Pliny's Presses: The True Story of the First Century Wine Press

Paul Burton, Tamara Lewit

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    9 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    In a much-quoted passage of the "Natural History", Pliny describes several wine press mechanisms. This description is of great historical importance, since it is the only such textual description of a vitally important class of technologies used for the production throughout the Roman Empire of both wine and olive oil, dietary staples in the ancient Mediterranean. Pliny's text has been quoted and used as the basis for discussions of Roman farming and technological history for many decades. Yet it has never been properly understood in the light of related and recently published archaeological evidence, and close attention has never been paid to developing a precise translation, or to Pliny's painstaking grammatical construction and word choices. A thorough and critical re-examination of the text reveals that modern scholars have routinely misinterpreted Pliny's account of ancient press technology. In this paper, a new translation is offered, which more accurately aligns with archaeological and ethnographic evidence and which attempts to strip away the layers of modern interpretation, to rediscover previously ignored or misunderstood elements, and to restore the original sense of Pliny's passage.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)543-598
    Number of pages56
    JournalKlio
    Volume101
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2019

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