Geoponica: De re rustica libri XX

PROLEGOMENA.

Bardesanes the Parthian original: "Bardefanem Parthum", whom everyone knows lived around the time of Severus. He was the first of the Christians (to use the words of Vossius) to open the fountains of Chronology, and he composed a Five-volume Chronicle original Greek: Πεντάβιβλον χρονικὴν, from which Eusebius has left to us entire pages transcribed into his own Chronicon. He was a writer truly accurate and of the best faith, of whom Photius (in Myriobiblon, Chapter 34) rightly declares: He is concise, yet omits nothing of those things necessary to be recorded. original Greek: Ἔτι δὲ σύντομος μὲν, ἀλλὰ μηδὲν τῶν ἀναγκαίων ἱστορηθῆναι παραλιμπάνων. Indeed, whatever excerpts of Africanus are read in the Geoponica seem to have been taken from another of his works, comprised of nine books; to which, on account of its multifaceted material and variety of learning, he gave the name Cesti. Cesti: From the Greek "Kestoi," meaning "embroidered girdles," a traditional title for a miscellany or encyclopedic work containing various "charms" of knowledge. For I cannot at all bring myself to descend to the opinion of Valesius, that Africanus the Chronographer and Africanus the author of the Cesti were different people; although Scaliger, in his notes to the Chronicon of Eusebius, seems to maintain the same, based on certain very weak, or rather, completely non-existent reasons. Photius, in the chapter previously praised, testifies to the contrary in distinct words: The history of Africanus was read. He is the one who also composed the works called "The Cesti" in 14 books. original Greek: Ἀνεγνώσθη Ἀφρικανοῦ ἱστορικόν. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ καὶ τὰς λεγομένας Κεστὸς ἐν λόγοις συντάξας ιδ'. (This should be read as 9 books, according to Eusebius and Syncellus.) Eusebius Pamphili, in Book 1 of his Chronicon, page 70, and George Syncellus in his Chronographia, page 359, have these words: Emmaus, a village in Palestine, which is mentioned in the holy Gospels, was honored with the name Nicopolis by the Emperor Alexander, through the embassy of Africanus, who wrote the Histories in five books. Africanus dedicated to this Alexander the nine-book treatise entitled "The Cesti," containing the powers of Medicine, Physics, Agriculture, and Chemistry. Syncellus says "Juice-related" or "Alchemical" original Greek: χυμολογικῶν. That is to say: — Emmaus, a village in Palestine, which the Emperor Alexander deigned to call Nicopolis, while Africanus was performing an embassy, who wrote the Histories in 5 Books. Africanus dedicated to this Alexander IX Books, which he inscribed as "The Cesti," in which he encompasses Medical, Physical, Rural, and Chemical matters. Nor will it be out of place to add the words of Eusebius from Book 6, Chapter 31 of his Ecclesiastical History: At this time Lambecius Africanus, the author of the works entitled "The Cesti," was also well known. A letter of his written to Origen is circulated, where he expresses doubt that the story of Susanna in Daniel is spurious and a fiction; to which Origen writes back most fully. Of the same Africanus, other works [to the number of...] also [exist].