ROMAN LITERATURE, &c.

In almost all States, poetical composition has been employed and considerably improved before prose. First, because the imagination expands sooner than reason or judgment; and, secondly, because the early language of nations is best adapted to the purposes of poetry, and to the expression of those feelings and sentiments with which it is conversant.

Thus, in the first ages of Greece, verse was the ordinary written language, and prose was subsequently introduced as an art and invention. In like manner, at Rome, during the early advances of poetry, the progress of which has been detailed in the preceding volume, prose composition continued in a state of neglect and barbarism.

The most ancient prose writer, at least of those whose works have descended to us, was a man of little feeling or imagination, but of sound judgment and inflexible character, who exercised his pen on the subject of Agriculture, which, of all the peaceful arts, was most highly esteemed by his countrymen.

The long winding coast of Greece, abounding in havens, and the innumerable isles with which its seas were studded, rendered the Greeks, from the earliest days, a trafficking, seafaring, piratic people: And many of the productions of their oldest poets, are, in a great measure, addressed to what may be called the maritime taste or feeling which prevailed among their countrymen. This sentiment continued to be cherished as long as the chief literary state in Greece preserved [pg 6]the sovereignty of the seas—compelled its allies to furnish vessels of war, and trusted to its naval armaments for the supremacy it maintained during the brightest ages of Greece. In none either of the Doric or Ionian states, was agriculture of such importance as to exercise much influence on manners or literature. Their territories were so limited, that the inhabitants were never removed to such a distance from the capital as to imbibe the ideas of husbandmen. In Thessaly and Lacedæmon, agriculture was accounted degrading, and its cares were committed to slaves. The vales of Bœotia were fruitful,

but were desolated by floods. Farms of any considerable extent could scarcely be laid down on the limited, though lovely isles of the Ægean and Ionian seas. The barren soil and mountains of the centre of Peloponnesus confined the Arcadians to pasturage—an employment bearing some analogy to agriculture, but totally different in its mental effects, leading to a life of indolence, contemplation, and wandering, instead of the industrious, practical, and settled habits of husbandmen. Though the Athenians breathed the purest air beneath the clearest skies, and their long summer was gilded by the brightest beams of Apollo, the soil of Attica was sterile and metallic; while, from the excessive inequalities in its surface, all the operations of agriculture were of the most difficult and hazardous description. The streams were overflowing torrents, which stripped the soil, leaving nothing but a light sand, on which grain would scarcely grow. But it was with the commencement of the Peloponnesian war that the exercise of agriculture terminated in Attica. The country being left unprotected,

owing to the injudicious policy of Pericles, was annually ravaged by the Spartans, and the husbandmen were forced to seek refuge within the walls of Athens. In the early part of the age of Pericles, the Athenians possessed ornamented villas in the country; but they always returned to the city in the evening1. We do not hear that the great men in the early periods of the republic, as Themistocles and Aristides, were farmers; and the heroes of its latter ages, as Iphicrates and Timotheus, chose their retreats in Thrace, the islands of the Archipelago, or coast of Ionia.

A picture, in every point of view the reverse of this, is presented to us by the Agreste Latium. The ancient Italian mode of life was almost entirely agricultural and rural; and with exception, perhaps, of the Etruscans, none of the Italian states were in any degree maritime or commercial. Italy was well adapted for every species of agriculture, and was [pg 7]most justly termed by her greatest poet, magna parens frugum. Dionysius of Halicarnassus2, Strabo3, and Pliny4, talk with enthusiasm of its fertile soil and benignant climate. Where the ground was most depressed and marshy, the meadows were stretched out for the pasturage of cattle. In the level country, the rich arable lands, such as the Campanian and Capuan plains, extended in vast tracts, and produced a profusion of fruits of every species, while on the acclivities, where the skirts of the mountains began to break into little hills and sloping fields, the olive and vine basked on soils famed for Messapian oil, and for wines of which the very names cheer and revive us. The mountains themselves produced marble and timber,

and poured from their sides many a delightful stream, which watered the fields, gladdened the pastures, and moistened the meads to the very brink of the shore. Well then might Virgil exclaim, in a burst of patriotism and poetry which has never been surpassed,—

One would not suppose that agricultural care was very consistent, at least in a small state, with frequent warfare. But in no period of their republic did the Romans neglect the advantages which the land they inhabited presented for husbandry. Romulus, who had received a rustic education, and had spent his youth in hunting, had no attachment to any peaceful arts, except to rural labours; and this feeling pervaded his legislation. His Sabine successor, Numa Pompilius, who well understood and discharged the duties of sovereignty, divided the whole territory of Rome into different cantons. An exact account was rendered to him of the manner in which these were cultivated; and he occasionally went in person to survey them, in order to encourage those farmers whose lands were well tilled, and to reproach others with their want of industry6. By the institution, too, of various religious festivals, connected with agriculture, it came to be regarded with a sort of sacred reverence. Ancus Martius, who trod in the [pg 8]steps of Numa, recommended to his people the assiduous cultivation

of their lands. After the expulsion of the kings, an Agrarian law, by which only seven acres were allotted to each citizen, was promulgated, and for some time rigidly enforced. Exactness and economy in the various occupations of agriculture were the natural consequences of such regulations. Each Roman having only a small portion of land assigned to him, and the support of his family depending entirely on the produce which it yielded, its culture necessarily engaged his whole attention.

In these early ages of the Roman commonwealth, when the greatest men possessed but a few acres, the lands were laboured by the proprietors themselves. The introduction of commerce, and the consequent acquisition of wealth, had not yet enabled individuals to purchase the estates of their fellow-citizens, and to obtain a revenue from the rent of land rather than from its cultivation.

The patricians, who, in the city, were so distinct from the plebeian orders, were thus confounded with them in the country, in the common avocations of husbandry. After having presided over the civil affairs of the republic, or commanded its armies, the most distinguished citizens returned, without repining, to till the lands of their forefathers. Cincinnatus, who was found at labour in his fields by those who came to announce his election to the dictatorship, was not a singular example of the same hand which held the plough guiding also the helm of the state, and erecting the standard of its legions. So late as the time of the first Carthaginian war, Regulus, in the midst of his victorious career in Africa, asked leave from the senate to return to Italy, in order to cultivate his farm of seven acres, which had been neglected during his absence7. Many illustrious names among the Romans originated in agricultural employments, or some circumstances of rustic skill and labour, by which the founders of families were distinguished. The Fabii and Lentuli were supposed to have been

celebrated for the culture of pulses, and the Asinii and Vitellii for the art of rearing animals. In the time of the elder Cato, though the manual operations were performed for the most part by servants, the great men resided chiefly on their farms8; and they continued to apply to the study and practice of agriculture long after they had carried the victorious arms of their country beyond the confines of Italy. They did not, indeed, follow agriculture as their sole avocation; but they prose[pg 9]cuted it during the intervals of peace, and in the vacations of the Forum. The art being thus exercised by men of high capacity, received the benefit of all the discoveries, inventions, or experiments suggested by talents and force of intellect. The Roman warriors tilled their fields with the same intelligence as they pitched their camps, and sowed corn with the same care with which they drew up their armies for battle. Hence, as a modern Latin poet observes, dilating on the expression of Pliny, the earth yielded such an exuberant return,

that she seemed as it were to delight in being ploughed with a share adorned with laurels, and by a ploughman who had earned a triumph:—

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 [pg 10]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?

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,

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,

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 husbandmen10; and many other points of resemblance may be discovered, on a perusal of the [pg 11]most recent writers on the subject of Italian cultivation11. 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 model12. Having made an estimate of his house, lands, slaves, [pg 12]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 wine13. 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 operations14. 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 carelessly15.” 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 Romans16.

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 [pg 13]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.”

Our author then proceeds to his rules, many of which are sufficiently obvious. Thus, he advises, that when one is about to purchase a farm, he should examine if the climate, soil, and exposure be good: he should see that it can be easily supplied with plenty of water,—that it lies in the neighbourhood of a town,—and near a navigable river, or the sea. The directions for ascertaining the quality of the land are not quite so clear or self-evident. He recommends the choice of a farm where there are few implements of labour, as this shews the soil to be easily cultivated; and where there are, on the other hand, a number of casks and vessels, which testify an abundant produce. With regard to the best way of laying out a farm when it is purchased, supposing it to be one of a hundred acres, the most profitable thing is a vineyard; next, a garden, that can be watered; then a willow grove; 4th, an olive plantation; 5th, meadow-ground; 6th, corn fields; and, lastly, forest trees and brushwood. Varro cites this passage, but he gives the preference