The Agricultural Preface between Rome and China

Abstract

This paper compares the preface of Columella’s Res rustica with that of the earliest fully extant Chinese agricultural treatise, the Qimin yaoshu (‘Essential Techniques for the Common People’) of Jia Sixie. I argue that both prefaces have a similar function: to present to the reader the social world in which the author wishes his agricultural work to be understood. By drawing on authoritative literary and historical traditions, each author projects an idealized vision of farming in which the discipline acquires a deep moral significance. Granting these striking similarities, the authors’ views also diverge in certain illuminating respects: these include the moral agency of agriculture, the social location of expertise, and the historical development of agriculture in relation to society.