The Ancients - An Ancient Guide to Healthy Living

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Poetry, parables, and produce - how did someone live a healthy life in the ancient Greco-Roman world? Tristan is joined by author Mark Usher to talk about what we can learn from our ancient ancestors. Discussing the impact farming has on both physical and mental well-being, the role it played in music and song, and philosophical musings about the land - Tristan and Mark discuss how can we live a sustainable, and ancient inspired, way of life?Copies of Mark's book How To Be A Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land can be found here.For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!To download, go to Android or Apple store.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, we're talking all about farming, how to farm, lessons from the ancient world, shall we say, an ancient guide to rustic living, to living on the land.

Because, as you're going to hear in this podcast, there are many Greek and Roman authors, poets and the like, who eulogised, who praised the farming lifestyle of this life in the countryside. And to explain all, I was delighted to get on the podcast a few months back, Dr Mark Usher from the University of Vermont. Mark is a brilliant classicist, but he's also a farmer. So he knows a lot about both. And it was wonderful to hear him talking from his personal perspective on farming, but also how he brings that to his studies of the ancient world, of these texts which refer to farming, but also other aspects such as nature,

such as animals, wildlife, and so much more. So without further ado, to talk all about farming in the Greco-Roman world and the lessons we can take from these authors who commented on the rustic lifestyle in antiquity in the ancient Mediterranean world, here's Mark. Mark, great to have you on the podcast this morning. Great to be here. Thank you. You're very welcome. Farmers are some of the best people to talk to in the world. And living the rustic life, how to be a farmer, we're going back to wisdom from ancient history from the Greco-Roman world because, Mark, Greek and Roman writers, they not only reflected on country life and the benefits of country life, they openly praised it and eulogised it too. They sure did.

Whether from a very practical standpoint, like Pesid praises farming for, you know, the virtue that it actually inculcates and the person who literally cultivates the practice to later on where, you know, Virgil eulogizes it as the ideal life and, you know, romanticizes it, but in a way that can kind of be good to think with, to think about nature and what it means to be in nature and respect it and live with it as opposed to against it. Well, absolutely, Mark. And you mentioned Hesiod and Virgil. We'll definitely get back to those two figures as the podcast goes on. But if we like set the background first of all

to farming in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, was this something, we need to get into our minds, was this something done largely by men back then? Ah, farm work, the actual field work was, and you may be referring to that passage of Columella in the book, where he definitely talks about a division of roles on the farm between, you know, the bailiff's wife and the bailiff himself. However, you know, it had to be the case that women also worked in the fields

and not just managed the household. And that's not a universal either across the world. I mean, as you probably know, I mean, many cultures, women do most of the field work and who knows what the men do. But in Greece and Rome, it seemed to have that sort of slant. But nonetheless, I mean, that Columella passage is really lovely in a way, and he's borrowing it from Xenophon, actually. It's not his own. He didn't think it up himself. He's stealing the idea from Xenophon, who wrote a great manual called Economicas, which means household management, basically how to run a farm in a household. You know, he talks about the wife and the husband being equal partners in the venture in spite of the division of roles. And then, of course, you know, we farm, my wife and I farm. And, you know, my wife right now is holding

down the fort. She's doing all the hard labor. But I think on any farm, it does kind of fall into a division of roles, but they don't necessarily have to be gendered roles, just because to get everything done, it takes teamwork and not any one person can do it all. Absolutely. Good to point that out right at the start, Mark. I mean, and also, I guess, when we're focusing in on ancient Greece and ancient Rome, is it also important to highlight right at the start the role which is sometimes overlooked, which is the role of infamously slavery in it all? Well, those are the two items, I think, that are kind of like white noise running in the background in all the texts. You know, one is that division of labor, men and women, because today women are

really up and coming in the farming world, and it's becoming a woman's profession, really, especially where we live in Vermont. All the young people getting into it are young women. But also, you know, slavery. Now, you know, fortunately, we've kind of outgrown that, let's just say, maybe as a civilization, not entirely. But we have woofers these days to help out on farms. If you know what those are,

the free labor you can get from people to come and stay on your farm and work for the experience of it. But it's true. I mean, slavery in antiquity, the farming venture was a slave industry. But I should be quick to add for your listeners who may already know this, that slavery in antiquity was not race-based. It was a residual of war. And, you know, you could just be unlucky one day when the Romans showed up at your city and conquered it, and you could be enslaved, and you could have been of the same stock as the conqueror. It was quite a universal practice, and not just the Greek and Romans. So it's true. But, you know, the other thing, too, I'd just like to add,

one of the other passages in the book that Pliny talks about. He decries the use of slavery to run farms. He looks nostalgically back to the good old days when, you know, the Roman citizen soldier worked his own seven acres, you know. But these days, he says, you know, we have these factory farms, these latifundia that are run by slaves. And he says, no wonder mother earth does not yield under such conditions she despises that so there is a moral outrage that you do hear also concomitant with business as usual slaves running the show well i'm glad you mentioned so many more key names there such as plinian roman republican soldier the farmstead for the Roman Republican soldier, because we are going to get to that, don't you worry. But first off, if we go back to archaic Greece,

if we do in kind of a timeline to one of the first figures you really talk about in detail, and this is a really interesting figure, Mark, who was Hesiod? Well, he's the first person to sign his work and tell us who he was. So in other words, Hesiod is maybe our first author in the Western canon that can lay stake to that claim. So he's a farmer shepherd who was an immigrant to Greece from Asia Minor. So he has sort of an immigrant mentality as well as a agricultural bent to his writing. And he was a poet. cultural bent to his writing. And he was a poet. And out one day in the fields tending his sheep, he got a revelation, an epiphany from the Muses who gave him, as he says, as he describes it,

the power of song. You know, he was a poet, probably self-taught poet, and also a farmer of the sort of probably practiced the diversified agriculture that most subsistence farms did in Greece at that time. But we're fortunate that he wrote about it. So we really have a, sure, it's a poetic, maybe idealized account of farming. But nonetheless, it does convey quite a bit of information about what it was like and what it means to farm. It's not so much like the how-to of farming, though he does purport to give you some information about when to hoe your beans and plant your seeds and all of this. But it's really about what farming does to the person. So farming is a sort of state of mind and a creator of character. And so therefore,

what does he think of farming? What are the benefits of farming for him for, let's say, developing your character for living the good life certainly hard work and basically earning your income by work he emphasizes that again and again to his brother percy's to whom the poem is addressed at least the works and days poem that is in the book you know percy's is interested in let's just put it this way trying to make a buck the easy way or trying to gain social influence the easy way or social standing the easy way by hanging out with the right people, by kind of playing things in the law court. And he says that's not the way to do it. The way to do it is to work. You know, if you want to stave off hunger and hunger is quite a theme in the poem. You need to work to have forethought and

prepare, put up your grain in due season. So it's really an injunction to be diligent about how you live and how you treat the land. Because he also has thoughts on living as this hard work pays off, work brings about wealth. But does he also pay attention to let's say those people around him to relationships does he also have a strong focus of looking at those relationships too absolutely i mean you know they say good fences make good neighbors he's probably the first person you know again in the canon to talk to us about the importance of neighbors so he says a good neighbor right well if your house is on fire, it's going to come before putting on his clothes, you know, he's going to come right away and help

you put it out. Whereas your relatives, so they're going to get all fancied up and, you know, get dressed and take care of things first. And your house will be gone by the time, by the time they show up. So he does talk about the importance of cultivating good neighbors. And, you know, again, my wife and I farm and it is true. I mean, the cooperation that farming involves, tongue in cheek, we call this, you know, there is no one author to this book. It's an anthology of excerpts, but we decided to say it's a work of many hands, just as farming is, you know, whether it's swapping a piece of equipment, you know, when it's hay season or sharing your ram with another flock that needs new genetics in it. You know, all these sorts of things go on all the time and

been going on, you know, time immemorial. Well, I mean, absolutely. It's so interesting to look at the long lasting, I say the history of farming in itself. It's really interesting when looking at farming in archaic Greece, because I'm guessing we don't have many other sources with which to look through, to look at farming, let's say, before the Greco-Persian Wars. In terms of textual information, no, not a lot. I mean, Xenophon wrote that very valuable work called the Economicus, which does talk about managing a household, which does involve farm work. But you're right. I mean, of course, we have archaeology, and I'm really not an archaeologist or a historian, but it's a big

piece of the puzzle, Hesiod's text, that helps us understand, again, even if it's in an idealized sort of way that has other purposes behind it than just a how-to manual, it's important for us to have and to know about. Well, let's move on then to classical Greece, to Athens at its high tide, almost around that time in the late fifth century, and the famous figure of Plato, because Mark, he similarly has thoughts on rustic, sustainable living in the countryside. Ah, that's one of my favourite passages in the book, I have to confess. So this is the passage you're mentioning from the Republic, where I like to think of the Republic as sort of a game of SimCity, where Plato is basically saying, if I had all these things at my disposal, how might I construct a city the way it really should

be on principles that are moral, metaphysically coherent, and all this. So he's doing this in the Republic. And the first city he creates is this rustic utopia, this bucolic utopia that another interlocutor in the dialogue calls the city for pigs. Now, Plato describes it as, or Socrates describes it as the true city, the healthy city. It's a vegetarian community. It's one where people don't overpopulate the planet. I mean, Plato expressly says, you know, they'll have sex with one another, but they won't produce children beyond their means. And so they will avoid two things thereby. They'll avoid poverty, penea, and they'll avoid war because they'll be content with what they have and not need resources from outside of their

community. There won't be population pressure to feed their community. So this bucolic utopia where they do the agricultural work and at the end of the day, they sip wine by the fire, munching acorns. Plato valorizes this. Now, some people think, you know, is it tongue in cheek? Well, really, almost anything in Plato is usually, in some sense, tongue-in-cheek. That's what makes him so wonderful to read. But, you know, he does say it's the true and the healthy city. And then when the objection is, is that this is a city for pigs because it doesn't have any cuisine. They're just eating vegetables. They're just munching acorns by the fire. It's Glaucon who says that. They'll live anu apsu, without relishes, without, you know, sauces. And then he says, Socrates says, oh, it's not just a city you want me to construct here.

It's a feverish city you want me to construct. And then goes on. And the rest of the Republic is really addressing that question, how to remediate the feverish city that is, of course, Plato's own, you know, fourth century Athens and everything that brought them up to that point. You know, that passage of rustic simplicity, I think, is a platonic fantasy, but it's a really good one to think with, I think, especially because, you know, he says in that passage, expressly, not only that it's the healthy one, this rustic living, simple living, but also that they will pass down to their children a lifestyle, bios, just like the one they themselves enjoy.

So it's thinking about posterity. It's thinking about the next generation consciously, right? This idea of passing on this healthy lifestyle. So it's got all the ingredients, as you say, a sustainable community in the present and going forward. Well, there you go. You said this utopia right at the heart of one of the most famous pieces of literature from ancient Greece, as you say, with Plato's Republic. Just before we go on from Plato, a little tangent, but because I think we're going to be coming back to this topic later in our discussion, does Plato, does he also talk about dogs too? Well, yes. I mean, he says that the dog is the most philosophical animal. I love that passage too. And he does it right in that context as well. He says the dog is most philosophical

because it knows what belongs in its orbit and what does not, we would say by instinct. He says by nature. So in other words, the dog has internalized a value system, we talk about it in human terms, a value system that he recognized instantly his master from, say, a thief or a stranger that's going to come break into the house. And so Plato uses the dog as a model for his so-called guardian class. He does it with a very clever pun on the word for puppy. Puppy is skoulaks in Greek, and Plato calls his guardians phoulaks or phoulakes in the plural. So it's a little bit of, again, platonic playfulness, but I think he's also dead serious in some sense about how looking to nature to kind of to see how nature works and then

figuring out to what extent and to what degree human society should model itself on the workings of nature because if nature works well and is like ordained or you know it's supposed to be that way maybe human societies can participate in that natural way of living. We'll definitely come back to this as the chat goes on, but let's move on to the next figure on the list. We're going Roman now, I believe, because I've got the name Varro here, Mark. Who was Varro? Varro was a polymathic figure. He knew a lot about a lot of things. He was like all Roman elites, you know, one of these citizens, soldier, politician, but he was also a great antiquarian

who loved letters and discourse of every kind. So he loved history, he loved etymology and language in general. And he wrote this text that I translate some excerpts from in the book called Res Rusticae, which means, you know, roughly country matters. That is more like a farming manual that you don't have from Hesiod. What he writes, Vero, is a farming manual and he dedicates it to his wife who has just bought a farm and is looking. This is interesting. His wife owns the villa, right? And is looking for some advice on how to run it. So, you know, Vero constructs it. His work is like a dialogue amongst people who have very farmer-like names. And they discuss, again, the best way to plant vines and what vines to plant and olive

trees and wheat and grains, how to cultivate them and how to run the farm. You know, Vero was 80 years old when he wrote it and writing it at a time where Rome has been through a lot, let's just say, you know, civil wars and it's on the cusp of the Augustan settlement. And I think Vera was one of those figures who's looking back to those good old days of old Rome, you know, where people ate just barley meal

and it made you strong. And it's a nostalgic work but it's also very useful because it does convey a lot of information about farming but again it's more than the sum of its parts. Hi there, I'm Kate Lister, sex historian and author and I am the host of Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society, a new podcast from History Hit. Join me as I root around the topics which have been skipped over in your school history lessons. Everything from the history of swearing to pubic hair, satanic panic, cults,

there is nothing off limits. We'll be bed hopping around different time periods from ancient civilizations to the middle ages to rena and early modern, right up to now. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hey Mark, you have some really interesting thoughts about livestock in particular, doesn't he? Like the crucial, the nucleus, the importance of livestock for farming. Yeah, I mean, again, I think he pulls out all the stops for that one. He shows his interest in etymology, where he talks about the origin of the Latin word for money, pecunia, coming from pecus, which means livestock or herd of cattle. He talks about the prestige that shepherding once had and Jason and the quest for the golden fleece,

how a fleece was thought to be so important it could generate a quest by, you know, mythological searchers and figures. He argues essentially that culture comes from agriculture. And that's kind of the point that he's making. So forms of culture, you know, come from agriculture. Once we domesticated animals and we started to domesticate crops and grow them and move beyond that sort of foraging stage. He seems to understand that. And it's in some ways it is true. I mean, for good and for ill.

Some people think that invention of agriculture wasn't the best thing in the world, but for human societies and the way they're run and structured. But Pharaoh thought it was a natural progression. And he just sees it everywhere in Roman culture. I mean, fair enough, though. Interesting to hear these perspectives. I mean, if we keep, therefore, on the late Roman Republic,

as you mentioned this time, just before Augustus in the first century BC or BCE, because just before we, let's say, focus on this special hearkening back to this golden age, as it were, with the Roman farmers, there's another figure from this time who you did mention earlier. And it would be wrong of us not to mention him because we can't talk about farming in ancient Rome without mentioning this guy, this guy being Virgil. Mark, talk us through Virgil and farming. Right, well, I mean, Virgil tries to talk us through farming in his poem, The Georgics, but again, everything I just said about Hesiod's poem being more than just a farming manual about how to live and a meditation on work and the value and dignity of labor. You can multiply it by 10 for Virgil because Virgil uses agriculture and agricultural labor to talk about so much else of what's going on in Rome at that time, about what it means to be a human being in the world, and sort of a consolation for a lost past.

It's a celebration of a new era, the Georgics, I mean, but also all of Virgil's works, a celebration of a new era, but not without a mixed feeling about that new era under the Augustan regime. So, you know, Virgil had a villa of his own. You know, Virgil kind of comes across, I think, when you read his poetry. It's very, I don't want to say it's like delicate. So his poetry is kind of like antithetical to the rough, ready kind of character you think would need to write a poem about farming. It's very recherche. It's very elegant. Elegant maybe is the word. It's not dainty, but it's elegant. But, you know, when I read Virgil, there are so many, like, place names and so many local references in all of his works, you know, whether it's the Aeneid, the Georgics, the Eclogues, that it makes me think that, you know, he spent a lot of time out in nature.

He spent a lot of time perhaps visiting these places in person that he writes about. So, you know, Virgil is kind of like maybe our that he writes about. So, you know, Virgil's kind of like maybe our first Wordsworth in a way, you know, he comes back from a nice jaunt in the country and consolidates his thoughts in poetry. So that's my take on Virgil, but he writes wonderfully and beautifully about the countryside. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything

you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. I mean, Mark, it's so interesting, going on a slight tangent here, but from what you said, is there really this feeling, let's say in the late Roman Republic at this time, is there this hearkening back by some Romans and by some Roman writers to what they perceived as a golden age where the farmer seems to be at the

centre of this lost golden age and I'm thinking for instance the likes of Cincinnatus who gives up power if I remember correctly to go back and become a farmer or as you mentioned earlier the Roman Republican soldiers who grew up with their farmstead and bringing trophies back to their farmstead and all of that is there that image do we get in the late roman republic of this harkening back to this golden age where farming is at the center of it all i think the romans always had that and i think it's in pretty much any author that you read i mean there is it's a nostalgia, but it's also a heartfelt one. It's not an empty one. They realized the burden of empire. And of course, when I say empire, I mean the late Republic too, because basically Rome was everything but an empire without an

emperor at that point. All the conquests and all the land grabs and whatnot. And so to administer all that meant this proliferation of organizing faculties and things that took them away from what the Romans felt made them a great people, which was being close to the land and managing the land and farming it productively. So you get Seneca writing about visiting old Scipio's villa and again, waxing nostalgic about what the good old days were like. You get those passages from Pliny talking about the same thing. That the earth was much more productive when it was citizen soldiers who were running the show.

There's something to it. I mean, we do it in America as well. We think that the simpler agricultural life is a better one. And for someone who is trying to live that and doing that myself it's not a bad life i mean you don't make any money but it's cheaper than the gym you know in terms of the exercise that you get and you wake up every morning and you look out and you say like you know we made this farming is probably a better workout than the gym and especially as longer hours too and no doubts no doubt i mean mark you mentioned there, so let's not talk about Pliny right now.

Let's focus on the figure who we haven't talked about from this Roman period, who's another prolific writer, another prolific name. And this is Horace. Because Horace, he too also has thoughts on farming and the rustic life, doesn't he? Right. Horace falls into that same sort of camp of, you know, looks to the country as a way to escape all the chaos and madness of the city of his time. As a sort of philosophical touch, it's a place where you can go and literally recreate, recreate with friends, eat simple food and cultivate the things that matter in life.

One of the passages in the book I translate is Town Mouse and the Country Mouse Parable, one of his works. That's sort of the story where the dainty town mouse goes out to the country to live with his friend and eating food that he doesn't like or not to his taste and you know it's just nothing to do. He's bored and then he thinks he's going to show the country mouse a great time in the city. The country mouse goes to the city, he's looking forward to it, he's bored. And then he thinks he's going to show the country mouse a great time in the city. The country mouse goes to the city. He's looking forward to it. He's anxious about it. He looks at it. Hey, big city, right?

And, you know, no sooner does he get there and, you know, he's going around feeding him all these delicious dishes as if it were like the banquet of Trimalchio. And in Russia is this large Molossian hound, this dog, that scares them off. And then he realizes, oh, there's big dangers in the city. I'll be happier, you know, back in the country. And that's sort of Horace's take, you know, give me my druthers. I'd rather be at my Sabine farm. Again, reading philosophy, talking to my friends, drinking wine, watching the sunset. That's funny you mentioned a melossian dog there because normally

you think of melossian dogs in ancient history as being farm dogs or sheep dogs or something like that working on a farm but here it seems like it's an object of danger as it was yeah i think it might be are you familiar with that like mosaic from pompeii that says kawaii kama yes it might i think it's a guard dog it's like a dog that somebody had to guard the house that, I don't know, got off the leash. The strangest thing, actually, I just have to interject this because it's so surreal. So here where I'm staying in Marseille, there's this Institute for Advanced Study and it's very much like the ivory tower. We have our little apartments and nice grounds. But every weekend, there's this security guy who comes and he spends two nights, Friday night and Saturday night, from dusk until dawn, walking the property with these two dogs. And they're actually Dobermans. They're not the Molossian hounds. But that's what all I can think of is like there would be these giant dogs. And I'm not sure what they're for. I guess they're just to keep people away or just to do the rounds. But funny. Anyway.

Absolutely. Some things never change. Interesting. Once again, you mentioned Marseille, guess they're just to keep people away or just to do the rounds but funny anyway absolutely some things never change interesting once again you mentioned Marseille France's oldest city is very very jealous that you're living over there at the moment Mark I mean let's kind of keep on animals then with the next figure that we got on the list because he does talk about animals and no doubt we'll get into it as we continue our chat and this is a figure who I'd actually never heard of before. Columella. Mark, who was he? Well, Columella was a Spaniard. He lived in the early empire, and he wrote probably the fullest, roundest manual for farming that we have, also called De Re Rustica. And he's kind of a derivative writer. A lot of the information that he gets, Rustico. And he's kind of a derivative writer. A lot of the information that he gets, again,

comes from Xenophon, comes from others, but we have it in its entirety. And so that's important. And yeah, he writes about how to run a farm and he was a farm, a villa owner himself. There's 12 books. I mean, it's a pretty large work, but it contains all sorts of interesting tidbits that, again, we wouldn't have if he didn't set himself to the task. He's not as interesting or literary or as vero, for say. I mean, he doesn't have another agenda besides just talking about how to run an estate, but it's very revealing of the mindset. You know, one thing he harps on again and again in the work is this notion of fructus, that a farm must be fructuosus. And that word, of course, means fruit, right? But it also means profit. And the Romans were very careful to insist upon that farming needs to be a profitable venture. You know,

you don't just do it. You want to be able to have the farm be productive, which means turn a profit in terms of agricultural produce. So many of the things that he recommends are kind of recommended with that in mind. So he's very, what do you want to say, practical. Very practical indeed. And he writes a lot about animals too. Indeed. In the book, I think I have a, I just chose a couple of my favorite passages, one about donkeys in praise of asses. And he basically says that they're the most indispensable tool on the farm. I mean, he uses that word tool because they don't need a lot of input to take care of. They're tolerant of all sorts of weather and arduous conditions.

And because they mill grain, which is their primary task, They're super important. But they also take you hither and thither into town and back from town. And he makes these quaint comments that they can carry a huge millstone or they can carry a firebrand of pitch. So he's got a lot of respect for the donkeys. The other thing he lauds in the book I Excerpt and Translate is the passage about dogs. He says, like, now it comes time to talk about the farm's dumb guardians. But then he quickly corrects himself and says like, ah, but these aren't dumb guardians because they are the most, you know, vociferous animals and they will bark when a stranger comes and to rob you.

Or he says the first thing a farmer should do is get a dog. I mean, before all else, get a dog. I like that advice i absolutely do too i mean if we go back there forward to colomela he's talking about dogs and the unsung hero that is the ass now just before we finish we completely wrap up there's one other thing i'd like to ask about because having looked through your book i thought this was very interesting very unique in its own way, because it's this other text that you have later called, well, not really text, maybe they're more sung. You can let me know what's right and what's wrong. The Orphic Hymns. Mark, what are these?

These seem really interesting. Yeah, I wanted to include sort of a, you know, poetic religious text that kind of conveyed how the Greeks and the Romans, the depth of feeling they had for nature in general. And they lived closer to the sources of their survival than we do today. I mean, they were innocent of our technology-enhanced disconnectedness from nature. And so it's not surprising that it suffuses their poetry, like not just Virgil, but even more, surprising that it suffuses their poetry, like not just Virgil, but even, you know, more, you want to say like every man kind of hymns. And the Orphic hymns are, well, they come from later antiquity. So they're between the third and the fifth century AD. And they are, they're kind of maybe have like a magical context to them. But the poem that I translated there was the

hymn to nature. And essentially, it's a litany of, literally, a litany of adjectives and epithets to describe how wonderful nature is. And it's really quite moving and revealing to me, just piled upon, you know, one upon another, these words that evoke what nature is, like the source of everything and eddying flow and swirls. And it's a beautiful hymn. And I think revealing, again, of that sense of the numinousness of nature that the ancients had. I think, you know, it's really interesting as we've gone through our chat to look at the various types of literature that has survived, that talks about farming.

I mean, one that's just sprung to mind for me just before we finish up is i did a bit of work on pinda recently looking at the city state of syrenia in north africa and it's so interesting there had the praise that is sometimes heaped on syrenia and the people who come from syrenia was their bountiful harvests like they had their eight month long harvests i think that talks about. And then you hear of other bread baskets, such as in the ancient Crimea too. It's interesting how certain places become linked to agriculture, to farming in the ancient world. Yeah. And what a tragedy actually that has happened really in North Africa. I mean, that was the bread basket for the Roman Empire. There's a comment I think that Pliny makes that, you know, before Nero killed them and took over their property, there were five estates run that covered all of, you know, Cyrene and North Africa. And so,

I mean, he's decrying the Latifundia that, you know, fed the Roman Empire, these large factory farms. But Cyrene was a center for wheat and grain production in antiquity. You're right about that. And for those reasons, you have a month-long harvest season and all that but now i don't think it's productive to that extent anymore i mean desertification that's happening you know all over the world because of tilling practices and you know overgrazing and all that sort of stuff it's very pretty interesting it is very interesting indeed so thank you for that last minute tangent for myself cyrene for for me is always a really, really interesting city to look at. Mark, then, as we wrap up, wisdom from the ancients.

Are there lessons we can take away from these excerpts from ancient Greek and Roman writers when looking at people who are thinking about, you know, taking up the plow, having a farming life today, living the rustic life today? I think so, yes. I mean, I think that farming is a state of mind. If there's any takeaway I'd want readers to have with this book is that you don't have to actually like pack it in and, you know, go out and buy a farm or buy some land and start farming. You can do it on your balcony. And it's about a way of thinking about our relationship to the land, to the sources of our food that really anybody can cultivate wherever they are and should cultivate. Yeah. And that way, I hope it's a sort of a manual for living in the world, living with nature cooperatively and not taking, you know, things like where our food comes for granted. It's easy

to do. Go to the supermarket and buy something wrapped up in plastic. And it's like, that's food. But it came from somewhere. And is it food? So there's that question too. Yeah, that's the mental life of farming. And Musonius Rufus, the passage, we didn't talk about that one that's in the book, is great for that because it says that he basically argues that farming is the best profession for a philosopher because it gives you a chance to think and ruminate on self-cultivation.

Now, if you think about that, you can practice that, you know, anywhere. You can watch Monty Don on Gardener's World go out and then tend your little plants on your balcony and feel enriched for that reason. Fair enough. A good state of mind, as you say. Thank you for mentioning that passage, which we didn't sadly get time to talk about today. Mark, this has been an absolute pleasure. Last but certainly not least, the title of your book is called How to Be a Farmer, An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land. Mark, it's a great read. And thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast this morning. Great. Thanks for having me. I loved it.

so much for taking the time to come on the podcast this morning. Great. Thanks for having me. I loved it. Well, there you go. There was Dr. Mark Usher explaining all about how these ancient authors viewed farming, how they eulogized this rustic lifestyle. Mark's book on the topic, How to Be a Farmer, An Ancient Guide to Living on the Land. Well, it's out now and we'll put a link to it in the description below now just before I leave you know what I'm going to say but if you want more ancients content in the meantime before our next release well you're in luck because you can subscribe to our weekly

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