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Wheat-Farming in Roman Times

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

K. D. White
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Extract

In advancing our knowledge of ancient science and technology our greatest need is for accurate accounts of technical processes, based on detailed study of all the available evidence, both literary and archaeological, and on the rigorous exclusion of sweeping generalizations in the discussion of questions where evidence is scanty and interpretation uncertain.

The discussion that follows is a small contribution, based on close study of the evidence, towards the solution of a complex of problems which are of considerable importance to the student of Roman history. Unfortunately, statistical information on crop-yields is wholly lacking, and the researcher is reduced to the task of sifting a variety of scattered evidence from different periods and areas of cultivation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 37 , Issue 147 , September 1963 , pp. 207 - 212
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1963

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References

(1) Attempted, with criticism of earlier estimates, by V. M. Scramuzza, ‘Roman Sicily’, in vol. III of An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome, ed. Tenney Frank (5 vols., Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1933-38), 253 ff. (cited subsequently as Frank (ESAR)).

(2) E. C. Semple, The Geography of the Mediterranean Region in relation to Ancient History, London, 1932, 388.

(3) Although tools and methods of cultivation have changed very little in more than 2000 years, wheats have improved enormously in quality and variety; in view of this, the ‘Ciceronian’ yield for Sicily like that quoted by Varro is very creditable, and shows what could be done by time-honoured processes of cultivation, based on the accumulated experience of generations of careful tillage.

(4) Apulia, which was once a rich grain country, and which today supplies a considerable quantity of grain with yields well below the average for the whole country, is described by Seneca, writing about the same time as Columella, as a deserted area (Epp. mor., 87, 7).

(5) By courtesy of E. Miller, St. John’s College, Cambridge.

(6) J. Percival, Wheat in Great Britain, 1934.

(7) W. Harte, Essays in Husbandry, 2nd edition, London, 1770, 91.

(8) L. D. Stamp, Man and the Land, London, 1955. 110.

(9) From F.A.O. Statistical Records, Mediterranean and Near East Program.

(10) From W. C. Moore, Crops and Cropping, 3rd edition, 1959, 266.