COLUMELLA

L. Iunius Moder at us Columella was a native of Gades: x. 185, ‘mea [lactuca] quam generant Tarte i littore Gades.’ On an inscription he is styled ‘trib. mil. leg. vi. ferratae’ ( C.I.L. ix. 325), and it was probably in the course of his military service that he visited Cilicia and Syria: ii. 10, 18, ‘hoc semen Ciliciae Syriaeque region i bus ipse vid i.’ His uncle, M. Columella, was a leading man in the province of Baetica (v. 5, 15); and he himself po e ed land in Italy: iii. 9, 2, ‘cum et in Ardeatino agro, quem multis temp or i bus ipsi ante po e dim us, et in Carseolano itemque in Albano generis Aminei vites hui us modi notae habuerimus.’ He was a contemporary of the younger Seneca, who is spoken of as alive (iii. 3, 3). His chief work is De Re Rustic a in twelve Books, dedicated to P. Silvinus—a practical treatise on husbandry for ‘negotiosi agricolae’ (ix. 2, 5). Book x., on gardening, is in hexameter verse, and was written at the suggestion of Silvinus and another friend, to fill the gap which Virgil had left in the Georgics (iv. 147-8); cf. the preface, ‘Cultus hortorum... sicut institueram, pros a or at i one prior i bus subnecteretur exordiis, nisi propositum expugn a et frequens postulatio tua, quae pervicit, ut poetic is numeris explerem Georgic i car min is omi as partes, quas tamen et ipse Vergilius sign if i caver at, poster is se mem or and as relinquere.’ The last two Books were added as an afterthought; xi. 1, 2, ‘numerum quem iam quasi con summa ver am voluminum exce i.’ Columella wrote before A.D. 65 (see above); later than Celsus, but earlier than the elder Pliny. There is also extant a book De Arbor i bus , which formed Book ii. of an earlier treatise on agriculture: cf. i. 1, ‘Quoniam de cultu agrorum abunde primo volumine praecepi e videmur, non intempestiva erit arborum virgultorumque cur a.’ It covers the same ground as De R.R. iii.-v. Columella also wrote ‘adversus astrologos’ (xi. 1, 31), and projected a treatise on the religious rites connected with agriculture (ii. 22, 5, ‘lustrationum ceterorumque sacrificiorum, quae pro frugibus fiunt, morem priscis usurpatum’).