With environmentalism and sustainability at the forefront of current affairs (and rightly so) I wondered whether the likes of Greenpeace and Extinction Rebellion are sole products of the modern age and a consequence of the natural exploitation that occurred in the industrial revolution. Could these organisations be carrying on an activism and environmental concern that had deeper roots in time?
To find the first instance of a Roman environmental concern we have to travel to Lebanon, particularly the Jabal Moussa region. Here, we find a concentrated Roman effort to protect Lebanon's natural cedar trees which are emblematic of the country's mountainous regions. The Romans had been involved in this part of the world since Pompey's annexation of the area in 64BCE and the territory was previously inhabited by the Phoenicians. This set of people were famed for their seafaring abilities and the quality of their ships produced from local Lebanese cedar.
Cedar was an important natural resource used to construct the majority of buildings and ships in antiquity. However it was Lebanese cedar which became renowned for its quality in both the East and West and is first referenced in the Mesopotamian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, dating to 1800BCE. The fame of Lebanese cedar only grew and by the 8th century BCE, Assyrian reliefs found in the ancient city of Khorsabad, Iraq depict the transportation of cedar from Lebanon's mountains. Cedar trees continue to play an important role in Lebanon's topography but also the modern country's identity with a lone cedar tree displayed on their national flag.
Assyrian relic from King Sargon II's palace at Khorsabad, Iraq depicting the transporting of cedar. Musee du Louvre. Reproduced under Public Domain; National flag of Lebanon. Reproduced from Wikicommons under Creative Commons license.
As Lebanese cedar became more and more popular, her forests felt the effects of an unsustainable and insatiable exploitation. Centuries of capitalisation by merchants, the military and shipbuilders led to wide deforestation and her famous cedar trees came close to extinction. In a bid to prevent this and protect Lebanon's natural forests, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who ruled between 117-138CE, declared areas of Lebanon's forests as his private and personal property. This would protect cedar and other tree species from mercantile exploration with the Roman Emperor acting as its personal guarantor. To display his authority, Hadrian set up boundary markers on what was now his property to warn off any attempts at Lebanon's famous cedar inscribed with:
IMP HAD AVG DFS AGIV CP
This is an abbreviation of the latin: IMPeratoris HADriani AUGusti De Finitio Siluarum Arborum Genera (IV)Quatuor Cetera Priuata, which means:
Boundary of the forests of the Emperor Hadrian Augustus.
Four species of trees are forbidden; others are private.
These boundary markers are extremely important in understanding Hadrian's environmental concern for Lebanese cedar and provide the singular example of Roman environmentalism. Although the tree species are not specified they are believed to be cedar, fir, oak and pine. The boundary markers do not tell us how successful Hadrian was at protecting Lebanese cedar, would the local population even understand the language of abbreviated Latin? There is some evidence to suggest Hadrian set up a ranger service to patrol the forests but this still remains tentative. What the boundary markers do show is the extent the Romans went to try and protect Lebanon's natural forests. It casts a light on the multifaceted role of imperialism and how Roman forces administered their provinces.
However, this concern for environmentalism remains an outlier to the usual practices of the Romans. Hadrian's concern for the sustainability and longevity of Lebanon's cedar trees is admirable, but unique. There exists no other evidence to suggest the Romans harboured any serious environmental concern. On the contrary there is a wide range of evidence to highlight how the Romans overworked the land and natural resources in unsustainable and explosive practices leading to desertification, deforestation and toxic pollution. Wadi Faynan - one of the biggest Roman copper mines located in Jordan is an exemplar site for how pollution by the Romans destroyed the fertility of the site and its effects can still be felt in modern day.
A Lebanese Cedar Tree. Reproduced from Wikicommons under Creative Commons.