Metropolis and Hinterland

The marketing of villa produce

In the course of his account of the duties of the vilicus, Columella warns that the man should not become involved in buying and selling using his master's money, ‘for doing this diverts him from his duties as a vilicus and makes him a negotiator rather than a farmer’. To judge from the lack of attention paid to the subject, the idea that marketing was not one of the proper concerns of a farmer pervades the entire work. There is little doubt that in Columella's opinion the ultimate aim of cultivation was profit, and numerous passing comments make it clear that the bulk of the estate's produce was intended to be sold. The means by which this produce was turned into money, however, are barely hinted at. Varro, meanwhile, having stated that the final part of his sixfold division of the farmer's year was the marketing of produce, dramatically interrupts the dialogue after the fifth part (storage) with the news of the murder of the aeditumus. As in Columella's work, it is clear that the crops are to be sold, but Varro neatly (and, we must conclude, deliberately) evades discussion of the mechanisms involved.

It is left to Cato, whose avariciousness is highlighted in Plutarch's biography, to offer a set of sample contracts for the sale of estate produce. The succeeding centuries saw an increase in the volume of advice offered on cultivation, important changes in agricultural practice and a new unwillingness on the part of Roman authors to address certain issues.