Most of the inhabitants of the Roman world lived by farming. The kinds of farming they practised varied as Roman domination spread north of the Alps. This book deals with the tools they used, in all their variety, and with the way they used them. It describes in detail agricultural implements, both simple and complex, from shovels, spades, saws and sickles to ploughs, harrows and reaping machines. Each description carries full references to the sources of information, including allusions in literature and the evidence of monuments and mosaics. The book ends with a catalogue raisonne of the implements illustrated in the text. The author uses practical knowledge of agriculture, as well as learning, to identify and interpret the objects under examination; this is, literally, scholarship brought down to earth.

This book is a companion volume to K. D. White's Agricultural Implements of the Roman World (Cambridge University Press, 1967). He deals here with equipment and instruments which were for the most part used in processing and storage as opposed to cultivation. Each item is described in detail and there are abundant references to sources, literary and archaeological. The volume is amply illustrated. As before, Professor White has unearthed a wealth of information of special value to archaeologists, lexicographers and historians of technology. His discussions of the use made of the articles catalogued have a broader human interest and throw illuminating sidelights on the social and economic life of the Roman world.