COLUMELLA 19 



violettis the better, if they sowe oynyons and garlyke nere by 

 them, that what so ever sower savour be in them, it may be 

 purged into the tother : so an enmye receyvynge in to him our 

 envie and waywardnes, shal make us better and lesse grevous to 

 our frendis that have good fortune. ' Howe one may take profette 

 of his Enmyes? (De capienda ex inimicis utilitate.) Sir Thomas 

 Elyot(&. 1546). 



Columella, native of Codes (Cadiz),wrote avoluminous and valuable work on COLUMELLA 

 Roman Agriculture, in twelve books ; of which the tenth is a poem on the vegetable (i- 5 ^ Cent. A.D.). 

 and jlower garden, meant as a supplement to the Georgics of Virgil. Columella 

 makes use of the work of his predecessors, Cato the Censor, Varro, Celsus and 

 Atticus, Gracinus, and Mago the Carthaginian. He is quoted by Pliny the 

 Elder, Vegetius, and Palladius, the work of the latter superseding Columella 's. 

 The writings of these three with Varro are generally found together as 

 ' Scriptores de Re Rustical (English translation by Owen, 1803). 



"~PHERE remains, therefore, the culture of gardens, notably 

 * neglected formerly by ancient Husbandmen, but now in 

 very great request. Though it is true, indeed, that, among 

 the ancients there was greater parsimony and frugality, never- 

 theless the poor were wont to fare better, and to be frequently 

 admitted to public feasts. . . . Wherefore we must be more 

 careful and diligent than our ancestors were in delivering pre- 

 cepts and directions for the cultivation of gardens, because the 

 fruit of them is now more in use ; and I would have subjoined 

 them in prose to the preceding books, as I had resolved, unless 

 your frequent and earnest demand had overcome my purpose, 

 and prevailed with me to fill up, with poetical numbers, those 

 parts of the Georgic poem, which were omitted, and which even 

 Virgil himself intimated, that he left to be treated of by those 

 that should come after him. ' Of the Culture of Gardens ' 

 (Preface). 



MOREOVER, Nero turned the ruins of his country to his TACITUS 

 private advantage, and built a house, the ornaments of ( AtDt 6l ' II 7)- 

 which were not miracles of gems and gold, now usual in vulgar 

 luxuries, but lawns and lakes, and after the manner of a desert ; 



