“Hanc etiam, ut perhibent, sese formabat ad artem, Cùm domito Fabius Dictator ab hoste redibat: Non veritus, medio dederat qui jura Senatu, Ferre idem arboribusque suis, terræque colendæ, Victricesque manus ruri præstare serendo. Ipsa triumphales tellus experta colonos, Atque ducum manibus quondam versata suorum, Majores fructus, majora arbusta ferebat(9).”

Nor were the Romans contented with merely labouring the ground: They also delivered precepts for its proper cultivation, which, being committed to writing, formed, as it were, a new science, and, being derived from actual experience, had an air of originality rarely exhibited in their literary productions. Such maxims were held by the Romans in high respect, since they were considered as founded on the observation of men who had displayed the most eminent capacity and knowledge in governing the state, in framing its laws, and leading its armies.

These precepts which formed the works of the agricultural writers—the Rusticæ rei scriptores—are extremely interesting and comprehensive. The Romans had a much greater variety than we, of grain, pulse, and roots; and, besides, had vines, olives, and other plantations, which were regarded as profitable crops. The situation, too, and construction of a villa, with the necessary accommodation for slaves and workmen, the wine and oil cellars, the granaries, the repositories for preserving fruit, the poultry yard, and aviaries, form topics of much attention and detail. These were the appertenancies of the villa rustica, or complete farm-house, which was built for the residence only of an industrious husbandman, and with a view towards profit from the employments of agriculture. As luxury, indeed, increased, the villa was adapted to the accommodation of an opulent Roman citizen, and the country was resorted to rather for recreation than for the purpose of lucrative toil. What would Cato the Censor, distinguished for his industry and unceasing attention to the labours of the field, have thought of the following lines of Horace?

“O rus, quando ego te aspiciam? quandoque licebit Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis, Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ?”

It was this more refined relish for the country, so keenly enjoyed by the Romans in the luxurious ages of the state, that furnished the subject for the finest passages and allusions in the works of the Latin poets, who seem to vie with each other in their praises of a country life, and the sweetness of the numbers in which they celebrate its simple and tranquil enjoyments. The Epode of Horace, commencing,

“Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis,”

which paints the charms of rural existence, in the various seasons of the year—the well-known passages in Virgil’s Georgics, and those in the second book of Lucretius, are the most exquisite and lovely productions of these triumvirs of Roman poetry. But the ancient prose writers, with whom we are now to be engaged, regarded agriculture rather as an art than an amusement, and a country life as subservient to profitable employment, and not to elegant recreation. In themselves, however, these compositions are highly curious; they are curious, too, as forming a commentary and illustration of the subjects,

“Quas et facundi tractavit Musa Maronis.”

It is likewise interesting to compare them with the works of the modern Italians on husbandry, as the Liber Ruralium Commodorum of Crescenzio, written about the end of the thirteenth century,—the Coltivazione Toscana of Davanzati,—Vittorio’s treatise, Degli Ulivi,—and even Alamanni’s poem Coltivazione, which closely follows, particularly as to the situation and construction of a villa, the precepts of Cato, Varro, and Columella. The plough used at this day by the peasantry in the Campagna di Roma, is of the same form as that of the ancient Latian husbandmen(10); and many other points of resemblance may be discovered, on a perusal of the most recent writers on the subject of Italian cultivation(11). Dickson, too, who, in his Husbandry of the Ancients, gives an account of Roman agriculture so far as connected with the labours of the British farmer, has shown, that, in spite of the great difference of soil and climate, many maxims of the old Roman husbandmen, as delivered by Cato and Varro, corresponded with the agricultural system followed in his day in England.

Of the distinguished Roman citizens who practised agriculture, none were more eminent than Cato and Varro; and by them the precepts of the art were also committed to writing. Their works are original compositions, founded on experience, and not on Grecian models, like so many other Latin productions. Varro, indeed, enumerates about fifty Greek authors, who, previous to his time, had written on the subject of agriculture; and Mago, the Carthaginian, composed, in the Punic language, a much-approved treatise on the same topic, in thirty-two books, which was afterwards translated into Latin by desire of the senate. But the early Greek works, with the exception of Xenophon’s Œconomics and the poem of Hesiod called Works and Days, have been entirely lost; the tracts published in the collection entitled Geoponica, being subsequent to the age of Varro.

MARCUS PORCIUS CATO,

better known by the name of Cato the Censor, wrote the earliest book on husbandry which we possess in the Latin language. This distinguished citizen was born in the 519th year of Rome. Like other Romans of his day, he was brought up to the profession of arms. In the short intervals of peace he resided, during his youth, at a small country-house in the Sabine territory, which he had inherited from his father. Near it there stood a cottage belonging to Manius Curius Dentatus, who had repeatedly triumphed over the Sabines and Samnites, and had at length driven Pyrrhus from Italy. Cato was accustomed frequently to walk over to the humble abode of this renowned commander, where he was struck with admiration at the frugality of its owner, and the skilful management of the farm which was attached to it. Hence it became his great object to emulate his illustrious neighbour, and adopt him as his model(12). Having made an estimate of his house, lands, slaves, and expenses, he applied himself to husbandry with new ardour, and retrenched all superfluity. In the morning he went to the small towns in the vicinity, to plead and defend the causes of those who applied to him for assistance. Thence he returned to his fields; where, with a plain cloak over his shoulders in winter, and almost naked in summer, he laboured with his servants till they had concluded their tasks, after which he sat down along with them at table, eating the same bread, and drinking the same wine(13). At a more advanced period of life, the wars, in which he commanded, kept him frequently at a distance from Italy, and his forensic avocations detained him much in the city; but what time he could spare was still spent at the Sabine farm, where he continued to employ himself in the profitable cultivation of the land. He thus became by the universal consent of his contemporaries, the best farmer of his age, and was held unrivalled for the skill and success of his agricultural operations(14). Though everywhere a rigid economist, he lived, it is said, more hospitably at his farm than in the city. His entertainments at his villa were at first but sparing, and seldom given; but as his wealth increased, he became more nice and delicate. “At first,” says Plutarch, “when he was but a poor soldier, he was not difficult in anything which related to his diet; but afterwards, when he grew richer, and made feasts for his friends, presently, when supper was done, he seized a leathern thong, and scourged those who had not given due attendance, or dressed anything carelessly(15).” Towards the close of his life, he almost daily invited some of his friends in the neighbourhood to sup with him; and the conversation at these meals turned not chiefly, as might have been expected, on rural affairs, but on the praises of great and excellent men among the Romans(16).

It may be supposed, that in the evenings after the agricultural labours of the morning, and after his friends had left him, he noted down the precepts suggested by the observations and experience of the day. That he wrote such maxims for his own use, or the instruction of others, is unquestionable; but the treatise De Re Rustica, which now bears his name, appears to have been much mutilated, since Pliny and other writers allude to subjects as treated of by Cato, and to opinions as delivered by him in this book, which are nowhere to be found in any part of the work now extant.

In its present state, it is merely the loose unconnected journal of a plain farmer, expressed with rude, sometimes with almost oracular brevity; and it wants all those elegant topics of embellishment and illustration which the subject might have so naturally suggested. It solely consists of the dryest rules of agriculture, and some receipts for making various kinds of cakes and wines. Servius says, it is addressed to the author’s son; but there is no such address now extant. It begins rather abruptly, and in a manner extremely characteristic of the simple manners of the author: “It would be advantageous to seek profit from commerce, if that were not hazardous; or by usury, if that were honest: but our ancestors ordained, that the thief should forfeit double the sum he had stolen, and the usurer quadruple what he had taken, whence it may be concluded, that they thought the usurer the worst of the two. When they wished highly to praise a good man, they called him a good farmer. A merchant is zealous in pushing his fortune, but his trade is perilous and liable to reverses. But farmers make the bravest men, and the stoutest soldiers. Their gain is the most honest, the most stable, and least exposed to envy. Those who exercise the art of agriculture, are of all others least addicted to evil thoughts.”