Subsistence Farming in Italy during the Roman Period: A Preliminary Discussion of the Evidence

Abstract

Most modern studies of Roman agriculture have concentrated on the methods used for farming on a large-scale and on a commercial basis. This is not surprising since the classical writers on agriculture in Latin, Cato, Varro, and to a lesser extent Columella and Palladius, are mainly concerned with this aspect. And naturally so, since only the gentleman farmer could read them and profit by their advice. There is, as has been remarked by K. D. White, a serious lack of evidence about the life and work of the peasant farmer. This was, however, considered to be of great importance by the Romans themselves: hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit, scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma.

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