COLUMELLA

Form: Lucius Iunius Moderatus.

A Latin writer on agriculture. He was a native of Gades, in Spain, and a contemporary of his countryman, the philosopher Seneca. He was the author of a thorough and exhaustive work on agriculture (De Re Rustica), which he founded partly upon a study of all previous works on the subject, partly on his own experience, gathered in Spain, Italy, and Asia. The work was written about 60 A.D., and consists of twelve books, arranged as follows: I-II, on crops and pastures; III-V, on trees and vineyards; VI-IX, on cattle, birds fishes and bees; X, on horticulture; XI-XII, on the duties and occupations of the farmer. The tenth book is written in polished hexameters, as a supplement to Vergil's fourth Georgic. This Columella did at the request of Publius Silvinus, to whom the whole work is dedicated. Besides this, his great work, Columella had previously written a shorter treatise, of which the second book, on trees (De Arb&ibgs), still survives. Columella's exposition is clear and easy, and his language (if we pass over the rhetorical ornaments added after the fashion of his time) correct. The tenth book, though written in verse, has, it must be said, little poetical merit.