Columella


Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella 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 Varro, both of which he occasionally cites. A smaller book on trees, De arboribus, is usually attributed to him.
In 1794 the Spanish botanists Jose Antonio Pavón y Jimenez and Hipólito Ruiz López named a genus of Peruvian asterid Columellia in his honour.

Personal life

Little is known of Columella's life. He was probably born in Gades, Hispania Baetica, possibly to Roman parents. After a career in the army, he turned to farming his estates at Ardea, Carseoli, and Alba in Latium.

''De re rustica''

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 :
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.
A complete but anonymous translation into English was published by Millar in 1745. Excerpts had previously been translated by Bradley.

''De arboribus''

The short work De arboribus, "On Trees", is in manuscripts and early editions of Columella considered as book 3 of De Re Rustica. However it is clear from the opening sentences that it is part of a separate and possibly earlier work. As the anonymous translator of the Millar edition notes, there is in De arboribus no mention of the Publius Silvinus to whom the De Re Rustica is addressed. A recent critical edition of the Latin text of the De Re Rustica of Columella includes it, but as incerti auctoris, by an unknown hand. Cassiodorus mentions sixteen books of Columella, which has led to the suggestion that De arboribus formed part of a work in four volumes.

Principal early editions

The earliest editions of Columella group his works with those on agriculture of Cato the Elder, Varro Reatinus and Palladius. Some modern library catalogues follow Brunet in listing these under "Rei rusticae scriptores" or "Scriptores rei rusticae".