On Agriculture, Volume I

Columella (Lucius Iunius Moderatus) of Gades (Cadiz) lived during the reigns of the first emperors, about 70 CE. He moved early in life to Italy, where he owned farms and lived near Rome. It is probable that he performed military service in Syria and Cilicia and that he died at Tarentum.

Columella's On Agriculture (De Re Rustica) is the most comprehensive, systematic, and detailed of Roman agricultural works. Book I covers the choice of farming site, water supply, buildings, and staff. Book II examines ploughing, fertilising, and care of crops. Books III, IV, and V focus on the cultivation, grafting, and pruning of fruit trees, vines, and olives. Book VI discusses the acquisition, breeding, and rearing of oxen, horses, and mules, along with veterinary medicine. Book VII addresses sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs. Book VIII is on poultry and fish ponds, while Book IX elaborates on bee-keeping. Book X, written in hexameter poetry, is about gardening. Book XI covers the duties of the overseer of a farm, the calendar for farm work, and more on gardening. Book XII details the duties of the overseer’s wife, the manufacture of wines, pickling, and preserving.

There is also a separate treatise, Trees (De Arboribus), focusing on vines, olives, and various trees, perhaps part of an otherwise lost work written before On Agriculture.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of Columella is in three volumes.