An interdisciplinary approach to agriculture in central and southern Italy 202-103 BC

• Main Author: Hoyer, Daniel
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2008
• Subjects: Rome; Italian agriculture; Economics; Republic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2289

This paper looks at the agrarian economy of Italy in the middle Republican period, specifically between 202 and 103 BC. I am concerned primarily with how land was utilized and by whom it was exploited during this pivotal time, and with the interaction between rural and urbans pace in the Italian economy. Scholarship on Roman agriculture has largely been, unfortunately, polarized between 'historians' and 'archaeologists,' between a slave-production, latifundia model on the one hand and a focus on micro-regional variation on the other. This staunch division is quite frustrating, as there has been far too little dialogue between the two sides and since the schism works to the detriment of both, for each discipline can, I believe, inform the other to give a more complete picture of ancient life than either one in isolation. It is my intention with this paper, then, to bring an interdisciplinary approach to the study of Roman agriculture, to discover whether any union can be made between these two conflicting models of land use in the second century BC. My research is concentrated on a few areas of south-central Italy, namely south Etruria, especially the ager Cosanus, Pompeii, and parts of the Biferno Valley, as these areas are the richest in terms of available evidence, including the literary, epigraphic, and archaeological sources, and I believe offer the most intriguing possibilities for analysis. Using all of these tools I explore the labour used in agricultural production in these areas, the function of urban space and the preponderance of trade and exchange, and, lastly, look at the inter-regional situation trying to discern whether any 'global' agricultural program for Roman Italy emerges.