Note Upon Cato and the 

 Latin Agronomes 



The ancient literature of farm 

 management was voluminous. Varro 

 cites fifty Greek authors on the sub- 

 ject whose works he knew, beginning 

 with Hesiod and Xenophon. Magon 

 of Carthage wrote a treatise in the 

 Punic tongue which was so highly 

 esteemed that the Roman Senate or- 

 dered it translated into Latin, but it 

 is now lost to us except in the literary 

 tradition. Varro, the polymath, who 

 was styled by his contemporary Cic- 

 ero the most learned Roman, wrote a 

 De re rustica among the six hundred 

 and twenty books in which he ex- 

 plored every branch of human activ- 

 ity: he was indeed so prolific and so 

 various that we might almost indulge 

 [9] 



