The Fig

The principal fruit-tree planted was the nutritious fig, which was probably a native of Italy.  The legend of the origin of Rome wove its threads most closely around the old fig-trees, several of which stood near to and in the Roman Forum.(11)

Management of the Farm

It was the farmer and his sons who guided the plough, and performed generally the labours of husbandry:  it is not probable that slaves or free day-labourers were regularly employed in the work of the ordinary farm.  The plough was drawn by the ox or by the cow; horses, asses, and mules served as beasts of burden.  The rearing of cattle for the sake of meat or of milk did not exist at all as a distinct branch of husbandry, or was prosecuted only to a very limited extent, at least on the land which remained the property of the clan; but, in addition to the smaller cattle which were driven out together to the common pasture, swine and poultry, particularly geese, were kept at the farm-yard.  As a general rule, there was no end of ploughing and re-ploughing:  a field was reckoned imperfectly tilled, in which the furrows were not drawn so close that harrowing could be dispensed with; but the management was more earnest than intelligent, and no improvement took place in the defective plough or in the imperfect processes of reaping and of threshing.  This result is probably attributable rather to the scanty development of rational mechanics than to the obstinate clinging of the farmers to use and wont; for mere kindly attachment to the system of tillage transmitted with the patrimonial soil was far from influencing the practical Italian, and obvious improvements in agriculture, such as the cultivation of fodder-plants and the irrigation of meadows, may have been early adopted from neighbouring peoples or independently developed—­Roman literature itself in fact began with the discussion of the theory of agriculture.  Welcome rest followed diligent and judicious labour; and here too religion asserted her right to soothe the toils of life even to the humble by pauses for recreation and for freer human movement and intercourse.  Every eighth day (-nonae-), and therefore on an average four times a month, the farmer went to town to buy and sell and transact his other business.  But rest from labour, in the strict sense, took place only on the several festival days, and especially in the holiday-month after the completion of the winter sowing (-feriae sementivae-):  during these set times the plough rested by command of the gods, and not the farmer only, but also his slave and his ox, reposed in holiday idleness.