Columella

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (ˌkɒljəˈmɛlə; Arabic: Yunius, 4 – 70 AD) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His De re rustica in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the works of Cato the Elder and Marcus Terentius Varro, both of which he occasionally cites. A smaller book on trees, De arboribus, is usually attributed to him. In 1794 the Spanish botanists José Antonio Pavón Jiménez and Hipólito Ruiz López named a genus of Peruvian asterid Columellia in his honour. Little is known of Columella's life. He was probably born in Gades, Hispania Baetica (modern Cádiz), possibly to Roman parents. After a career in the army (he was tribune in Syria in 35), he turned to farming his estates at Ardea, Carseoli, and Alba in Latium. In ancient times, Columella's work "appears to have been but little read", cited only by Pliny the Elder, Servius, Cassiodorus, and Isidorus, and having fallen "into almost complete neglect" after Palladius published an abridgement of it. This book is presented as advice to a certain Publius Silvinus. Previously known only in fragments, the complete book was among those discovered in monastery libraries in Switzerland and France by Poggio Bracciolini and his assistant Bartolomeo di Montepulciano during the Council of Constance, between 1414 and 1418. Structure of De re rustica ("On Agriculture"): soils viticulture fruits olive trees big animals: cattle, horses and mules small animals: asses, sheep, goats, pigs, dogs fish and fowl: chickens, doves, thrushes, peacocks, Numidian chicken and guineafowl, geese, ducks, fish ponds wild animals: enclosures for wild animals, beekeeping, production of honey and wax gardens personnel management calendars household management Book 10 is written entirely in dactylic hexameter verse, in imitation of, or homage to, Virgil. It may initially have been intended to be the concluding volume, books 11 and 12 being perhaps an addition to the original scheme.