Roman Farming
By: Aniket Shah, 5th grader
September was a very busy time on a Roman farm. The layer of volcanic soil was so thin that the locals were only able to harvest two crops before moving onto a new field. Rome has a large mountain terrain just like Greece.
Romans mostly farmed olives and grapes. These were very important in ancient Rome, so they could make olive oil and wine. Romans also farmed wheat which would ripen in the hot Italian sun.
When the olives were harvested, they would beat them off the trees, put the olives in a press to squeeze the oil out, and slaves squeezed the oil into jars. After that they were carried to huge ports on the Mediterranean coast and exported by sea all over the empire.
The Romans made wine by tipping the grapes into a big stone trough. Then they would tread on them to squash out the juice. They also used sticks to stop them from slipping on the mushy skins. Finally, the grape skins were put onto a press to squeeze out the remaining juice. This juice was put into big jars were is would sit over a long time turning it into wine.
The Romans ate very little food each day because they had to store all their food for the winter.
In a Roman meal, the first course was a dish called stuffed and cooed dormice, which was stuffed olives and prunes, and peacocks eggs with a sauce. The main course would have be all sorts of boiled and roasted meat. The meat was sliced by the slaves because the guests did not have any knives or forks. They ate everything with their hands.
It was the Etruscans who introduced olives and grapes to the Romans. They taught them how to use the soil better and a lot about agriculture. The Romans imported a lot of their crops from other countries to feed the empire and after the Romans conquered Egypt they had more room to farm. Mostly slaves from conquered countries worked at the farms.
The Romans were able to import a lot of wheat from Egypt for all the Romans to eat. But farming failed to feed all the Romans because there were too many Romans and not enough farmers to work the lands.
The Roman’s used many ways to farm and they learned all these skills from the Etruscans and those they conquered.
Illustration Copyright © 2008 Aditi Laddha
Copyright © 2008 by Aniket Shah