(All before 171 BC)
Housing and Hierarchy in Roman Villas
- Two forms of cultivated land: farm and garden
- Every Roman had a garden for root vegetables, salads, and potted herbs
- Gardens produced food all year long
- Garden near farmhouse for women to garden between chores
- Wild plants were gathered deemed unfit for human consumption (except nettles, mushrooms, and asparagus)
- Mostly done by men, but women could hoe
- Slaves were common, but free-laborers were also employed
- Slaves were a commodity charged along with oil, grain, textile, oil, and wine production
- Villas (Roman country house upper class ) divided into pastores and those under the supervision of the vicillus
- Those under the supervision of the vicillus farmed, while the pastores cared for livestock under the supervision of the magister pecoris.
- Each villa also had its own smiths, carpenters, and potters
- Slaves lived within the villa and were paid in grain
- Killing of work animals deemed equal to killing a slave
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| Drawing of an Ancient Roman Villa |
Food
- Cereals constituted the majority of the Roman diet
- Romans consumed both homegrown and imported fruits like: apples, apricots, peaches, pears, plums, and melons.
- Cultivated fruit and citrus trees
- Evidence from Spain shows Romans produced pomegranates, figs, grapefuit, lemons, dates, oranges, and limes.
- Nuts consumed: walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, and chestnuts
- Roots, legumes, greens, and salads were cultivated in the gardens and in farmland.
- Chicory, broccoli, broad beans, lentils, peas lettuce, fennel, beets, onions
Tools
- Made mainly of wood and iron
- Spade was wooden with an iron pick
- Two pronged forks used in tending orchards and vineyards
- Three pronged forks used in tending gardens and vineyards
- Three pronged forks, pitchforks/hay-forks
- Three pronged forks, or hoes broke up soil in vineyards
- Roman balanced sickle to cut crops (esp. cereals) along with the British long-scythe
- The vallus was invented to stop the manual cutting of crops; it was a cart pulled by an animal (esp. a mule) with teeth attached to cut the crops (esp. corn)
- Mobile greenhouse moves with the passage of the sun
Roman Vallus
Methods (Planting)
- Forcing plants into early bloom be filling a trench around them with hot water (cucumbers)
- Manure usually made out of animal dung, but could also be made from kitchen waste, charcoal, and ash
- Manure often transferred to the field in baskets, water in buckets
Manure
Maintenance:
- Digging, weeding, pruning, harvesting, and fertilizing
Harvest
- Cereals required threshing after harvesting (separate grain from plant)
- Used threshing boards to separate grain from chaff (wooden board with slate and razors)
- Would also winnow (throw grain into air so heavier grains fell while lighter chaff blew away)
Winnowing
Storage
- Dry, cool, and free from vermin
- Grains in granaries on upper floors, natural caves, silos
Creating Meal
- Women ground grain by hand
- Rub grain between two stones in a circular motion (saddle-quern method)
- Rotary hand mill
- Donkey/Pompeian Mill
Product
- Coarse meal (not flour)
- Fineness could be adjusted by repeating the grinding
- Sieves used to separate finer grains
Wheat Meal
Preparation
- Bread was often made
- White flour bread (highest value) to brain (lowest value)
- Roman women made their own bread, elite hired cooks or purchased bread
- After grinding and sieving meal, water, yeast, and dough were added to produce dough
- Machines for kneading
- Stone basin with cylindrical basin with a spindle projecting the paddles to turn
- Dough then rose, moistened, and baked
- Also made porridge from wheat
Grain Market
- Roman emperors were mainly concerned with feeding everybody
- Farmers had higher taxes the more grain they grew, so this didn't give them incentive to produce more.
- Had to donate most of their surplus as tax to feed the poor for free, leaving little to help make profit
- Roman farms produced few crops and required many people, so they didn't really export wheat, they had imports of it from Egypt, Sicily, Tunisia, and other Mediterranean areas.
- Importers were required to take the grains directly to Ostia (official Roman port) to be weighed, checked for quality, and then sent on barges to the rest of Rome for repackaging and redistribution.
*Cited from
Roberts, Paul. Agriculture and Food Production in Roman Antiquity. Online Article: https://www.academia.edu/1580228/Roman_Agriculture_and_Food_Production)
The Economy and Trade of Ancient Rome. Online Article:http://mrfarshtey.net/whnotes/Roman_economy.pdf
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