The Romans saw themselves as a peasant people, and were proud of their rural origins. Agricultural literature, which flourished from the second century bc to the first century ad, and which propagated ties to the soil, was at the same time aimed at increasing production and profit. Agriculture was not only the basis of livelihood, but also of wealth, which was primarily manifested in landholding (Plin. epist. 3.19, 6.19).

Economic interests were also a factor in the expansion of the Roman Empire, which began to take over the entire Mediterranean region after the middle of the third century bc. Rome profited from the taxes of the provinces, and took over their landscapes, first by land surveying and parcelling, then also by intensified construction. North Africa supplied olives and cereals; Spain, wine and oil; Sicily and Egypt, cereals – the latter probably yielding two harvests a year. Under Augustus, 20 million modii – approximately 150,000 tons – of cereals were delivered to Rome each year (Aur. Vict. epit. Caes. 1.6). Despite these imports, however, scarcities were never impossible in the capital, so that Italic agriculture continued to be of great importance, despite a number of setbacks.