Because of the importance of wood as an all-purpose material, the Greeks and Romans were involved in forestry—the planting, use, and care of forests. Wood and charcoal were the main fuels used for heating, cooking, and various industrial processes, such as metalworking and making glass and pottery. In addition, timber was used in construction and shipbuilding, as well as for furniture, carts, chariots, tools, catapults and other weapons, and musical instruments. So many purposes did it serve that in both Greek and Latin the word for “wood” (hyle in Greek and materia in Latin) also meant “substance” or “matter” in general.
Ancient forestry included the care of sacred groves, sections of forest devoted to the gods. Laws kept people from cutting trees, hunting, or pasturing animals in these groves, some of which contained enormous, very old trees. Some of the sacred groves were cut down or enclosed within church grounds after Christianity became the dominant religion of the region.
Although some forests were privately owned—many farmers, for example, had groves of trees on their land—larger forests, such as those on mountain slopes, belonged to the state. Timber was such a valuable resource that both Greek and Roman governments tried—through warfare as well as treaties—to protect their forests and to gain control of those belonging to their enemies. When the supplies of the prized cedar tree in Lebanon became exhausted in the second century A.D., the Roman emperor Hadrian forbade the felling of the trees without his permission.
Timber was harvested by skilled ancient loggers, who selected trees for particular purposes, felled them, and hauled them out of the forests with teams of mules or oxen. Whenever possible, they used rivers to float logs to the destinations where they would be used. Occasionally, ancient foresters replanted trees to replace those they had harvested. More often, though, the Greeks and Romans simply cut down forests and turned the land over for animal grazing, thus keeping the trees from growing back. Herds of goats, in particular, ate the saplings that would have otherwise reestablished a forest.
Deforestation—the loss of woodlands—was a serious problem in the most populous regions of the ancient Mediterranean. Plato writes of the deforestation of the mountains near Athens and Livy of the forests of central Italy. Deforestation led to serious soil erosion, especially in areas of low rainfall in the southern and eastern Mediterranean, and to flooding. At the height of the classical period, most of the lowland areas had been cleared of trees, and the most valued timber had to be transported from mountainous areas in Macedonia, the Alps, the Atlas, and remote areas around the Black Sea. (See also Construction Materials and Techniques.)