Centuriation

Even today, if you look at our countryside from above (something that is made considerably easier by Google Earth), it is possible, here and there, to see traces of how the Romans organised it, through centuriation. 

The term centuriation refers to the method of evenly dividing and demarcating agricultural land in order to assign it in a fair and rational way to the new citizens of a colony or a territorial outpost that still lacked a city of reference. This practice intensified greatly in our area during the 2nd century BC, favoured by the exceptional fertility of the land and the ready availability of water, compared with the countryside of central-southern Italy. Furthermore, from the 1st century BC on, it was also boosted by investments made by the Roman entrepreneurial elites, who were interested in increasing agricultural production and the diffusion of cisalpine products. 

Each colonist would be assigned a plot (heredium) sufficient to support his family; this plot would be equal to one hundredth of a centuria (hence the term centuration). That was the theory, but in practice settlers could assigned two or more heredia, depending on the risk presented by the territory subject to centuriation, which, before the subdivision, had undergone land reclamation and deforestation.

Romanisation is a phenomenon normally understood in relation to the history of towns and cities, the creation of new settlements (colonies), and the adaptation of pre-existing ones to the Roman model (municipalities), and this aspect is undoubtedly the most prominent. But the ancient city is inseparable from its territory, the two being linked from the outset by a single organisational process in which urban and agricultural planning techniques are applied in close correlation with each other, an approach that is hardly surprising given the agricultural-pastoral nature of the ancient economy. The ancient city was created to be a service centre, and its economic foundations rested on the rational organisation of fertile lands, through a method called centuriation, or in Latin, limitatio.

Ancient sources showing that colonies had a high number of inhabitants for their size provide clear evidence that not all colonists resided in the capital. Indeed, it was common for people to live in the countryside, in farmhouses, rustic buildings or production villas. Archaeology offers abundant and consistent evidence of this. Farmers would remain on their property, only going to the city or town to visit the market and use other common services. Voghera, for instance, an important town in the lower part of Valle Staffora, was called Forum Iriensium (forum meaning the area set aside for the market and other public activities, of a political, administrative, judicial, religious nature, etc.).

Evidence from the Romanisation period (2nd–1st century BC) points to the presence in our area at that time of farms whose construction and planimetric characteristics suggest that it was home to a class of landowners/farmers engaged in the management of small agricultural properties (with buildings occupying a few hundred square metres at most). With the advent of the imperial age, there appeared larger farmsteads or rustic villae (with buildings occupying a thousand square metres or more). These were medium-sized to large properties where family management was combined with the use of servile or salaried labour, and production was of a more “entrepreneurial” nature. In these facilities, an “urban” part, where the owner lived, would be flanked by a “rustic” part for the processing and storage of agricultural produce.

As we have said, the centuriation interventions had the greatest, and the most enduring, impact on the landscape. Centuriation, or limitatio (from limes, meaning limit or property boundary), indeed gave the landscape a new shape and structure that both reflected the search for a balance between man and the environment, and conformed to a standard of functionality. 

A grid would be drawn up on the basis of the celestial orientation of the cardo maximus and decumanus maximus, which were the two main axes used to divide up fields; ground conditions permitting, it would be planned secundum naturam coeli (according to the nature of the sky), with a north–south-oriented cardo and an east–west-oriented decumanus. Failing this, a criterion would be adopted based on an evaluation of the land’s geomorphological, climatic and environmental characteristics, and the grid would thus be planned secundum naturam soli (according to the nature of the land); in this case the main axes would be displaced by some degrees with respect to the cardinal points. Extensive reclamation works, deforestation and adjustment of connections (large roads, such as the Postumia, minor roads, river landings, etc.) would all be carried out upstream of all this.

The new landscape that emerged corresponded to the ecological optimum (i.e., the optimal environment for life generally), and for this reason became an asset handed down through the generations of rural communities that followed, right up to the modern era. Even today many modern farm roads or irrigation ditches retrace a ground plan introduced by the Romans.

This plan, with its characteristic rationality and functionality, was achieved through the application of technical rigour. It was the gromaticus, the equivalent of today’s surveyor, who physically traced the grid: he did this using an instrument (groma) that allowed him to draw orthogonal lines. 

The key element ensuring the success of this operation was the anthropometric, human-scaled Roman measurement system. Basically, the units of measure that were adopted referred to people and to human activities. Thus, the basic unit was the pes, or foot (about 29.5 cm), which was divided into four palmi, or palms (one palm measuring around 7.4 cm), each of which in turn comprised four digiti, or fingers (one finger being about 1.8 cm); one and a half feet made a cubitus, or elbow (about 44 cm), and two and a half feet a gradus, or step (about 74 cm), and so on. Constructed on a human scale, it was a simple, intuitive and modular system that was easy to use. In the same way, larger areas of land were also measured using a system that was rational, clear and easy to apply. In this case, the basic unit of measure was the square actus, while the linear actus was the average distance (120 feet or approximately 35.5 metres) covered by a plough pulled by a pair of yoked oxen (when prodded). Two square actus, deemed sufficient to meet the grain needs of a family of settlers, formed an iugerum, the average area that a pair of yoked oxen could plough in a working day (about 35.5 x 71 metres). Two iugera allowed for annual “rotation” of crops, and together they formed a heredium, which was the amount of land that a colonist was permitted bequeath to his sons. A hundred heredia formed a centuria (about 710 x 710 metres).

The limites, or boundaries of the centuriae, were marked by cart tracks, irrigation and drainage ditches, low walls and rows of plants. All this resulted in a sort of “artificial paradise”, a “second nature” serving a civic purpose! Roman grids were veritable master plans of the countryside, created according to the same rules and procedures applied in urban planning. The system was most effective when the axes dividing the land coincided with those of the general plan regulating the urban areas, and also with the territory’s major connecting roads.