{"id":31,"date":"2017-04-21T14:39:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T14:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/romancultureofbird\/?page_id=31"},"modified":"2017-05-01T18:57:14","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T18:57:14","slug":"introduction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/romancultureofbird\/introduction\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Roman culture had a profound respect for tradition. These traditions, fueled by the arts and worldly knowledge, stemmed from Greek culture. The Greeks were the forebears of Roman culture; Thebes, the first of all cities, founded by King Ogygus of Greece, was 2,100 years at the time of Varro\u2019s De Re Rustica<\/i>. And still, \u201ccountry life [was] much more ancient – I mean the time when people lived on the land and had no cities.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> Greece, in all its influence, lacks perhaps a seriousness or weighted importance compared with the struggle endured by the nationless of the ancient world.\u00a0 <\/span>Varro continues: \u201c\u2026And no marvel, since it was divine nature which gave us the country, and the man\u2019s skill that built the cities.\u201d2<\/a><\/sup> Comparing the tilling of fields to ancient Greek artworks, the former is both a more ancient enterprise, as well as a more \u201cnoble\u201d one. As such, those that lived off the land, by means of both agriculture and grazing, were considered to have led \u201ca pious and useful life\u201d in the Republic.3<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\"Untitled\"Elite villa life in the late-Republic is an example of \u201cideal reinterpretation,\u201d following closely to Pliny\u2019s quote, \u201c[that nature creates] playthings for herself and marvels for us.\u201d4<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Many villas on the Italian coast maintained productive facilities of agriculture and grazing. And still, the honest work of impoverished Roman ancestors was skewed to fit to elite life. Varro recounts a story in which he and a senator named Quintus Axius visited a villa with an aviary. Upon asking the augur, Appius Claudius, what a villa is, Appius responds that a villa could be productive. He states, \u201cfor there are two kinds of pasturing: one in the fields, which includes cattle-raising, and the other around the farmstead, which includes chickens, pigeons, bees, and the like, which usually feed in the steading.\u201d 5<\/a><\/sup> Such villas profited greatly from raising a variety of bird (\u201cgeese, chickens, pigeons, cranes, and peafowl\u2026\u201d)6<\/a><\/sup>, profits that would be earned through \u201cvilla-feeding,\u201d or supplying food to frequent elite banquets.7<\/a><\/sup> As such, a villa that was \u201cwell-stocked\u201d with animals \u201cexemplif[ied immense] power\u201d and influence with those of attendance at these gatherings.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

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  1. \u00a0<\/span>Varro, Marcus Terentius. \u201cOn Agriculture: Book III.\u201d De Re Rustica. Loeb Classical Library,\u00a01934: 423. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. \u00a0Varro, Marcus Terentius. \u201cOn Agriculture: Book III.\u201d De Re Rustica. Loeb Classical Library,\u00a01934: 425. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  3. \u00a0Varro, Marcus Terentius. \u201cOn Agriculture: Book III.\u201d De Re Rustica. Loeb Classical Library,\u00a01934: 425. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Beagon, Mary. \u201cWondrous Animals in Classical Antiquity.\u201d The Oxford Handbook of Animals\u00a0in Classical Thought and Life. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015: 1. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  5. \u00a0<\/span>Varro, Marcus Terentius. \u201cOn Agriculture: Book III.\u201d De Re Rustica. Loeb Classical Library,\u00a01934: <\/span>435. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  6. \u00a0<\/span>Varro, Marcus Terentius. \u201cOn Agriculture: Book III.\u201d De Re Rustica. Loeb Classical Library,\u00a01934:\u00a0<\/span>437. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  7. \u00a0<\/span>Varro, Marcus Terentius. \u201cOn Agriculture: Book III.\u201d De Re Rustica. Loeb Classical Library,\u00a01934: <\/span>439. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n
  8. \u00a0Green, C.M.C. \u201cFree as a Bird: Varro de re Rustica 3.\u201d The American Journal of Philology, 118, no.\u00a03 (Autumn 1997): 440. ↵<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Roman culture had a profound respect for tradition. These traditions, fueled by the arts and worldly knowledge, stemmed from Greek culture. The Greeks were the…<\/p>\n

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