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Chapter II - Agriculture and Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Courtenay Edward Stevens
Edited by
M. M. Postan
Courtenay Edward Stevens
Affiliation:
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford
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Summary

In the third century A.D., St Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, found common ground with his opponents in supposing that the world, which ancient physical theory compared in its development to the life of man, was now approaching senility. Morals, art, justice, were decayed, population had diminished; and the woeful tale is headed with a statement that the weather was not what it had been. A complaint of this type throws doubt incidentally upon the truth of what follows it. There may, indeed, have been a slight worsening of climate, at least in North-West Europe, with lower temperatures and heavier rainfall; but it is doubtful whether it had occurred in time for St Cyprian to observe it; and even so it is legitimate for an inquiry into the agriculture of the Later Roman Empire to start with the postulate that its climate was not significantly different from that of today.

Yet it is worth staying an instant with this pessimistic bishop, for the words of his complaint indicate the problems which faced the Roman farmer in his battle with nature, and will even help to remove certain misconceptions of them. ‘There are no longer’, said St Cyprian, ‘such winter rains or such summer heat.’ The words illustrate properties of climate which are vital in determining the agricultural methods of the Mediterranean region, the core, it might be said, of the Roman Empire. In this area, the mean monthly rainfall of June, July, and August seldom exceeds four inches except in the high altitudes, and over its greater part varies between one and two inches.

Keywords

dry farminghumid farmingagriculture lifeLater Roman Empirerural life
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The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire , pp. 92 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1966

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