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Virgil's Plough

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Robert Aitken
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In this paper Virgil's description of a plough (Georgics, 1, 169 ff.) is re-examined in the light of modern records of wooden ploughs from SW Europe, taken in a broad sense to include Italy and the Swiss canton of the Grisons, and from neighbouring Mediterranean regions. This on the assumption that Virgil is describing a single type of plough, not ‘integrating’ types; in other words, that there is such a thing as ‘Virgil's Plough’ and that one may hope to find its modern analogues. To archaeological evidence only incidental allusions are made, mainly to evidence appearing later than Gow's and Drachmann's articles.

When the passage from the Georgics is set out in separate sentences of 2 + 2 + 3 lines with their differing evocations, the field and woodland scenes evoked do not appear so closely related to each other and to the references to parts of the plough as they do if the passage, which is fundamentally a structural account of the plough, is interpreted in the light of a visit to a craftsman's shop with outdoor evocations arising from the craftsman's explanations to his visitor. The thesis now put forward is that Virgil's description arises from just such a visit, which would open quite naturally with talk about the ‘knee timber’ needed for the curved beam (buris) as the part taking the principal strain. So to-day in talks with Spanish ploughwrights, one of whom even used Virgil's verb when explaining to the writer in 1935 that, in a certain valley from which he bought the elm for his beams, ‘doman el ramito de año,’ they tie down the yearling branchlet.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 1-2 , November 1956 , pp. 97 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © Robert Aitken 1956. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Gow, A. S. F., ‘The Ancient Plough,’ JHS XXXIV, 1914, 249 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. A. G. Drachmann, s.v. ‘Pflug’, P-W 1938, 19, 1461 ff.

2 Following the Oxford as received text, from which the only serious variant for the present purpose is Heyne's introduction of a semicolon after ‘octo’; cutting off ‘temo’ from ‘aptantur’ and ‘aptantur’ from ‘huic’.

3 Martyn, Georgicks of Virgil, 1744; Adam Dickson, Husbandry of the Ancients, 1788, 392; Varro, , RR 1, 19, 2Google Scholar; Papillon, and Haigh, , Virgil, II, 1892, 45Google Scholar (fig. showing curved handle).

4 C. Day Lewis's version, ‘bent into a sharebeam,’ is obviously inadmissible (Georgics, 1940).

5 ‘A stirpe’ can only be rendered ‘from the base’ with ‘buris’ taken as the handle.

6 Voss, Landbau, 1800, pl. I, facing p. 100; Ginzrot, Die Wagen und Fahrwerke der Griechen und Römer, 1817, pl. II, 2; Lescr, Entstehung und Verbreitung des Pfluges, 1931, fig. 143, p. 298 (Radladl).

7 Longa, ‘Terminologia contadinesca di Bormio,’ Wörter und Sachen, 1914–15, 176 f.

8 Vermenouze, Jous la Cluchado, 1908, 136.

9 A Västergötland plough (fig. 14, Sweden, among B variants), in which the handle is held to the beam by the extended tenon of the share-beam, meets perhaps the technical requirements, but it has no analogues in the south. R. Jirlow, Äldre — årder i Kungl. Lantbruksakad. Mus., 1951, 14.

10 Plough of the Syrian Desert margins (N. and W.), e.g., Urfa (Leser, o.c, fig. 201, p. 351).

11 The mere separate mortise occurs also sporadically in Spain.

12 An S γ plough with coulter appears curiously on the obverse of an Italian 10 cm. coin of 1951.

13 Bérard, J., ‘Mosaïques inédites de Cherchel,’ Mélanges École française à Rome, LII, 1935, 132 ff.Google Scholar, pl. facing p. 120.

14 Nothing said above prevents acceptance of Mr. L. A. S. Jermyn's view that, in this whole passage, Virgil may be echoing Catullus: with inflexi aratri (l. 162) and currus (l. 174), cf. Catullus, LXIV, currum of a ship (l. 9), a parallel rejected by Wagner (1830) but accepted by Conington (1872), and inflexae carinae (l. 10); moreover, in proscidit aequor (l. 12), cf. G. I, 97, Catullus uses a technical word for ploughing.

15 Note also tablillas (cf. tabellis above) for the potato-fields, in place of orejeras (E. Burgos).

16 Varro on Farming, 1912, 203, n. 3.

17 See Jaberg and Jud, Atlante Italiano Suizzero (Sach- und Sprach-Atlas Italiens, etc.); Karte 1435, figs. 1, 3, 8, 9, 10, also as alternative to 5.

18 Mois d'Ethnographie française, Oct., 1951, 84.

19 Most clearly associated in Spain with the specialist craftsman of highland districts, and deemed characteristic of a region, even if not practised everywhere.

20 Payne, F. G., ‘The Plough in Ancient Britain,’ Arch. J., CIV, 1948, fig. 1Google Scholar, nos. 8 and 9; Glob, P. V., Acta Archaeologica, XVI, 1945, fig. 5, p. 99Google Scholar, or Ard og Plov i Nordens Oldtid, 1951, 34 ff.

21 Information by private letter from P. Scheuermeier and R. Violant Simorra respectively.

22 For which Mrs. Janet Ross recorded as terms in use both ‘dentale de due dorsi’ and ‘orecchi’, in an account which seems to force non-existent analogies with the Virgilian plough (Longman's Magazine, 1884, 403).

23 Wagner, M. L.), Wörter und Sachen, Beiheft 4, 1921, 16Google Scholar.

24 Leser, O.C., 304, fig. 153; A. Schorta, art. ‘Arader’, Dicz. Rum. Grisch., 8, fig. A 41.

26 2nd and subsequent edns., 1746.

25 The writer has himself recorded hausses, versses for the boards.

27 J. Burger, Reise durch Ober-Italien, 1831, 235 f.

28 P. Scheuermeier, Bauernwerk in Italien, 1943, photo 164, Carpaneto (Emilia).