Roman Agriculture in Early Britain

It is well known that many English words come to us from the languages of other nations and from other periods of history. Sometimes entire phrases are lifted out of one specialized context and placed in another and come, in time, to seem puzzling.

Take the case of Roman agriculture in Britain, for example. Much more is known about the routine practices of their agriculture once established than about the Romans' first development of virgin farmland. It is therefore not well known that their customary procedure for first putting the plow to new land was the "round' system. A plot of land thought to be capable of cultivation was chosen first; then the farthest perimeter of plowable land was established. This perimeter was called the first round. The second was just inside it, toward the originally chosen plot, and so on. Depending on the ambitions of the Roman agriculturalist or his access to sturdy native labor, the first round might be as much as 10 or 12 rounds away from the center.

Native labor was quite important because the horses were kept exclusively for the use of the Roman army and the rocky British soil would have, in any case, daunted even a sturdy draft animal. Still, as in the United States many centuries later when human beings were called on to do what animals could have done better had they been available, so in Roman Britain humans were used as draft animals.

Not Roman humans, as a rule. There was always the 'sturdy native labor" alluded to earlier. The sturdiness of the natives was never in doubt. Hadrian's Wall was built in testimony to the ferocity of the northern tribes, some of whom objected to the Roman presence in the most colorful and direct ways. Of these tribes, the Picts were among the fiercest and most relentless. Pict warriors were quite strong as individuals and together, as a fighting force, they challenged even the legendary military discipline of Rome.

Building a wall to keep them out was, therefore, only a short term strategy. Finding some way to use them as "agricultural laborers,” if serving as draft animals can be dignified by such a term, was the preferred long term solution. A standard part of Roman strategy,
once that was seen, was directed to dividing the attacking Picts, not simply holding them off. Then an effort was made to capture isolated Pict warriors and carry them south to serve the Roman cause by putting new fields to the plow.

Often it took several captives to drag the crude plow on the long first round because the perimeter was so long and the ground so hard. Occasionally, a particularly powerful Pict would show himself capable of making the entire first round by himself. It was a point of pride for a Roman landowner to have acquired such a powerful worker and he was very reluctant to part with him. Since he would be valuable to any Roman agriculturalist, however, there was sometimes a brisk bidding for the services of such a worker and on occasion the price, driven by an amalgam of ego and necessity, reached ridiculous heights.

Although the circumstances in which the expression first arose have been forgotten for centuries, there are many owners in America even today who would sell their souls for a first round draft Pict.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.