Roman Farm Management: The Treatises Of M. Porcius Cato And M. Terentius Varro

by Marcus Porcius Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro, Fairfax Harrison (Translator)

Roman Farming Management: The Treatises Of Cato And Varro is actually two books in one. The first " De Agri Cultura" by Cato the Elder was written in the 2nd century B.C. and is a very straightforward description of how a farm was run in that period. The second more detailed, "Rerum rusticarum libri III" by Varro was written in the 2nd century A.D. and is a much more detailed description of what is needed to run a profitable farm as a business. Both are invaluable windows into ancient farming during the Roman period.

Genres: History, Classics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Ancient History, Agriculture, Historical

218 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 161

About the author

234 BC – 149 BC

Marcus Porcius Cato, Roman statesman, surnamed the Censor (Censorius), the Wise (Sapiens), the Ancient (Priscus), or the Elder (Maior), to distinguish him from Cato the Younger (his great-grandson).

Not to be confused with Dionysius Cato (3rd/4th century A.D.), author of 'Cato's distichs'.

Reviews

[Ruby]

There is some pretty good farming advice in here, but there's also a lot of terrible and blatantly untrue farming advice.
Cato kept his advice short and simple and I feel like he actually knew what he was talking about, even if he had some awful ideas about the treatment of slaves (even for Roman times). I like the bit at the end where he devoted 6 pages to medicinal uses for cabbage (for context, his whole section is about 70 pages long, and things like the entire grape harvest, which he lists as the most important crop for Roman famers, get about 3 pages). His suggestions include, if you feel sick and need to throw up, to eat 4 pounds of boiled cabbage, which definitely would work, but also isn't actually a remedy, it's just eating cabbage until you throw up.
Varro had slightly nicer ideas about slaves, but also a lot more faffing around, whereas Cato just got stuck into the advice. He also had something against goats ("what can I say of the health of animals who are never healthy?") and geese ("they like a clean place and yet never leave any place clean where they were"), and enjoys spreading blatant misinformation I guess. He claims that you can judge the age of a hare by how many anuses they have??? Apparently 'as many natural holes for excrement they have' is equivalent to their age. Also that bees come from rotting cattle. I did like the bit where at the end of the first book he randomly kills off one of the side characters (in his agricultural instruction manual) in an act of politically motivated violence and it briefly becomes a murder mystery.
Overall I enjoyed it even if there was some questionable advice, which is good since I have to write a thesis about it.

[Illiterate]

Advice (not always good) on eg. mending broken bones in livestock, giving wine to farmhands, eating cabbage before boozing.

[Lukerik]

More interesting than it looks. I had just thought to take a peek at Cato, but ended up reading the whole thing. Though I think I’d had enough by the end.

No kings, no wars. This is a look into how the vast majority of our ancestors would have lived over the past 10,000 years. Unless you’re a member of an uncontacted tribe.

Cato’s book is obviously not in its original form. It has the feel of a manual that’s gone through various editions. I should imagine it’s been used for hundreds of years by Roman soldiers as they get pensioned off to the land.

There’s a fair amount of technical information that would be of interest to modern-day farmers, though I sure not all the advice should be followed. Don’t farm near Pompeii. I don’t care what the climate’s like.

What kept me reading were the human-interest things. There are lots of magic spells and recipes. I’m glad I’m not my own ancestor. Not just because I would have to shag my other ancestors, which is just very wrong, but it’s also 50/50 if I were enslaved by or enslaving my other ancestors. It’s sobering to see the slaves treated like livestock, except they get less food.

Varro gives detailed instructions of how to buy and breed slaves. His book covers a lot of the same ground but is something of a work of art. It’s a dialogue, very suave in tone, and with jokes that I can only hope are funnier in Latin.

[Milena]

4.5

[Martin]

Fascinating glimpse into early Latin verbs and phonologies. Glimpses at the emergence of comedic stock characters in narrative (which would form new comedy, Renaissance comedy, and then Elizabethan comedy), as well as a pre-hellenophilic Rome. A horrific reminder of the Roman slave trade. Several new words for farm tools have been learnt. Hotsy-totsy on the whole.

[Alex Cotterill]

I’ll defo come back to this as currently, I’ve used it as a source for quotes for one of my Classics modules. The part on animal roles in Book 2 and how we tamed certain species was particularly relevant but some of the other agricultural practices that they conducted, were obviously not the same to our modern ways, but were nonetheless interesting to read and u feet and as to why they did that.

Bonus the Latin being in there but it wasn’t relevant to me atm.

[Justin]

How it was before plastic, tractors and freedom.

[Marcos Augusto]

Cato’s only surviving work is De agri cultura (On Farming), a treatise on agriculture written about 160 bc. De agri cultura is the oldest remaining complete prose work in Latin. It is a practical handbook dealing with the cultivation of grape vines and olives and the grazing of livestock, but it also contains many details of old customs and superstitions. More important, it affords a wealth of information on the transition from small landholdings to capitalistic farming in Latium and Campania.

[Nathan]

Two farming manuals, one of the middle Republic, one from the late.

Cato: "quid est agrum bene colere? bene arare. quid secundum? arare. quid tertium? stercorare." Cato is full of such wisdom, and tips on how store pigeon manure and how to water down wine for your workers. He also prescribes a complete inventory of farm implements down to their materials and dimensions and where they can be cheaply procured.

Varro is full of farcically false etymologies but he does provide the legal formulae for acquiring title to different species of livestock. His third book is devoted to hobby farms and their profits, which provides insight into the suburban retreats of the upper classes in the last century BCE.

[Stephen Miletus]

This is a translation of two Latin works on farming, which were often copied together in the manuscript tradition. Cato wrote the older of the two, which is a practical guide to viniculture: at one point he includes recommendations for the best sources for farm tools. (These merchants may be assumed to no longer sell these items.) Varro was an encyclopedist, and his work is presented in the form of a dialogue between aristocrats whiling away an afternoon by impressing each other over what they know of the subject.

Together they provide us most of the written material for we know about how the ancient Romans tilled the land; archeology provides most of the remainder.

[Mark Stone]

Nothing like learning of Roman methodologies from those who lived in Roman times. While De Agricultura can read dry in places, there are spots of humor o'plenty, too. Or at least I found that to be true. This is a treasure-trove of information regarding agriculture; probably a necessity for anyone researching the ever more fascinating Roman era.

An additional bonus. The original LATIN writing alongside the English translation. Me, I'm of the opinion the whole world should speak, read, and write Latin. Such a beautiful language.