Geoponica: De re rustica libri XX

PROLEGOMENA.

...from the writings of Africanus and Tarentinus, of Apuleius also, and Florentius, Valens, Leo, and Pamphilus, and most especially from the Paradoxes of Diophanes. The work is completed in twelve books; it is truly useful, as Experience itself has taught us in many matters, for cultivating the earth and for rural labors—indeed, this book is almost more useful than all others who have labored on this same subject. It contains, however, some things similar to miracles original: "prodigiis"; here referring to marvelous or supernatural events often found in ancient natural histories. and exceeding belief, filled with Greek fables; which it befits a pious farmer to pass over, while seizing the rest that will be of use. And indeed all others who have written on Rural Matters original: "R. R." or "Re Rustica" have produced almost the same things about these same topics, so far as I have been able to see, nor do they disagree in many things. But where they do differ from one another, the experiments of Leo are preferred before all others. In the meantime, that conjecture The theory that this 12-book version mentioned by Photius is the same as the current Geoponica. by no means pleases me, both because of the differing number of books—twenty in the Geoponica, but only twelve in Photius Photius (c. 810–893 AD) was a Byzantine patriarch and scholar whose "Bibliotheca" summarized hundreds of works, providing a vital record of lost ancient literature.—and because Vindanionius, Anatolius, and Berytius are praised individually in the Geoponica as if they were three different writers.

The final opinion, however, is that the Geoponica was collected by Cassianus Bassus, surnamed Scholasticus Scholasticus: a title used in the later Roman/Byzantine Empire for a professional scholar or lawyer.: a view which many learned men have long since confirmed by their judgments and still maintain. The first of these is a man of no small reputation, Hadrianus Junius, who in his Animadversions, Book 1, Chapter 20, offers this: The Greek author of the Geoponica, or "On Agriculture," was Cassianus Bassus Scholasticus (for he was their collector, not Constantine); he gives the account, etc. — Furthermore, in Animadversions, Book 6, Chapter 1, he contends it is undoubtedly Cassianus’s: Thus (he says) Cassianus Bassus Scholasticus, who from the writers on Rural Matters original: "Rei Rusticæ" composed this varied work (which takes its name Geoponica from the study of agriculture) and dedicated it to his son, is now read obscured under the name of Constantine. Joachim Camerarius also suggests the same in his Catalog of Authors on Rural Matters: Many things by a certain Zoroaster are cited in the Geoponica which belong to Cassianus, not Constantine. The judgment of Camerarius is confirmed by the vote of the most learned N. Rigaltius in his Preface to the Introduction original: "ἰσαγωγὴν" (isagōgēn); likely referring to a technical introduction to a specific science., published in Paris in 1612 under the name of Demetrius. Behold (he says), most learned men attribute the twenty books of the Geoponica to Cassianus Bassus, to whom Hierocles the veterinarian wrote.