L. Iunius Moderatus Columella was a native of Gades: x. 185, ‘mea [lactuca] quam generant Tartessi littore Gades.’ On an inscription he is styled ‘trib. mil. leg. vi. ferratae’ (C.I.L. ix. 325), and it was probably in the course of his military service that he visited Cilicia and Syria: ii. 10, 18, ‘hoc semen Ciliciae Syriaeque regionibus ipse vidi.’
His uncle, M. Columella, was a leading man in the province of Baetica (v. 5, 15); and he himself possessed land in Italy: iii. 9, 2, ‘cum et in Ardeatino agro, quem multis temporibus ipsi ante possedimus, et in Carseolano itemque in Albano generis Aminei vites huius modi notae habuerimus.’
He was a contemporary of the younger Seneca, who is spoken of as alive (iii. 3, 3).
His chief work is De Re Rustica in twelve Books, dedicated to P. Silvinus—a practical treatise on husbandry for ‘negotiosi agricolae’ (ix. 2, 5). Book x., on gardening, is in hexameter verse, and was written at the suggestion of Silvinus and another friend, to fill the gap which Virgil had left in the Georgics (iv. 147-8); cf. the preface, ‘Cultus hortorum ... sicut institueram, prosa oratione prioribus subnecteretur exordiis, nisi propositum expugnasset frequens postulatio tua, quae pervicit, ut poeticis numeris explerem Georgici carminis omissas partes, quas tamen et ipse Vergilius significaverat, posteris se memorandas relinquere.’
The last two Books were added as an afterthought; xi. 1, 2, ‘numerum quem iam quasi consummaveram voluminum excessi.’
Columella wrote before A.D. 65 (see above); later than Celsus, but earlier than the elder Pliny.
There is also extant a book De Arboribus, which formed Book ii. of an earlier treatise on agriculture: cf. i. 1, ‘Quoniam de cultu agrorum abunde primo volumine praecepisse videmur, non intempestiva erit arborum virgultorumque cura.’ It covers the same ground as De R.R. iii.-v.
Columella also wrote ‘adversus astrologos’ (xi. 1, 31), and projected a treatise on the religious rites connected with agriculture (ii. 22, 5, ‘lustrationum ceterorumque sacrificiorum, quae pro frugibus fiunt, morem priscis usurpatum’).
POMPONIUS MELA.
The geographer Pomponius Mela was a native of Tingentera in Spain (ii. 96). His date can be inferred from iii. 49; the ‘principum maximus’ mentioned there as triumphing over Britain might be either Caligula (in A.D. 40) or Claudius (in 44); but the earlier date is favoured by Mela’s division of Africa according to the system abolished by Claudius in 42 (i. 25-30). The title of his work is De Chorographia, in three Books: the dryness of its details (i. 1, ‘opus impeditum et facundiae minime capax’) is relieved by word-painting, e.g. the description of Britain, iii. 49. The only authors to whom he acknowledges obligations are Nepos (iii. 45) and Hanno (iii. 90).