Anticipation and Analogy in Soranus’ Gynecology
By Anna Bonnell Freidin
According to the physician Soranus, a drunken woman conceives offspring who manifest the “strange fantasies” of her disordered soul. He counsels men to avoid intercourse under these circumstances: “Indeed, it is altogether absurd that farmers are careful not to throw seeds on moist and marshy land,” while at the same time expecting healthy children to be conceived in bodies saturated by wine (Gyn. 1.12.109–20 = 1.39.2-3 Ilberg; cf. Armstrong 2003).
Storing Goods, Keeping Time
By Caroline Cheung
Roman farmers were constantly aware of time. Agricultural treatises and manuals show that, from sowing, pruning, harvesting, and processing, particular tasks that were necessary to ensure a steady supply of food for the next year and beyond punctuated a farmer’s year. Studying food storage in particular shows how they planned for the future. Roman farmers stored and preserved their harvest, including grain, legumes, wine, and oil, to keep food available year-round. Storing food properly, however, was not limited to the food. Farmers had to select the right storage facilities and vessels.
The Farmer and the Faenerator: Anticipation and Affect in Horace Epode 2
By Duncan MacRae
Recent studies of anticipation in contemporary societies have emphasized the plurality and variability of human “future-making” in particular social contexts. In particular, anthropologists have emphasized that forms of anticipation are embedded in particular political economies, from traditional agrarian societies to post-socialist states to neoliberal globalization; they have also revealed the common coexistence of, even competition between, futures that are the product of calculation and those informed by hope or imagination (Guyer 2007; Appadurai 2013 285-300; Bryant and Knight 2019).
Roman Futures between Farmer and Empire
By Astrid Van Oyen
When asking how the inhabitants of the Roman world imagined the future, pride of place should be given to farming: not only was the vast majority of the Roman population engaged in farming, but with its principle of delayed return, farming was a quintessentially future-oriented practice. Yet the Roman world was also a world empire, controlling resources across the Mediterranean and beyond.