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Columella

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Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella
Portrait of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella from Jean de Tournes, Insignium aliquot virorum icones, Lyon, 1559
Portrait of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella from Jean de Tournes, Insignium aliquot virorum icones, Lyon, 1559
Born4 AD
Gades, Hispania Baetica
Diedc. 70 AD
CitizenshipRoman
Notable worksDe re rustica
Statue of Columella, holding a sickle and an ox-yoke, in the Plaza de las Flores, Cádiz
Statue of Columella, holding a sickle and an ox-yoke, in the Plaza de las Flores, Cádiz

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (/ˌkɒljəˈmɛlə/; Arabic: Yunius,[1]: 12  4 – c. 70 AD) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire.[2]

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.[3]

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Arabic

Arabic

Arabic is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world. Having emerged in the 1st century, it is named after the Arab people; the term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula, as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece.

Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western Roman Empire to Germanic kings conventionally marks the end of classical antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Because of these events, along with the gradual Hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire, historians distinguish the medieval Roman Empire that remained in the Eastern provinces as the Byzantine Empire.

Cato the Elder

Cato the Elder

Marcus Porcius Cato, also known as Cato the Censor, the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write history in Latin with his Origines, a now fragmentary work on the history of Rome. His work De agri cultura, a rambling work on agriculture, farming, rituals, and recipes, is the oldest extant prose written in the Latin language. His epithet "Elder" distinguishes him from his great-grandson Cato the Younger, who opposed Julius Caesar.

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome". He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.

Asterids

Asterids

In the APG IV system (2016) for the classification of flowering plants, the name asterids denotes a clade. Asterids is the largest group of flowering plants, with more than 80,000 species, about a third of the total flowering plant species. Well-known plants in this clade include the common daisy, forget-me-nots, nightshades, the common sunflower, petunias, yacon, morning glory, sweet potato, coffee, lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, honeysuckle, ash tree, teak, snapdragon, sesame, psyllium, garden sage, table herbs such as mint, basil, and rosemary, and rainforest trees such as Brazil nut.

Columellia

Columellia

Columellia is a group of plant species in the Columelliaceae described as a genus in 1794.

Personal life

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.[4]

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Cádiz

Cádiz

Cádiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia.

Hispania Baetica

Hispania Baetica

Hispania Baetica, often abbreviated Baetica, was one of three Roman provinces in Hispania. Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania, and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis. Baetica remained one of the basic divisions of Hispania under the Visigoths down to 711. Baetica was part of Al-Andalus under the Arabs in the 8th century and approximately corresponds to modern Andalusia.

Tribune

Tribune

Tribune was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the authority of the senate and the annual magistrates, holding the power of ius intercessionis to intervene on behalf of the plebeians, and veto unfavourable legislation. There were also military tribunes, who commanded portions of the Roman army, subordinate to higher magistrates, such as the consuls and praetors, promagistrates, and their legates. Various officers within the Roman army were also known as tribunes. The title was also used for several other positions and classes in the course of Roman history.

Ardea, Lazio

Ardea, Lazio

Ardea is an ancient town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Rome, 35 kilometres south of Rome and about 4 kilometres from today's Mediterranean coast.

Carsoli

Carsoli

Carsoli is a town and comune in the province of L'Aquila, Abruzzo. The ancient Roman city lies 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) southwest of the modern town.

Alba Longa

Alba Longa

Alba Longa was an ancient Latin city in Central Italy, 19 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Rome, in the vicinity of Lake Albano in the Alban Hills. Founder and head of the Latin League, it was destroyed by the Roman Kingdom around the middle of the 7th century BC, and its inhabitants were forced to settle in Rome. In legend, Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome, had come from the royal dynasty of Alba Longa, which in Virgil's Aeneid had been the bloodline of Aeneas, a son of Venus.

Latium

Latium

Latium is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire.

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.[5]: 383 

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.[6]

Structure of De re rustica ("On Rural Affairs"):

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.[7]

A complete, but anonymous, translation into English was published by Andrew Millar in 1745.[8] Excerpts had previously been translated by Richard Bradley.[9]

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Cassiodorus

Cassiodorus

Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Christian, Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname; not his rank. He also founded a monastery, Vivarium, where he worked extensively the last three decades of his life.

Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of the ancient world".

Council of Constance

Council of Constance

The Council of Constance was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church that was held from 1414 to 1418 in the Bishopric of Constance (Konstanz) in present-day Germany. The council ended the Western Schism by deposing or accepting the resignation of the remaining papal claimants and by electing Pope Martin V. It was the last papal election to take place outside of Italy.

Fruit

Fruit

In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.

Olive

Olive

The olive, botanical name Olea europaea, meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as Olea europaea 'Montra', dwarf olive, or little olive. The species is cultivated in all the countries of the Mediterranean, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, North and South America and South Africa. Olea europaea is the type species for the genus Olea. The tree and its fruit give their name to the Oleaceae plant family, which also includes species such as lilac, jasmine, forsythia, and the true ash tree.

Cattle

Cattle

Cattle are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus Bos. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult males are referred to as bulls.

Horse

Horse

The horse is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Mule

Mule

The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two possible first-generation hybrids between them, the mule is easier to obtain and more common than the hinny, which is the offspring of a female donkey and a male horse.

Donkey

Donkey

The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, Equus africanus, and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, Equus africanus asinus, or as a separate species, Equus asinus. It was domesticated in Africa some 5000–7000 years ago, and has been used mainly as a working animal since that time.

Goat

Goat

The goat or domestic goat is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the animal family Bovidae and the tribe Caprini, meaning it is closely related to the sheep. There are over 300 distinct breeds of goat. It is one of the oldest domesticated species of animal, according to archaeological evidence that its earliest domestication occurred in Iran at 10,000 calibrated calendar years ago.

Dog

Dog

The dog is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Dogs were the first species to be domesticated by hunter-gatherers over 15,000 years ago before the development of agriculture. Due to their long association with humans, dogs have expanded to a large number of domestic individuals and gained the ability to thrive on a starch-rich diet that would be inadequate for other canids.

Chicken

Chicken

The chicken is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeast Asia. Rooster and cock are terms for adult male birds, and a younger male may be called a cockerel. A male that has been castrated is a capon. An adult female bird is called a hen, and a sexually immature female is called a pullet. Humans keep chickens primarily as a source of food or as pets. Traditionally they were also bred for cockfighting, which is still practiced in some places. Chickens domesticated for meat are broilers and for eggs are layers.

De arboribus

De re rustica, 1564
De re rustica, 1564

The short work De arboribus, "On Trees", is in manuscripts and early editions of Columella considered as book 3 of De re rustica.[10] 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, in De arboribus there is no mention of the Publius Silvinus to whom the De re rustica is addressed.[8]: 571  A recent critical edition of the Latin text of the De re rustica includes it, but as incerti auctoris, by an unknown hand.[11] Cassiodorus mentions sixteen books of Columella, which has led to the suggestion that De arboribus formed part of a work in four volumes.[10]

Source: "Columella", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 28th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columella.

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Sources

In addition to Cato the Elder and Varro, Columella used many sources that are no longer extant and for which he is one of the few references. These include works by Aulus Cornelius Celsus, the Carthaginian writer Mago, Tremellius Scrofa, and many Greek sources. His uncle Marcus Columella, "a clever man and an exceptional farmer" (VII.2.30), had conducted experiments in sheep breeding, crossing colourful wild rams, introduced from Africa for gladiatorial games, with domestic sheep,[12] and may have influenced his nephew's interests. Columella owned farms in Italy; he refers specifically to estates at Ardea, Carseoli, and Alba,[13] and speaks repeatedly of his own practical experience in agriculture.

Principal early editions

The earliest editions of Columella group his works with those on agriculture of Cato the Elder, Varro and Palladius. Some modern library catalogues follow Brunet in listing these under "Rei rusticae scriptores" or "Scriptores rei rusticae".[14]

  • Iunii Moderati Columellae hortulus [Rome: Printer of Silius Italicus, c. 1471] (book X only)
  • Georgius Merula, Franciscus Colucia (eds.) De re rustica Opera et impensa Nicolai Ienson: Venetiis, 1472.
  • Lucii Iunii Moderati Columellae de Cultu hortorum Liber .xi. quem .Pub. Virgilius .M. i[n] Georgicis Posteris edendum dimisit. [Padova]: D[ominicus] S[iliprandus], [ca. 1480]
  • Opera Agricolationum: Columellæ: Varronis: Catonisque: nec non Palladii: cū excriptionibus .D. Philippi Beroaldi: & commentariis quæ in aliis impressionibus non extāt. Impensis Benedicti hectoris: Bonon., xiii. calen. octob. [19 Sept.], 1494
  • Beroaldo, Filippo "il vecchio" Oratio de felicitate habita in enarratione Georgicon Virgilii et Columellae Bononiae: per Ioannemantonium De Benedictis, 1507
  • Lucii Junii moderati Columell[ae] de cultu hortorum carme[n] : Necno[n] [et] Palladius de arboru[m] insitione una cu[m] Nicolai Barptholomaei Lochensis hortulo. Parisiis: Venundantur parisiis in aedibus Radulphi Laliseau [printed by Jean Marchant], [1512] (poetry sections only)
  • Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella De cultu ortorum. Interprete Pio Bononiensi. Impressum Bononiae: a Hieronymo de Benedictis bibliopola et calcographo, 1520 mense Augusto
  • Libri De Re Rustica...Additis Nuper Commentariis Iunii Pompo. Fortunati in Librum De Cultu Hortorum, Cum Adnotationibus Philippi Beroaldi... Florence: Filippo Giunta, 1521
  • De re rustica libri XII. Euisdem de Arboris liber, separatus ab aliis. Lyon, Sébastien Gryphe, 1541
  • Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus De l'agricoltura libri XII. / Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella. Trattato de gli alberi, tradotto nuouamente di latino in lingua italiana per Pietro Lauro Modonese In Venetia: [Michele Tramezzino il vecchio], 1544
  • Les Douze livres des choses rustiques. Traduicts de Latin en François, par feu maistre Claude Cotereau Chanoine de Paris. La traduction duquel ha esté soingneusement reveue & en la plupart corrigée, & illustrée de doctes annotations par maistre Jean Thierry de Beauvoisis Paris: Jacques Kerver, 1551, 1555
  • Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus Les douze liures ... des choses rustiques, tr. par C. Cotereau. La tr. corrigée & illustrée de doctes annotations par J. Thiery de Beauoisis Paris, 1555
  • Columella, Lucius Iunius Moderatus Lutio Giunio Moderato Columella De l'agricoltura libri XII. Trattato de gli alberi del medesimo, tradotto nuouamente di latino in lingua italiana per Pietro Lauro modonese. In Venetia: per Geronimo Caualcalouo, 1559
  • Orsini, Fulvio Notae ad M. Catonem, M. Varronem, L. Columellam de re rustica. Ad kalend. rusticum Farnesianum & veteres inscriptiones Fratrum Arvalium. Iunius Philargyrius in Bucolica & Georgica Virgilij. Notae ad Servium in Bucol. Georg. & Aeneid. Virg. Velius Longus de orthographia : ex bibliotheca Fulvi Ursini Romae: in aedib. S.P.Q.R. apud Georgium Ferrarium, 1587[15]
  • Bradley, Richard A Survey of the Ancient Husbandry and Gardening collected from Cato, Varro, Columella, Virgil, and others, the most eminent writers among the Greeks & Romans: wherein many of the most difficult passages in those authors are explain'd ... Adorn'd with cuts, etc. London: B. Motte, 1725
  • Gesner, Johann Matthias (ed.) Scriptores Rei Rusticae veteres Latini Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladius, quibus nunc accedit Vegetius de Mulo-Medicina et Gargilii Martialis fragmentum (Ausoni Popinæ De instrumento fundi liber. J. B. Morgagni epist. IV.) cum editionibus prope omnibus et MSS. pluribus collati: adjectae notae virorum clariss, integræ ... et lexicon Rei Rusticae curante Io. Matthia Gesnero Lipsiae: sumtibus Caspari Fritsch, 1735 (full text)
  • Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (trans. Anon.) L. Junius Moderatus Columella of Husbandry, in Twelve Books: and his book, concerning Trees. Translated into English, with illustrations from Pliny, Cato, Varro, Palladius and other ancient and modern authors London: A. Millar, 1745
References
  1. ^ Thomas F. Glick, Steven Livesey, Faith Wallis (editors) (2014). Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: an Encyclopedia. London; New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415969307.
  2. ^ Silke Diederich (2016). Columella. Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0203.
  3. ^ Joseph Fr. Michaud, Eugène Ernest Desplaces, Louis Gabriel Michaud (1854). Biographie universelle (Michaud) ancienne et moderne ... (in French). Paris: Madame C. Desplaces. Volume 8, page 668. Accessed June 2011.
  4. ^ Katharine T. von Stackelberg (2012). Columella. In: Roger S. Bagnall, Kai Brodersen, Craige B. Champion, Andrew Erskine, Sabine R. Huebner (editors) (2013). The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781405179355 (print), 9781444338386 online. doi:10.1002/9781444338386.wbeah06080.
  5. ^ Harry Thurston Peck (editor) (1896). "Columella, L. Iunius Moderātus". Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
  6. ^ William Shepherd (1802). The life of Poggio Bracciolini. London; Liverpool: T. Cadell, Jun., & W. Davies. pp. iv, 487.
  7. ^ E.J. Kenney, W.V. Clausen (editors) (1982). The Cambridge history of classical literature, volume 2: Latin literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521210430, page 669.
  8. ^ a b [anonymous translator] (1745). L. Junius Moderatus Columella of Husbandry, in Twelve Books: and his book, concerning Trees. Translated into English, with illustrations from Pliny, Cato, Varro, Palladius and other ancient and modern authors. London: Andrew Millar.
  9. ^ Richard Bradley (1725). A Survey of the Ancient Husbandry and Gardening collected from Cato, Varro, Columella, Virgil, and others, the most eminent writers among the Greeks & Romans: wherein many of the most difficult passages in those authors are explain'd ... Adorn'd with cuts, etc.. London: B. Motte.
  10. ^ a b [Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge] (1837). Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. C. Knight. volumes 7–8, page 380. Accessed June 2011.
  11. ^ R. H. Rodgers (editor) (2010). L. Iuni Moderati Columellae Res rustica. Incerti auctoris Liber de arboribus (in Latin). Oxonii [Oxford, England]: E Typographeo Clarendoniano. ISBN 9780199271542. Accessed June 2011.
  12. ^ Denis Diderot, Jean Le Rond d' Alembert (editors) (1765). [ Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers ...] (in French). Neufchatel: S. Faulche. Volume 9 JU–MAM, page 179. Accessed June 2011.
  13. ^ "De re rustica (English translation) III.9.2". Loeb Classical Library edition, 1941. Accessed June 2011.
  14. ^ Jacques-Charles Brunet (1843). Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres, fourth edition (in French). Paris: Silvestre. Volume 4, R–Zp, page 238. Accessed May 2011.
  15. ^ Fulvio Orsini (1587). Notae ad M. Catonem, M. Varronem, L. Columellam de re rustica. Ad kalend. rusticum Farnesianum & veteres inscriptiones Fratrum Arvalium. Iunius Philargyrius in Bucolica & Georgica Virgilij. Notae ad Servium in Bucol. Georg. & Aeneid. Virg. Velius Longus de orthographia : ex bibliotheca Fulvi Ursini. Romae: in aedib. S.P.Q.R.: apud Georgium Ferrarium. Full text online at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, two copies: 1, 2.
Further reading
  • Baldwin, Barry. 1963. "Columella's Sources and How He Used Them." Latomus 22:785–791.
  • Bertoni, D. 2017. "Geometry and Genre in Columella". American Journal of Philology. 138.3: 527-554.
  • Carandini, Andrea. 1983. "Columella's Vineyard and the Rationality of the Roman Economy." Opus 2:177–204.
  • Carroll, Peter D. 1976. "Columella the Reformer." Latomus 35:783–790.
  • Doody, Aude. 2007. "Virgil the Farmer? Critiques of the Georgics in Columella and Pliny." Classical Philology. 102.2: 180-197.
  • Dumont, Jean Christian. 2008. "Columella and Vergil." Vergilius 54:49–59.
  • Forster, E. S. 1950. "Columella and His Latin Treatise on Agriculture." Greece and Rome 19:123–128.
  • Gowers, Emily. 2000. "Vegetable Love: Virgil, Columella, and Garden Poetry." Ramus 29:127–148.
  • Henderson, John. 2002. "Columella's Living Hedge: the Roman Gardening Book." The Journal of Roman Studies 92: 110-133.
  • Olson, L. 1943. "Columella and the Beginning of Soil Science." Agricultural History 17:65–72.
  • Requejo, A. 2017. "Columella's Georgics: Form, Method, Intertextuality, Ideology." U.W. Seattle, PhD dissertation
External links
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