ROMAN AGRICULTURE. 383 



consisted of sheep, goats, swine, cattle, mules, asses, and horses. 

 It does not appear that artificial grasses or herbage plants were in 

 use ; but recourse was had, in times of scarcity, to the mistletoe 

 and the cytisus. What plant is meant by the latter designation 

 is not agreed upon. Hay was, in all probability, obtained from 

 the meadows and pastures, which were used in common. Flax, 

 and probably hemp, was grown. Wood for fuel, and timber for 

 construction, were obtained from the natural forests, which, in 

 Solon's time, abounded with wolves. Nothing is said of the 

 olive or fig by Hesiod ; but they were cultivated in the fields 

 for oil and food, as well as the vine for wine. 



One of Solon's laws directs that olive and fig trees must be 

 planted nine feet from a neighbor's ground, on account of their 

 spreading roots. Other trees might be planted within five feet. 

 In Hesiod's time almost every citizen was a husbandman, and 

 had a portion of land which he cultivated himself, with the aid 

 of his family, and perhaps one or two slaves. The produce, 

 whether for food or clothing, appears to have been manufactured 

 at home. The progress of society would, no doubt, introduce 

 the usual division of labor and of arts, and the commercial culti- 

 vators, or such as raised produce for the purpose of exchange, 

 would, in consequence, arise ; but when this state of things 

 occurred, and to what extent it was carried on when Greece 

 became a Roman province, the ancient writers afford us no 

 means of ascertaining. 



Agriculture among the Romans, or from the Second Century 

 before Christ to the Fifth Century of our Era. In the first 

 ages of the Commonwealth, the lands were occupied and culti- 

 vated by the proprietors themselves ; and, as this state of things 

 continued for four or five centuries, it was probably the chief 

 cause of the agricultural eminence of the Romans. When a 

 person had only a small portion of land assigned to him, and 

 the maintenance of his family depended entirely upon its pro- 

 ductions, it is natural to suppose that the culture of it employed 

 his whole attention. A person who has been accustomed to 

 regular and systematic habits of action, such as those of a mili- 

 tary life, will naturally carry those habits into whatever he 

 undertakes. Hence it is probable that there was a degree of 

 industrious application, exactness, and order in performing oper- 



