Felix, Qui Potuit Rerum Cognoscere Causas

Lucky Is He Who Can Understand the Causes Of Things

By Amy Barr at The Lukeion Project

In a brighter and better world, October would mean most of us would now be finishing the chores of harvesting. Moods would brighten as temperatures drop. Communities come together to enjoy the celebration of a good harvest and the promise of a well-earned winter rest with well-stocked larders.

The virtues of various agrarian cycles seem a bit dreamy (at least if you are wired like I am) but I get to experience this ancient autumn ritual, albeit vicariously. I live close to Amish communities and have several Amish friends whose skilled planting, harvesting, and preserving make my attempts utterly incompetent. In early October, most fields have been put to bed for the winter except for a few beds of cabbage and collards. Everyone pulls together for last harvest chores which, about now, includes boiling down this season’s sorghum syrup while the final hay cuttings are tucked into barns. If families are too busy to cook during this final autumn rush, there are shelves and shelves of home preserves that make for fast feasts.

There’s a brilliant tango of tasks, chores, habits, rituals, and celebrations connected with an agrarian life. The deep satisfaction over successfully navigating the caprice of weather, animal health, and a zillion other challenges of growing things for oneself. Having a deep understanding of the causes of things—from what it takes to grow great tomatoes, to knowing when is best to harvest, to figuring out when is best to plant again—that is the very substance of a deeply satisfying life.  

One of the earliest pieces of Greek poetry was composed by Hesiod around the same time that Homer was composing his Iliad and Odyssey (roughly 750 B.C.). His Works and Days extols the virtues of the human relationship with the land and the importance of hard work. Philologists describe his poetry as didactic (educational). If you’ve never read this poem for yourself, it may be because few today are attracted to poems teaching you how to farm!

Hesiod and other poets inspired the Roman writer Vergilius (aka Virgil) who composed a 4-part (4 seasons) poem called Georgics, named from the Greek word γεωργικά, "agricultural things." Vergil expounds on the beauty of an agrarian life and then, as they say, he gets real. After extolling the virtue of hard work and the satisfaction of success in book 1, he describes a massive storm that brings all of man's efforts to nothing. I’m sure there are some citrus farmers in Florida that can relate right now.

In book 2 Vergil focuses on seemingly mundane things like grafting, growing vines, and the beauty of spring, all while describing agriculture as man's struggle against a hostile natural world (much like goats eating what he’s so carefully planted). He soothes his readers with assurances that despite the challenges, there’s certainly more to offer in the country vs. corrupt and filthy cities.

After book 3, when Vergil addresses the issues of taking care of animals, the poet compares the habits of bees to the lives of humans in book 4. Bees suggest many applicable virtues but “lack love and the arts.” The poet impactfully compares the fragility of a colony of bees to human civilization which may buzz along with much success until suddenly it does not.

There are many other poets drawn to this subject including Nicander, Aratus, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Callimachus, Lucretius, Ennius, and others now lost to us. Vergil patterns his efforts on the neoteric poets who adored intimate personal themes expressed in a learned (well-informed) style. Think in terms of a textbook on agriculture written as a lofty poetic philosophical piece.

Vergil ties his poetic passion for all things agricultural to politics. In case you aren’t up to date on all the happenings of Rome in 29 B.C., suffice it to say that Roman politics make ours seem fairly tame. Rome had been rocked by civil war for a good part of a century and had only recently found small respite after the battle of Actium in which Octavian established the premise and groundwork to throw out the Roman Republic to better manage the “emergency” of a war that Rome picked with Egypt. Vergil even refers to a recent plague in book 3.

Though mixing didactic agrarian poetry, philosophy, politics, and bees seems like a strange mix, you’d be surprised. Vergil is in touch with the perils of losing everything to sudden storms or shifts in world events or the loss of loved ones due to illness. Though he’s known as one of Rome’s best poets in his war-focused work Aeneid, his first and best delight was in his little plot of land and a villa in the country.  "How lucky, if they know their happiness, are farmers, more than lucky, they for whom, far from the clash of arms, the earth herself, most fair in dealing, freely lavishes an easy livelihood."