Numa first established the custom of offering corn to the gods, and of propitiating them with the salted[8] cake; he was the first, too, as we learn from Hemina, to parch spelt, from the fact that, when in this state, it is more wholesome as an aliment.[9] This method, however, he could only establish one way: by making an enactment, to the effect that spelt is not in a pure state for offering, except when parched. He it was, too, who instituted the Fornacalia,[10] festivals appropriated for the parching of corn, and others,[11] observed with equal solemnity, for the erection and preservation of the “termini,” or boundaries of the fields: for these termini, in those days, they particularly regarded as gods; while to other divinities they gave the names of Seia,[12] from “sero,” “to sow,” and of Segesta, from the “segetes,” or “crops of standing corn,” the statues of which goddesses we still see erected in the Circus. A third divinity it is forbidden by the rules of our religion to name even[13] beneath a roof. In former days, too, they would not so much as taste the corn when newly cut, nor yet wine when just made, before the priests had made a libation of the first-fruits.
That portion of land used to be known as a “jugerum,” which was capable of being ploughed by a single “jugum,” or yoke of oxen, in one day; an “actus”[14] being as much as the oxen could plough at a single spell, fairly estimated, without stopping. This last was one hundred and twenty feet in length; and two in length made a jugerum. The most considerable recompense that could be bestowed upon generals and valiant citizens, was the utmost extent of land around which a person could trace a furrow with the plough in a single day. The whole population, too, used to contribute a quarter[15] of a sextarius of spelt, or else half a one, per head.
From agriculture the earliest surnames were derived. Thus, for instance, the name of Pilumnus was given to him who invented the “pilum,” or pestle of the bake-house, for pounding corn; that of Piso was derived from “piso,” to grind corn; and those of Fabius, Lentulus, and Cicero, from the several varieties[16] of leguminous plants in the cultivation of which respectively these individuals excelled. One individual of the family of the Junii received the name of “Bubulcus,”[17] from the skill he displayed in breeding oxen. Among the sacred ceremonials, too, there was nothing that was held more holy than the marriage by confarreation,[18] and the woman just married used to present a cake made of spelt.[19] Careless cultivation of the land was in those times an offence that came under the cognizance of the censors; and, as we learn from Cato,[20] when it was said that such and such a man was a good agriculturist or a good husbandman, it was looked upon as the very highest compliment that could be paid him. A man came to be called “locuples,” or “rich,” from being “loci plenus,” or “full of earth.” Money, too, received its name of “pecunia,”[21] from “pecus,” “cattle.” At the present day, even, in the registers of the censors, we find set down under the head of “pascua,” or “pasture lands,” everything from which the public revenues are derived, from the fact that for a long period of time pasture lands were the only sources of the public revenue. Fines, too, were only imposed in the shape of paying so many sheep or so many oxen; and the benevolent spirit of the ancient laws deserves remark, which most considerately enjoined that the magistrate, when he indicted a penalty, should never impose a fine of an ox before having first condemned the same party to the payment of a sheep.