Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Occatio

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

OCCA'TIO (βωλοκοπία). The process of breaking up the clods of earth left by the plough (Cic. Sen. 15.), which we call harrowing. It was effected by drawing a hurdle (crates) over the land, or a wooden frame set with teeth (dentata), similar to our harrow, often weighted by the driver standing upon it; and in very stiff soils the clods were broken and levelled by hand, with a heavy pronged instrument (rastrum), possessing the properties of a rake and hoe. (Plin. H. N. xviii. 49. § 3. Virg. Georg. i. 94, 95.) But the most approved practice amongst the old Romans was to subdue the land by repeated cross ploughings instead of harrowing. (Columell. ii. 4. 2. Plin. l. c. § 2.) The illustration (Occatio/1.1) represents the process as performed in Egypt, from a tomb at Thebes, in which one man sows the seed, while the occator covers it with his harrow.

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  Occatio/1.1