanced age of eighty-eight years, thought it
his duty to publish a treatise upon this subject.
(4.) Among the Romans the cultivation of the vine was
introduced at a comparatively recent period, and at first, as
indeed they were obliged to do, they paid their sole attention
to the culture of the fields. The various methods of cultivating the land will now be our subject; and they shall be treated
of by us in no ordinary or superficial manner, but in the same
spirit in which we have hitherto written; enquiry shall be
made with every care first into the usages of ancient days, and
then into the discoveries of more recent times, our attention
being devoted alike to the primary causes of these operations,
and the reasons upon which they are respectively based. We
shall make mention,
44 too, of the various constellations, and of
the several indications which, beyond all doubt, they afford to
the earth; and the more so, from the fact that those writers
who have hitherto treated of them with any degree of exact-
ness, seem to have written their works for the use of any class
of men but the agriculturist.
CHAP. 6.—POINTS TO BE OBSERVED IN BUYING LAND.
First of all, then, I shall proceed in a great measure according to the dicta of the oracles of agriculture; for there is no
branch of practical life in which we find them more numerous
or more unerring. And why should we not view in the light
of oracles those precepts which have been tested by the infallibility of time and the truthfulness of experience?
(5.) To make a beginning, then, with Cato
45—"The agricul-
tural population," says he, "produces the bravest men, the
most valiant soldiers,
46 and a class of citizens the least given of
all to evil designs.—Do not be too eager in buying a farm.—
In rural operations never be sparing of your trouble, and, above
all, when you are purchasing land.—A bad bargain is always
a ground for repentance.—Those who are about to purchase
land, should always have an eye more particularly to the water
there, the roads, and the neighbourhood." Each of these
points is susceptible of a very extended explanation, and
replete with undoubted truths. Cato
47 recommends, too, that
an eye should be given to the people in the neighbourhood, to
see how they look: "For where the land is good," says he,
"the people will look well-conditioned and healthy."
Atilius Regulus, the same who was twice consul in the
Punic War, used to say
48 that a person should neither buy an
unhealthy piece of land in the most fertile locality, nor yet the
very healthiest spot if in a barren country. The salubrity of
land, however, is not always to be judged of from the looks of
the inhabitants, for those who are well-seasoned are able to
withstand the effects of living in pestilent localities even. And
then, besides, there are some localities that are healthy during
certain periods of the year only; though, in reality, there is
no soil that can be looked upon as really valuable that is not
healthy all the year through. "That
49 is sure to be bad land
against which its owner has a continual struggle." Cato
recommends us before everything, to see that the land which
we are about to purchase not only excels in the advantages of
locality, as already stated, but is really good of itself We
should see, too, he says, that there is an abundance of manual
labour in the neighbourhood, as well as a thriving town; that
there are either rivers or roads, to facilitate the carriage of the
produce; that the buildings upon the land are substantially
erected, and that the land itself bears every mark of having
been carefully tilled—a point upon which I find that many
persons are greatly mistaken, as they are apt to imagine that
the negligence of the previous owner is greatly to the purchaser's advantage; while the fact is, that there is nothing more
expensive than the cultivation of a neglected soil.
For this reason it is that Cato
50 says that it is best to buy
land of a careful proprietor, and that the methods adopted by
others ought not to be hastily rejected—that it is the same
with land as with mankind—however great the proceeds, if at
the same time it is lavish and extravagant, there will be no
great profits left. Cato looks upon a vineyard as the most
51
profitable investment; and he is far from wrong in that opinion, seeing that he takes such particular care to retrench all
superfluous expenses. In the second rank he places gardens that have a good supply of water, and with good reason,
too, supposing always that they are near a town. The ancients
gave to meadow lands the name of "parata," or lands "always
ready."
BOOK VII.
MAN, HIS BIRTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INVENTION OF THE ARTS.
