agriculture: Rome During the early Roman Republic farmers began to specialize in particular crops and to run their farms as businesses Agriculture became even more widespread and productive during the late republic and early empire Large estates called latifundia began to appear in the early second century b.c.e as wealthy Romans took over the ager publicus Large villas, with their wealthy landlords and body of slave laborers, quickly became more prosperous than the smallholdings owned by local residents Wealthy owners had the money to experiment with new crops and breeds of animals, and they had the economic weight to dictate prices As a consequence, large numbers of small farmers lost their farms The slaves who worked the latifundia were often prisoners taken in war Conditions for these slaves were notoriously bad because slaves were cheap and plentiful, so landowners had no reason to treat them well The latifundia system was prominent until about 100 c.e., when slave labor became more expensive and landowners moved toward a system that used tenant farmers, a precursor of the medieval system of serfs tied to the land Large farms ceased to be profitable Gradually the landowners broke them down into smaller plots of land tilled by tenant farmers, peasants who were bound to the land During the heyday of large estates, small farmers had made little technological progress and continued to use ancient cultivation techniques, but now landowners ensured that their tenants improved their techniques to keep the farms productive German and Asian prisoners of war who worked Roman farms learned Roman techniques and tooke them back to their home countries Agricultural practices of the late empire laid the foundation for the medieval system of tenant farming AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES Almost all ancient agricultural work was performed manually, without even the use of oxen or mules Farmers had to till their fallow fields constantly to prevent the incursion of weeds, and they did this work with hoes Plots of arable land in Italy were small and rocky Large, flat fields were quite rare, so plows were impractical, though they did exist and were occasionally used to break up rough soil Italy had a wide range of soil types, and Roman farmers created a variety of different tools to suit different conditions They invented hoes with multiple tines to make the soil finer; footrest spades to help them till deeply; and several kinds of sickles, such as the balanced sickle and the “spitted” sickle, which helped the user collect harvested crops Roman farmers also made great improvements in devices to lift water During the empire farmers in Gaul began using a reaping machine called a vallus, which was pulled by an animal and used to cut off the heads of wheat stalks and drop them in a container Many of these tools were made of iron instead of the bronze that was popular in earlier days, allowing Roman farmers to produce many more crops than their predecessors Most threshing was done by hand, the farmers hitting the grain with sticks to separate the grain from the straw 43 Sometimes farmers had animals walk on the harvested stalks to thresh them Wealthier farmers occasionally used a device called a tribulum to thresh grain; this device, also used by the Greeks, consisted of a heavy board with flints or small wheels on its underside and was dragged over the stalks to remove the wheat kernels The Greeks had pioneered many agricultural techniques, such as using manure for fertilizer, choosing crops based on soil type, and rotating crops By rotating two or three different types of crops, they managed to keep fields in continuous cultivation without needing to let fields rest when they were depleted of nutrients Roman farmers adopted these practices as well IMPORTS AND EXPORTS Rome depended on its many provinces to supply it with grain and other crops Sicily, Sardinia, North Africa, and Egypt all produced vast amounts of wheat for Rome at different times in Rome’s history Sicily and Sardinia were important sources of grain throughout Roman history Both islands are mountainous but fertile; Sicily’s warmer climate makes it especially suited to agriculture Sicily was located near the center of the Mediterranean, making it a crossroads for all ancient traffic and a magnet for conquest The Greeks colonized it in the eighth century b.c.e and used it as a point of trade with Corinth, Rhodes, North Africa, and Italy Carthage gradually claimed most of the island, but by 211 c.e Rome had taken all of Sicily for itself The Romans decided that Sicily would be best used for growing wheat Much of Sicily’s land was divided into latifundia worked by slaves on behalf of owners back in Rome Conditions were deplorable, and slaves revolted many times; some of the most serious revolts occurred in 135–132 b.c.e and 104–100 b.c.e Under the empire the latifundia system continued in Sicily even as it declined in the rest of Europe, and Sicily remained an important source of Roman grain Sardinia was wilder than Sicily The Greeks seem never to have colonized it Carthage took it in the sixth century b.c.e but did not make any progress toward pacifying the natives Rome took the island from Carthage in 238 b.c.e and turned it into a colony together with nearby Corsica, which was less fertile The Roman government and people never thought much of Sardinia or the Sardinians and looked on the island purely as a source of grain It continued to supply grain to Rome until the end of the empire North Africa also supplied a vast amount of grain to Rome’s tables Rome took over much of Carthage’s territory after the Punic Wars (a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage between 264 and 146 b.c.e.), forming a new province in northern Tunisia in 146 b.c.e This province encompassed some 5,000 square miles of the most fertile part of North Africa The land there became Roman public land, and the government leased it out to grain farmers, who grew wheat for export to Rome North African estates were vast Most of the land was in the hands of a few large absentee land-