Agriculture is central to the human
experience. The annual cycle of planting and harvesting has provided the basis
for how we work and how we relax. Nothing is more valuable for understanding a
society than how they get their food. Because food and agriculture are such
fundamental aspects of human society, understanding them provides insights into
the worldview and lifestyle of a culture.
Lucius Junius
Moderatus Columella was born in Gades (modern Cadiz) in the southwest of Spain,
likely early in the 1st century CE. He is known for his single work De Re Rustica, a twelve book commentary
on agriculture. The shorter work De
Arboribus is attributed to Columella, but its exact authorship is unknown.
It is believed that De Arboribus is
the second part of a shorter four book treatise on Agriculture. This seems to
be supported by the lack of any concluding remarks; the book just ends with a
short discussion on planting violets and rosebushes.
Book IX of De Re Rustica deals with two aspects of
a farming life that are generally wilder than most: raising game animals and
beekeeping. Most of the book is dedicated to beekeeping, but the chapter on
establishing game reserves was quite interesting. I’ve read quite a bit about
beekeeping, but very little about stands of deer, hares and boars. Columella
recommends using a forest within sight of the farm and building a wall or fence
around to keep the animals in. He also recommends digging natural looking
troughs so that even if there isn’t a stream or pond in the woods since the
game animals won’t be free to wander. He also recommends taming the animals to
a certain degree, not so much that they don’t provide a good hunt, but enough
that they will accept feed from humans. Columella claims that the best time to
slaughter a boar or roebuck is within four years, afterwards the meat becomes
too tough and lean to be enjoyed. Deer apparently stay tender longer, as
Columella doesn’t attach any particular time limit on when they can be eaten.
Hares need to be eaten earlier because their lives aree so much shorter. This
system of maintaining game parks ensure that meat will be readily available
when a farmer doesn’t want to slaughter one of the domesticated livestock whose
value comes from the labor, dairy, wool, or eggs, animals that are more useful
alive and in the fields than dead and on the table. Columella notes that these
game parks are only a viable option for wealthier farmers who are able to
support animals that don’t contribute anything to the farm besides their meat.
The rest of Book
IX is dedicated to beekeeping and how to harvest honey and wax. Columella
describes how hives should be constructed and what materials work best. He also
provides a useful list of what plants and trees should be available to produce
the best honey. One of the most interesting parts of the book is where he
discusses the various diseases to which bees are susceptible. In an era where
many hives are being ravaged by Colony Collapse Disorder, it is important to
understand the value of bees. Columella makes clear that there are many
diseases that can affect bees and outlines the cures that Roman farmers used
when disease struck the hives. His techniques for gathering wild swarms are
still the primary methods that beekeepers use today. It was interesting that
Columella spent time discussing bee kings, when in fact as we know the queen
bee is the leader of the hive and that all of the males are drones. This speaks
to the male orientation of Roman society, and while it is factually incorrect
the techniques that Columella recommends for handling king bees worked on the
queens, they aren’t tied questions of gender.
The primary
focus of De Arboribus is not, as the
title may suggest, the cultivation of trees and orchards. Rather, most of the
book is dedicated to the preparation and maintenance of vineyards. Columella
writes on which fields are best suited for vines and how to prepare the land
for the plants. Just as he described the diseases that bees face and their
requisite cures, he also shares methods for protecting vines from both the
dangers of disease and the ravages that fog and mildew can visit on a crop. His
advice on pruning and trimming is still followed by many gardeners and arborist
today. He advises that plants not be cut back until they’re in their third
year. This is in line with the contemporary adage that trees “sleep, creep, and
leap” in the first three years after planting. Columella also has two very
interesting sections on transplantation and grafting. His grafting techniques
demonstrated that contrary to popular belief at the time, trees did not have to
be similar to be grafted together, as he demonstrated by grafting a fig and
olive tree together. The section of De
Arboribus in which Columella writes on trees is just as interesting as his
work with vines. He describes methods of orchard preparation and has planting
advice for a number of trees, both for their fruits and flowers. He focuses
most on olive trees with shorter sections on fruit and nut trees.
The works of
Columella are valuable to both scholars and laypeople. One, they’re
fascinating, farming has been a central aspect of human existence since it was
discovered and seeing how food was produced in one of the greatest empires is
valuable for how interesting it is. Beyond reading for pure pleasure, works on
ancient agriculture can help modern farmers with their own production methods.
Organic farming has seen a major revival in recent years and ancient
agriculture is certainly organic. The techniques described in De Re Rustica and De Arboribus paired with modern understanding of botany and
agricultural sciences would be helpful for farmers seeking to recapture
preindustrial agricultural production methods.
While the specific strains of plants that Columella recommends for
various purposes would not be available, modern equivalents could easily stand
in.
Columella is
also provides a window into what aspects of farms people most valued in the
Early Imperial Period. He mentions a number of fruit trees, including apples,
pears and figs, but not any oranges or other citrus fruits. This indicates,
even to a reader unfamiliar with the text, that Columella’s focus is on the
more temperate climes of the Roman heartland, rather than the warmer regions
where oranges flourish, like his native southern Spain and nearby North Africa.
This provides important contextual information for the reader and allows a
greater understanding of Columella’s purpose in writing.
Ancient
agriculture is often overlooked in favor of more glamorous areas of classical
study. This is at the expense of all the knowledge and insight that we can
glean from methods of food production and other products brought about by
agriculture, including textiles and medicines. As the most thorough treatment
of Roman agricultural practices there are few works as valuable as those of
Columella for the study of this essential aspect of classical life. Columella
understood the forces that shape society, from the farmers in the provinces to
the elite in Rome, all lives were driven by agriculture.
