Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF THE ROMANS. 



23 



of two kinds, one for strong, and the other for light, soils. Varro mentions one with two 

 mould boards, with which, he says, " when they plough after sowing the seed, they are said 

 to ridge." Pliny mentions a plough with one mould board for the same purpose, and 

 others with a coulter, of which, he says, there are many kinds. It is probable indeed, 

 as the Rev. A. Dickson has remarked, that the ancients had many kinds of ploughs, 

 though, perhaps, not so scientifically constructed as those of modern times. " They had 

 ploughs," he says, " with mould boards, and without mould boards ; with and without 

 coulters ; with and without wheels ; with broad and narrow pointed shares ; and with 

 shares not only with sharp sides and points, but also with high-raised cutting tops." 

 (Husb. of the An., ii. 388.) But amidst all this variety of ploughs, no one has been able 

 to depict the simplest form of that implement in use among the Romans. Professor John 

 Martyn, in his notes to Virgil's Georgics, gives a figure of a modern Italian plough to 

 illustrate Virgil's description. Rosier says the Roman plough was the same as is still 

 used in the south of France (Jig. 11.) Some authors have made fanciful representations 



of it of the rudest construction ; others have exhibited more refined pieces of mechanism, 

 but most improbable as portraits. 



111. From the different parts of the plough mentioned by the Roman authors, a 

 figure has been imagined and described by the author of the Husbandry of the 

 Ancients, which, from his practical knowledge of agriculture, and considerable classi- 

 cal attainments, it is to be regretted he did not live to see delineated. A plough in 

 use from time immemorial in Valentia (Jig. 12.), is supposed to come the nearest to 



the common Roman imple- 

 ment. In it we have the 

 buris or head (a) ; the temo, 

 or beam (b) ; the stiva, or 

 handle (c) ; the dentale, or 

 share head (d) ; and the vo- 

 mer or share (e). The other 

 parts, the aura or mould 

 board, and the culter or 

 coulter, composed no part 

 of the simplest form of Ro- 

 man plough ; the plough- 

 stafF, or paddle, was a detached part ; and the manicula, or part which the ploughman 

 took hold of, was a short bar fixed across, or into the handle, and the draught pole (/) 

 was that part to which the oxen were attached. 



112. The plough described by Virgil had a mould board, and was used for 

 covering seed and ridging ; 

 but that which we have de- 

 picted, was the common 

 form used in stirring the 

 soil. To supply the place 

 of our mould boards, this 

 plough required either a 

 sort of diverging stick (g), 

 inserted in the share head, 

 or to be held obliquely and 

 sloping towards the side to 

 which the earth was to be 

 turned. The Romans did 

 not plough their fields in 

 beds, by circumvolving fur- 

 rows, as we do ; but the cat- 

 tle returned always on the 

 same side, as in ploughing 

 with a turnwrest plough. 



113 Wheel ploughs, Lasteyrie thinks, were invented in or not long before tjie time of 

 Pliny, who attiibutes the invention to the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul. Virgil seems 



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