Transport. Use of certain words 267 



treating the delicate 1 white wheat, much fancied in Rome, as a de- 

 generate variety, not worth the growing by a practical farmer. His 

 instructions for storage shew the same point of view. The structure 

 and principles of granaries 2 are discussed at length, and the possibility 

 of long storage 3 is contemplated. The difficulties of transport by land 

 had certainly been an important influence in the changes of Roman 

 husbandry, telling against movements of bulky produce. Hence the 

 value attached 4 to situations near the seaboard or a navigable stream 

 (the latter not a condition often to be realized in Italy) by Columella 

 and his predecessors. Military roads served the traveller as well as the 

 armies, but took no regard 3 of agricultural needs. Moreover they had 

 special 6 drawbacks. Wayfarers had a knack of pilfering from farms 

 on the route, and someone or other was always turning up to seek 

 lodging and entertainment. Thus it was wise not to plant your villa 

 close to one of these trunk roads, or your pocket was likely to suffer. 

 But to have a decent approach 7 by a country road was a great con- 

 venience, facilitating the landlord's periodical visits and the carriage 

 of goods to and from the estate. 



Certain words call for brief notice. Thus opera, the average day's 

 work of an average worker, is Columella's regular labour-unit in terms 

 of which he expresses the labour-cost 8 of an undertaking. In no other 

 writer is this more marked. Occasionally operae occurs in the well- 

 known concrete sense 9 of the ' hands ' themselves. The magistri men- 

 tioned are not always the foremen spoken of above, but sometimes 10 

 directors or teachers in a general sense or even as a sort of synonym 

 for professores. To recur once again to colonus, the word, as in other 

 writers, often means simply 'cultivator,' not 'tenant-farmer.' The latter 

 special sense occurs in a passage 11 which would be useful evidence for 

 the history of farm-tenancies, if it were not doubtful whether the text 

 is sound. 



There remains a question, much more than a merely literary 

 problem, as to the true relation of Columella to Vergil. That he con- 

 stantly quotes the poet, and cites him as an authority on agriculture, 

 is a striking fact. One instance will shew the deep veneration with 

 which he regards the great master. In speaking 12 of the attention to 

 local qualities of climate and soil needed in choosing an estate, he 



1 sz/igo, ii 6 2, 9 13. 2 i 6 9-17. 



3 II 20 6frumenta, si in annos reconduntur, . . . sin pi-otinus usui destmantur...etc. 



4 I 2 3. 5 As Plutarch C Grace 7 says evdeiai yap yyovTo 5id TUV 



6 I 5 6, 7. 7 i 3 3, 4. 8 n 13 7 constimmatio operarum. 



9 II 21 10. 10 i praef% 12, XI i 12. 



11 lpraef% 17 (of the non-urban population in old times) qui rttra cokrent administrarentve 

 opera colonorum. The last three words are not in some MSS. 

 12 



