The Romans are renowned for having been great gourmets, but their services to horticulture are less widely celebrated. Their talent for farming successfully generated many new fruit and vegetable cultivars, which were developed using selective breeding. While maps of the Roman Empire are often seen as marking territory subject to its laws and, in some cases, occupied by its soldiers, the green-fingered imperialists also introduced a wealth of different fruit, vegetables, and herbs to their provinces north of the Alps. The list is long, and includes such supposedly quintessential English herbs as mint, as well as cherries and peaches. Among the vegetables, though, asparagus is surely their most famous import.
Asparagus plants grow wild in the Mediterranean area, and proved agreeable to the Ancient Greek palate. Dried asparagus was also used as a medicine. The famous Greek physician Hippocrates (c.460 BC-370 BC) recommended a tea made from dried asparagus as a diuretic, and another made from the plant’s roots as a remedy for toothache. Hippocrates also alludes to another of asparagus’ reputed properties: an aphrodisiac. Since no Greek sources refer to asparagus being farmed, wild plants were probably sufficient to sate their appetite for it. The same cannot be said of the Romans.
Cultivation of asparagus
The oldest description of asparagus cultivation can be found in the writings of the Roman polymath, M. Porcius Cato Censor (234-149 BC). This prominent military commander, historian, and politician also found time to turn his hand to gardening, and he published the treatise De agri cultura (‘On Farming’). Other asparagus tips can be found in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (1st century AD) and the agricultural works of Columella and Palladius (1st and 5th century AD, respectively).
