BOOK I. I. 12-15 



of the Greek race), let us now recall that illustrious 

 Marcus Cato the Censor, who first taught her to 

 speak in Latin ; after him the two Sasernas," father 

 and son, who continued her education with greater 

 care ; then Tremelius Scrofa,'' who gave her eloquence, 

 and Marcus Terentius,'' who added refinement ; and 

 presently Vergil, who gave her the power of song as 

 well. And finally, let us not disdain to mention 13 

 her paedagogus,^ so to speak, Julius Hyginus,* 

 though still paying greatest reverence to the Cartha- 

 ginian Mago as the father of husbandry, inasmuch as 

 his twenty-eight memorable volumes were trans- 

 lated into the Latin tongue by senatorial decree. 

 No less honour, however, is due to men of our own 14 

 time, Cornelius Celsus/ and Julius Atticus;? for 

 Cornelius has embraced the whole substance of the 

 subject in five books, while the latter has pubhshed 

 just one book on one kind of agriculture, that 

 concerned with vines. And his pupil, as it were, 

 Julius Graecinus,^ has taken care that two volumes 

 of similar instructions on vineyards, composed in a 

 more elegant and learned style, should be handed 

 down to posterity.* 



These, then, Publius Silvinus, are the men whom 15 



f An encyclopaedic writer, who flourished in the time of 

 Tiberius; called the " Roman Hippocrates " for his great 

 learning in medicine. Eight books of his medical writings 

 have come down to us (in L.C.L., 3 vols., by W. Spencer). 



" Known from this passage as a contemporary of Colum- 

 ella, by whom he is often quoted. 



'' Father of Julius Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus. 



' Our meagre knowledge of the Uves and works of agri- 

 cultural writers (Varro excepted) between the time of Cato and 

 that of Columella is summed up by R. Reitzenstein in his 

 dissertation, De Scriptorum Rei Rusticae Libris Deperditis 

 (Berlin, 1884). 



35 



