Roman Agriculture - Mechanisation

Mechanisation

The Romans improved crop growing by watering growing plants using aqueducts and there is an increasing amount of evidence that some parts of the industry were mechanised. For example, extensive sets of mills existed in Gaul and Rome at an early date to grind corn into flour. The most impressive extant remains occur at Barbegal in southern France, near Arles. Sixteen overshot water wheels arranged in two columns were fed by the main aqueduct to Arles, the outflow from one being the supply to the next one down in the series. The mills apparently operated from the end of the 1st century AD until about the end of the 3rd century. The capacity of the mills has been estimated at 4.5 tons of flour per day, sufficient to supply enough bread for the 12,500 inhabitants occupying the town of Arelate at that time.

Vertical water wheels were well known to the Romans, described by Vitruvius in his De Architectura of 25 BC, and mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia of AD 77. There are also later references to floating water mills from Byzantium and to sawmills on the river Moselle by the poet Ausonius. The use of multiple stacked sequences of reverse overshot water-wheels was widespread in Roman mines.

There is direct evidence from bas-reliefs that they also used a kind of automatic harvester or reaper when collecting in ripe crops. It is believed that either Romans or the Celts before them, invented the mechanical reaper that cut the ears without the straw and was pushed by oxen. Pliny the Elder mentions the device in the Naturalis Historia XVIII, 296. The machine was forgotten in the Dark Ages, during which period reapers reverted to using scythes and sickles to gather crops.