438. Plows (arātra) were small and light. Some were of iron, some of wood. A wooden plow is still in use in Italy where the surface soil is thin and light and the ground stony. Some plows were straight, some curved. Heavy plowing was done with the straight plow. The field was plowed twice; the first time the plow was held straight, the second, sloping. The modern plow does the same work with one operation. Oxen were used for plowing, and 120 Roman feet, the length that the oxen were supposed to plow without resting, was a traditional land measure. The plowing was done in close furrows, and the ground was stirred until it was as fine as dust. The mark of good plowing was to leave no sign of the plow. The ancient Romans thought that harrowing after sowing was an evidence of bad plowing. Pliny the Younger tells of land that had to be plowed nine times.

   439. Calendar. The traditional knowledge of astronomy was important to the farmer, as a basis for the calendar of operations. The beginning and ending of the seasons was fixed by the positions of stars or constellations, and the heliacal rising and setting of certain stars indicated the seasons even to the day. This was the more important because of the confusion of the calendar before it was regulated by Caesar.

   440. Farm Implements. Farm slaves (familia rūstica) have already been discussed (§§ 145-146), and something has been said of the work they were called upon to do. On the great estates skilled craftsmen of all sorts were kept. The smaller farmer might arrange to hire them, when needed, of his neighbor. Implements included different sorts of hoes and rakes, spades and forks. There were pruning knives, sickles, scythes, and similar implements. The plow has been mentioned already (§ 438), and there were primitive forms of the harrow. Where grapes or olives were grown, presses and storage jars were part of the permanent equipment.

   441. Crops. The Roman farmer understood something of seed selection and practiced rotation of crops. He followed wheat with rye, barley, or oats. The second or fourth year beans or peas might be planted, sometimes to be plowed under green as stated above (§ 437), or alfalfa was put in. Alfalfa (mēdica) was well established in Italy before the beginning of our era; according to Pliny the Elder, it was brought from Greece, having come there from Asia. In other cases the land was left fallow every second or third year. Sometimes it was left fallow the year before wheat was planted. It was then plowed in the spring and summer as well as in the fall.

   442. Cato lists farm crops in the order of their importance in his time. First he puts the vineyard, then the vegetable garden, willow copse, olive grove, meadow, grain fields, wood lot, orchard, and oak grove. It is to be noted that he puts grain in the sixth place (§ 282). The transportation problem was also a factor here, for, as moving grain overland was difficult and expensive, it was cheaper to import it from the provinces by sea. Vine-growing has been discussed in detail, as have the growing of the olive and processes pertaining to it (§§ 289-292, 293-298).

   443. The vegetables grown by the Romans and their importance in the diet have been mentioned (§ 275). The farm garden contained the commonest of these for home consumption, with herbs for seasoning and for the home remedies (§ 414), bee plants, and garland flowers. These last were not for garlands at banquets, unless the farm lay near a town and they were grown for sale, but for garlands to deck the hearth in honor of the household gods on festival days (§ 492). Near the towns market-gardening was profitable, and vegetables, fruits, and flowers were grown. In early days a garden had lain behind each house, and the excavations at Pompeii show occasional traces of small gardens even behind large town houses (§§ 202, 208).

   444. Wheat was sown in the fall (§ 282) and cultivated by hand with the hoe in the spring. At harvest time it was generally cut by hand. Sometimes the reapers cut close to the ground, and after the sheaves were piled in shocks cut off the heads for the threshing. Sometimes they cut the heads first and the standing straw later. There was a simple form of a header pushed by an ox, but this could be used only where the ground was level. Threshing was done by hand on the threshing floor, or the grain was trodden out by cattle, or beaten out by a simple machine. It was winnowed by hand, by the process of tossing it in baskets, or by shovels so that the chaff flew out or away.

   445. Reeds and willows were planted in damp places. Willows were useful for baskets, ties for vines, and other farm purposes. The wood made a quick, hot fire in the kitchen. Vergil knew the willow as a hedge plant, whose early blossoms were loved by the bees. The word arbustum, translated by the word “orchard,” does not refer to an orchard as we understand the term, but to regular rows of trees, elm, poplar, fig, or mulberry, planted for the training of vines (§ 295), with grass, alfalfa, or vegetables between. Pigs were pastured in the oak groves to feed on the acorns.

   446. Varro advised keeping stock and game on all farms. Oxen were used for plowing (§ 438), though that was slow work, but cattle-raising produced milk and cheese and beef (§§ 277, 281). Sheep were valuable for the wool, to be worked by the women, as well as for the milk and cheese and meat (§ 281). Where olives were grown, the sheep could be pastured on the grass in the groves. When the lowland pastures burned in the summer the flocks were driven to the hills. Goats were kept for the milk. The importance of pork has been mentioned (§ 278), but it must be remembered that the Roman in general ate less meat than we do (§ 273). Fowls were kept at the vīlla. Cato says that it is the business of the vīlica to see that there are eggs in plenty. In addition to the chickens, geese, ducks, and guinea fowl familiar to us now, pigeons, thrushes, peafowl, and other birds were often raised for market (§ 279). On some of the great estates game was bred in great variety (§ 279). Bees were kept, of course, for honey was used where we use sugar (§ 281).

   447. Farmhouses. The ordinary farmhouse (vīlla rūstica) was built for use. It was not merely a house, but included the farm buildings gathered around a court (cohors) or courts, and was more or less regular in plan. Remains of a number have been discovered near Pompeii, and of others in various parts of the Roman world. They varied, of course, with the size and needs of the farm, its locality, and the taste and needs of the owner. Where the working farmer tilled his own land they must have been small and simple. On the large estates the vīlla included quarters for the master’s use when he came for inspection or rest. These might be in the second story. Cato recommends that the master’s quarters be comfortable, that he may spend the more time on the farm, and Columella adds that they should please the mistress. The room for the vīlicus must be near the gate, so that he could keep watch of comings and goings. There were quarters for the slaves (cellae familiae), and an ergastulum, partly underground and heavily barred, if there were any slaves worked in chains (§ 170). The kitchen was large and the slaves got their breakfast there in the morning and might gather there after work in the evening, if there were not the servants’ hall that Varro advises. Vitruvius says that the bath should be near the kitchen (§ 203); we find it so in some of the villas near Pompeii. The press-rooms and storage-rooms for the wine were supposed to face north, the rooms for the oil south. There were tool-rooms and wagon-sheds, and Varro’s remarks show that there were farmers then who had to be urged to keep their implements under cover. There were stables and a granary, and whatever else was needed for each particular farm. In the court there might be a pool, and if there were no spring or well there were cisterns. If the villa were suitably located on a main-traveled road, part of it was sometimes used for a wineshop or tavern.

   448. Country Houses. It has been stated already (§ 145) that the country estates might be of two classes, countryseats for pleasure and farms for profit. In the first case the location of the house (vīlla urbāna, or pseudourbāna), the arrangement of the rooms and the courts, their number and decoration, would depend entirely upon the taste and means of the master. Remains of such houses in most varied styles and plans have been found in various parts of the Roman world, and accounts of others in more or less detail have come down to us in literature, particularly the descriptions of two of his villas given by Pliny the Younger. Some villas were set in the hills for coolness, and some near the water. In the latter case rooms might be built overhanging the water, and at Baiae, the fashionable seaside resort, villas were actually built on piles so as to extend from the shore out over the sea. Cicero, who did not consider himself a rich man, had at least six villas in different localities. The number is less surprising when one remembers that there were nowhere the seaside or mountain hotels so common now, so that it was necessary to stay in a private house, one’s own or another’s, when one sought to escape from the city for change or rest.

   449. Vitruvius says that in the country house the peristyle usually came next the front door. Next was the atrium, surrounded by colonnades opening on the palaestra and walks. Such houses were equipped with rooms of all sorts for all occasions and seasons, with baths, libraries, covered walks, gardens, everything that could make for convenience or pleasure. Rooms and colonnades for use in hot weather faced the north; those for winter were planned to catch the sun. Attractive views were taken into account in arranging the rooms and their windows.

   450. Gardens. At the beginning of our era complaint of the extent of the pleasure grounds of the great estates and of the amount of land thus withdrawn from cultivation (§ 145) had become a literary commonplace. Gardens were an important part of these estates. They were architectural in character, that is, they were carefully laid out in straight lines or regular curves. The xystus was a parterre of trim flowerbeds in geometrical designs, edged with clipped box or rosemary. The favorite flowers were the rose (rosa)—the cabbage rose, the damask, and a few others—lilies (līlia) and violets (violae), though violae seems to have included stocks, wallflowers, and perhaps sweet rocket as well.

   451. There were the hippodromus for driving or riding, and the gestātiōnēs for walking or for an airing in the lectīca. The plane was a favorite shade tree (§ 295). Colonnades or clipped hedges provided shelter from sun or wind. Garden houses commanded favorite views and might include trīclīnia (§ 204). If the water supply permitted there were pools, fountains, and canals, and the terraced hillside gardens gave opportunity for effective use of water as it fell from level to level. Vines were trained on trellises or arbors (pergulae). Ivy was trained on trellises, walls, or trees by the topiārius, who had to be an expert in clipping the hedges of box, myrtle, or cypress and in trimming box into the symmetrical or fantastic shapes that we still call topiary work.

   452. If these gardens afforded less color in summer, or less variety of flower and shrub in their season than ours do now, they were much more effective the year round from their careful design and use of evergreen foliage, water, statuary, and permanent architectural features. During the Renaissance the Roman garden was revived. It may be studied now, much as the Romans themselves once knew it, in the gardens of the famous Italian villas which landscape gardeners and architects try to reproduce for us today.

FIG. 292
CYPRESSES IN THE VILLA D'ESTE AT TIVOLI