Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
fall of Carthage (146 BCE) so must be older than that. The Roman Senate com-
missioned its translation. Many other works have been lost and are only known
through references, but we have the works of Hesiod, Theophrast and Xenophon in
Greek, and those of Cato the Elder, Varro, Virgil, Columella, Pliny the Elder and
Palladius in Latin. Taken together they allow a detailed reconstruction of soil
terminology and tests for soil quality. Sources on soil uses are likewise abundant.
All authors represent members of the landed elite, so what we actually have
information about is not peasant agriculture, but for the most part typical of the
system of large estates. A 10th century CE Byzantine collection, the Geoponika,is
the sole surviving manual for the Byzantine empire, itself based on works from the
5th and 6th centuries. As has already been noted for the Chinese tradition,
knowledge in the Mediterranean realm has been compiled, excerpted and combined
with personal observations and experiences over the centuries. Rodgers has pro-
duced a graphical rendering of the connections between texts on Agriculture in
Arab, Latin, and Greek.
53
Xenophon
s dialogue Oikonomikos has some information on soil qualities, albeit
not very differentiated: The basic idea is that soil and plant are an interactive
system. To be a successful farmer one must
'
rst know the nature of the soil, for if
one does not know what the soil is capable of growing, one cannot know what to
plant or what to sow.
54
Soils can be
'
fat
'
or
'
lean
'
, dry or moist, and by means of the plants that grow
(
) on a piece of ground one can judge the quality of this ground.
Xenophon is concerned about the right timing for plowing and sowing. Manuring is
suggested as a means of bettering the soil. Xenophon
'
indicator plants
'
s information on soil quality
is the most basic knowledge one can expect in agriculture, and in this does not differ
from knowledge transmitted from other agrarian civilizations.
The soil classi
'
cation of the Roman writers is much more elaborate. In contrast
to the Chinese taxonomy, which worked in a holistic way, Latin soil descriptions
are based on an array of adjectives, which comprise all important aspects of soils in
several classes per aspect. Of these aspects, grain size, density and structure,
humidity and color correspond to modern categories, whereas fertility,
'
taste
'
,
'
and some special properties do not. There are important conceptual
differences between the authors. The practically minded, though very learned
agriculturalist Columella set up a simple systematic soil classi
temperature
'
cation system,
which rests on dichotomies: soil can be dry or wet, dense or loose, and fat or lean.
His interest is the overall soil quality for agriculture, for which these three qualities
are surely encompassing and accurate. Varro, less pragmatic than Columella, uses a
theory about soils which holds that the different types are generated by mixing of
eleven kinds of (mineral) substances. Varro explains:
For there are many sub-
stances in the soil, varying in consistency and strength, such as rock, marble,
rubble, sand, loam, clay, read ochre, dust, chalk, ash, carbuncle (that is, when the
“
53
Rodgers (
2002
).
54
Xenophon (
1992
).
