10-25-2021, 04:21 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-25-2021, 06:30 PM by Nathan Ross.)
(10-25-2021, 12:37 PM)Renatus Wrote: The March and October alternatives are a false dichotomy. The fighting did not take place during the sowing season but during tha growing season.
Hmm. It seems to me that Tacitus is saying explicitly that the fighting did take place during the sowing season.
The Britons neglected their agriculture because they preferred to go off to war, thinking they could steal Roman supplies.
However, if we imagine that March was the sowing season, and the Britons were not already at war - why would they not sow crops? They could hardly have assumed that they would be away from home until October or so. Not to do so would not just be 'negligent', but amazingly stupid. What else would they have been doing instead?
(10-25-2021, 12:37 PM)Renatus Wrote: I am not sure that the Scots, who apparently harvest in the autumn, would appreciate being referred to as 'prehistoric'!
It's not the harvesting season but the sowing season - all crops in Britain are harvested in late summer to autumn.
'Prehistoric' agriculture (the term is used by Butser, and refers to the period Applebaum describes as pre-500BC) had reduced yields as there was only one sowing, in the spring, a short growing period and a harvest in the autumn. Applebaum uses evidence from Wiltshire to show that the pattern changed - perhaps after the Belgic migration - to winter crops sown in the autumn.
Nathan Ross
