Ecocriticism, Ecology, and the Cultures of Antiquity by Christopher Schliephake

Author:Christopher Schliephake
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 12

Nec provident futuro tempori, sed quasi plane in diem vivant—Sustainable Business in Columella’s De Re Rustica?

Lars Keßler and Konrad Ott

Did humankind develop a concept of sustainability avant la lettre?1 Only a short period after environmental approaches to the study of ancient cultures had gained momentum, the advantages of using sustainability as a holistic frame of reference was recognized by environmental historians, although with varying results:

Thommen (2012, 8): “The ancients had not yet addressed the issue of the planned management and distribution of resources, and could thus develop no real concept of sustainability. The question, too, of equal access to goods and social justice was completely beyond the pale.”

Hughes (2014, 128): “The small farm typical of ancient agriculture described by such writers as Xenophon, Varro, and Columella may offer a model of sustainability.”

The discrepancy between Thommen and Hughes is not least due to different conceptions of sustainability. Clearly, both argue differently: while Thommen’s assessment focuses on universal humanitarian aspects, Hughes’s statement is limited to a wise use of resources.

By first linking the history of agricultural ideas explicitly to several models of sustainability, this chapter will examine the extent to which there had been sustainability efforts in Greco-Roman culture, in particular in Columella’s treatise on agriculture De Re Rustica (DRR) written in the first century AD.2 Columella’s work might prove an important milestone in the development of sustainability, since he is a cultural representative whose sustainable ideas, if he indeed had any, would have been most influencial: he taught farming, while at the same time running several estates.3 He therefore had a strong influence on how Roman culture, an agrarian society, treated its key resource. Indeed, in recent studies, Columella has been viewed as an “ecrivain ‘engagé’” (Martin 1971, 289)4 who tried to overcome an agricultural crisis caused by the new landowners in the Neronian Age.5 If DRR would promote sustainable thoughts, this could fit well in Grober’s (2014) conception of sustainability as a “Kind der Krise” (“a child of crisis”). Finally, our results could be of vital importance for understanding the environmental history of Europe as a whole, since Columella’s eloquent compendium of how to work the land has been read widely over the centuries, especially in the Early Modern Period (Schindler 2010).

This chapter employs a comparative approach. It must be viewed as a first attempt to bring key terms of modern sustainability concepts (in the following italicized) in close connection with ancient texts. This broad, but still somewhat holistic, overview has no choice but to select from a wide array of modern sustainability concepts. Therefore, it follows especially the Greifswalder Ansatz by Ott and Döring,6 which is laid out in a top-down approach (Ott and Döring 2008, 101–3).

Conversely, the comparative criteria of this chapter will be laid out in a bottom-up approach. On the fundamental level we will look at the necessary precondition for sustainable thinking in DRR, namely an accurate scientific concept of the soil both as a degradable and renewable resource according to the theory of funds.

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