Looking for a resource...

Doogs · Jul 17, 2008

Well, the next novel is coming along nicely...characters and stories are getting mapped out, etc...but I'm stuck on one trivial bit of research and was hoping someone here might be able to point me in the right direction...

My story opens in the spring (March/April) of 216 B.C., on a modest farm outside the town of Capena (just north of Rome). My MC is an old warhorse who has served in almost two dozen campaigns with the legions, and has since retired to marry and raise a family. He is quite content in his quiet, pastoral life, until the day his cousin appears, seeking to lure him back for one last campaign.

What I'm looking for is some idea of an activity for my MC to be engaged in when his cousin shows up. I originally planned to have him working the plow - something of a Cincinnatus reference - but have since learned that Roman farmers plowed and planted their wheat crop in the autumn. Alas.

I have several alternative ideas - weeding the fields, tending to a flock of sheep, etc - but I'm having a devil of a time locating any sort of "agricultural calendar", for lack of a better term. So I really have no idea what sort of activities a Roman farm would be engaged in around the March/April time period.

Anyone?

funidream · Jul 17, 2008

It might help to look at modern day farming in Italy for direction on activities that might be appropriate for your time period. See if it is the custom for lemons, for example, to be gathered in March, or grapevines to be pruned - simple activities that cross time.

dolores haze · Jul 17, 2008

If it's spring I think he'd be sowing seed. Wouldn't he have more than one crop?

c.e.lawson · Jul 17, 2008

Hi Doogs,

I found the following link helpful when I had a similar question. Of course my info is regarding ancient Greece (where else?

) - but perhaps your location is similar enough in land and climate for this to be useful. Or maybe it can spur an idea for you.

http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/LX/AgricultureOfAncientGreece.html

Scroll down to the section titled "Agricultural Work" and you will see the tasks laid out by season.

I'm glad your new story is coming along. It sounds fascinating.

c.e.

Doogs · Jul 17, 2008

Thanks, c.e.! Very helpful, indeed!

There's a lot of overlap between Greece and Italy, save that Italian soil seems to have been much more fertile (particularly in Latium and Campania). A lot of references in that link to things that didn't work out for the Greeks (sowing legumes every third year, using manure for fertilizer), were common practices on Roman farms.

So...prepping a fallow field for cultivation, or weeding, etc the wheat field ahead of the summer harvest.

I want to confirm (need to peruse Cato's "On Agriculture" to see if he gets that specific), but definitely promising!

lkp · Jul 17, 2008

If they plough in the autumn, are they sowing winter wheat and therefore harvesting some time in the spring?

How about shearing sheep? That's a task that would preoccupy you.

Doogs · Jul 18, 2008

Well...looks I've found my answer. Not in Cato, but Varro...

A CALENDAR OF AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS

By a more exact definition of the seasons, the year is divided into
eight parts, the first of forty-five days from the date of the rising
of the west wind (February 7) to the date of the vernal equinox (March
24), the second of the ensuing forty-four days to the rising of the
Pleiades (May 7), the third of forty-eight days to the summer solstice
(June 24), the fourth of twenty-seven days to the rising of the Dog
Star (July 21), the fifth of sixty-seven days to the Autumn equinox
(September 26), the sixth of thirty-two days to the setting of the
Pleiades (October 28), the seventh of fifty-seven days to the winter
solstice (December 24), and the eighth of forty-five days to the
beginning of the first.[85]

_1 deg. February 7-March 24_

XXIX. These are the things to be done during the first of the seasons
so enumerated: All kinds of nurseries should be set out, the vines
should be first pruned, then dug, and the roots which have protruded
from the ground should be cut out, the meadows should be cleaned,
willows planted and the corn hoed. We call that corn land (_seges_)
which has been ploughed and sowed as distinguished from plough land
(_arva_) which has been ploughed but not yet sowed, while that land
which was formerly sowed and lies awaiting a new ploughing is called
stubble (_novalis_). When land is ploughed for the first time it is
said to be broken up (_proscindere_), and at the second ploughing to
be broken down (_offringere_) because at the first ploughing large
clods are turned up and at the second ploughing these are reduced. The
third cultivation, after the seed has been sown, is called ridging
(_lirare_), that is, when by fastening mould boards on the plough, the
sown seed is covered up in ridges[86] and at the same time furrows are
cut by means of which the surface water may drain off. Some farmers
who cultivate small farms, as in Apulia, are wont to harrow their land
after it is ridged, if perchance any large clods have been left in the
seed bed. The hollow channel left by the share of the plough is called
the furrow, the raised land between two furrows is called the ridge
(_porca_,) because there the seed is as it were laid upon an altar
(_porricere_) to secure a crop, for when the entrails are offered to
the gods this word _porricere_ is used to describe the oblation.

2 deg. _March 24-May 7_

XXX. These are the things to be done during the second season between
the vernal equinox and the rising of the Pleiades. Weed the corn land,
break up old sod, cut the willows, close the pastures (to the stock)
and complete any thing left undone in the preceding season. Plant
trees before the buds shoot and they begin to blossom, for deciduous
trees are not fit to transplant after they put forth leaves. Plant and
prune your olives.

pdr · Jul 18, 2008

Thank you for that.

It will come in very handy for a story that has stalled.

Looking for a resource...

international guttersnipe