INTRODUCTION i 



Life and Works of Columella 



Our knowledge of the personal history of Lucius 

 Junius Moderatus Columella, and of the dates of 

 his writings, has been derived almost entirely by 

 conjecture from those incidental references which 

 he makes, at various places in his works, to himself 

 and his contemporaries.^ From these sources we 

 learn that he was a native of Gades (Cadiz), ^ a 

 Roman municipium of the province of Baetica in 

 southern Spain ; and although the date of his birth 

 is unknown, it is obvious that he was born near the 

 beginning of the first century of our era. 



Columella defines his period loosely by his mention 

 of Marcus Varro (circa 116-27 b.c.) as a contemporary 

 of his grandfather.* His time is more clearly 

 indicated in a reference to Seneca ^ as living in his 

 day ; so, too, he speaks of Cornelius Celsus ^ (Jl. 1st 

 cent. A.D.) as a contemporary. He also quotes as 



1 Taken in part from H. B. Ash, L. luni Moderali Coin- 

 mellae Eei Rusticae Liber Decimus : De Cultu Hortorum, 

 Philadelphia, 1930. 



2 Biographers have added but little to the facts first deduced 

 by FiUppo Beroaldo (1453-150.5), In Libros XIII Columellae 

 Annotationes, and printed in several of the early editions. 

 Cf. Barbaret, De Columellae Vita et Scriptis (Nancy, 1887), 

 p. 9. 



3 VIII. 16. 9; X. 185. * I. Praef. 15. ^ III. 3. 3. 



» I. 1. 14; III. 1. 8; III. 2. 31; III. 17. 4; IV. 1. 1. 

 Celsus is thought by Cichorius {Bum. Stud., 1922, pp. 411- 

 417) to have written his agricultural treatise a.d. 25-26. 



