Chapter 12
The Roman calendar was filled with feast days associated with the divinity of nature and her gifts: the Fordicidia for the earth mother Tellus, the Cerialia for the corn goddess Ceres, and the Vinalia for Jupiter and Venus. Moreover, in springtime, the Ambarvalia was held for Dea Dia, the goddess of farming, and the Ludi Florales for Flora, the goddess of plants; in the autumn, the Vertumnalia for Vertumnus and Pomona celebrated the seasonal blessing of fruit. As a peasant people close to nature, the Romans saw the trees, woods and crops as gifts of the gods, but they also knew how to exploit nature and subjugate it. The cultivation of the countryside by clearing, parcelling and road-building was celebrated as a victory over wild nature. During the Augustan period, the poets Vergil and Propertius praised the superior strength of the Roman Empire precisely because of its better environment. Augustus himself propagated the concept of world domination, according to which the Romans were viewed as an element of divine providence. The world was pacified by the Pax Augusta, and in Rome between 13 and 9 BC the Peace Altar was built; there the nurturing Mother Earth (Tellus) was displayed alongside the god-fearing imperial family.
Generally, the Romans could, like the Greeks before them, adopt either of two different attitudes towards nature (natura, the translation of the Greek physis). Roman literature on the one hand reveals pessimism, in the form of the idea of an accursed nature, which would one day succumb and disintegrate with the universe. According to the poet Lucretius (c. 96–55 BC), humankind was abusing its skills and knowledge, and was unable to check its desires, so that despite its superiority it was rushing headlong to disaster (Lucr. 2.1154ff., 5.195ff., 1430ff.). But literature also propagated optimism, for humankind was seen as the creator, and thus had the right to dispose of nature, which it had subjugated (Cic. nat. deor. 2.152):
and we alone have the power of controlling the most violent of nature's offspring, the sea and the winds, thanks to the science of navigation, and we use and enjoy many products of the sea. Likewise the entire command of the commodities produced on land is vested in humankind. We enjoy the fruits of the plains and of the mountains, the rivers and the lakes are ours, we sow corn, we plant trees, we fertilise the soil by irrigation, we confine the rivers and straighten or divert their courses. In fine, by means of our hands we essay to create as it were a second world within the world of nature.
(Loeb)
Ultimately, the world and nature could not exist without the power of a ruler (imperium) (Cic. leg. 3.3).
Characteristic of the conflicting relationship to nature is Vergil (70–19 BC) in his Georgics, a poem about farming. Vergil not only celebrates economic profit, but also animals and plants, and he respects the divine in nature. He nevertheless assigns a leading role to humankind, since, with its intellect, it is able to maintain the natural order. Statius (c. AD 40–96) puts it even more clearly in his poem about the country house of a certain Pollio Felix at Surrentum:
Here are spots that Nature has favoured, here she has been outdone and given way to the settler and learnt gentleness in ways unknown before. Here, where you now see level ground, was hill; the halls you enter were wild country; where now tall groves appear, there was once not even soil: its owner has tamed the place, and as he shaped and conquered the rocks, the earth gladly gave way before him. See how the cliff learns to bear the yoke, how the dwellings force their entry and the mountain is bidden withdraw.
(silv. 2.2.52–9; Loeb)
This view of tamed nature was expressed in a preference for open groves over dark forests, gentle hills over wild mountains, and calm waters and shorelines over rough seas. Thus does Livy (21.58.3) speak of the foeditas Alpium, the ugliness of the Alps.1
Individual Romans might criticise such ecologically harmful behaviour as destructive mining, clear-cutting of mountain forests, the extermination of plants, or the building of large manors and rural villas, which blocked the lakesides; rarely, however, were countermeasures taken, for material advantages had priority. As we will see below with regard to agriculture, the literature on the topic – Cato, Varro, Columella – reveals no love of nature, but rather an interest in utility and profit. Protection of nature was only important if preservation of resources – with a view toward future profit – was a factor.
On the other hand, voices of caution did emerge from philosophical circles. After the historian Sallust (86–34 BC) denounced the destructive luxury of the upper class (Catil. 13), Seneca (c. AD 4–65) during the early imperial period imparted Stoic moderation and criticised excesses of luxury as an offence against nature: ‘If we follow Nature, all is easy and unobstructed; but if we combat Nature, our life differs not a whit from that of men who row against the current’ (epist. 122.19; Loeb). Here, too, however, it is not protection of nature, but rather fitting in sensibly with the existing world order, with the goal of moral fortification, that is the point. Natural processes, such as disastrous floods, were seen as following a definite plan, so that humans might hardly influence them.
The fundamental dilemma of people in antiquity with respect to nature can ultimately be seen in the officer and historian Pliny the Elder (AD 23/4–79): the human, according to Pliny, has a weak constitution, threatened by nature and the environment. He leads a merciless struggle for existence which he might survive only with the aid of his technical resources. At the same time, however, he destroys his own basic living conditions, as demonstrated particularly by the example of mining. The mining of mineral resources, Pliny believed, had ultimately brought nothing but misfortune to humankind (Plin. nat. 2.158–9, 33.1–6).
1 Thüry 1993, 558.