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In the year 29 BC the great Roman poet Virgil published these lines: \nBlessed is he who has succeeded in learning the laws of nature\u2019s working, has cast beneath his feet all fear and fate\u2019s implacable decree, and the howl of insatiable Death. But happy too is he who knows the rural gods\u2026

They\u2019re from his poem the Georgics, a detailed account of farming life in the Italy of the time. \u2018Georgics\u2019 means \u2018agricultural things\u2019, and it\u2019s often been read as a farming manual. But it was written at a moment when the Roman world was emerging from a period of civil war, and questions of land ownership and management were heavily contested. It\u2019s also a philosophical reflection on humanity\u2019s relationship with the natural world, the ravages of time, and the politics of Virgil\u2019s day.

It\u2019s exerted a profound influence on European writing about agriculture and rural life, and has much to offer environmental thinking today.

With

Katharine Earnshaw \nSenior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter;

Neville Morley \nProfessor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter

and

Diana Spencer\nProfessor of Classics at the University of Birmingham

Producer: Luke Mulhall