Columella: On Agriculture, Vol. I (Loeb)

The parents of Columella are named nowhere in his works, but he speaks often and with the greatest respect of an uncle, Marcus Columella,¹ an expert farmer of the Baetic province, in whose company much of his youth appears to have been spent. The Pythagorean philosopher, Moderatus of Gades, mentioned by Plutarch,² may have been a relative.

It is likewise uncertain at what time Columella left his native Spain to take up residence in the neighborhood of Rome. But here, in this Latium and land of Saturn original: "in hoc Latio et Saturnia terra",³ he seems to have spent the greater part of his life, owning at various times farms at Carseoli, Ardea, and Albanum, in Latium,⁴ and a farm which he called Ceretanum,⁵ located perhaps at Caere in Etruria. We have evidence ⁶ that he visited Syria and Cilicia at some period in his life; and from an inscription ⁷

found at Tarentum we may assume that he was then in military service, since his native town of Gades

¹ II. 15. 4; VII. 2. 4; XII. 21. 4; XII. 40. 2; XII. 43. 5; et al.
² Quaest. VIII. 7. 1.       ³ I. Praef. 20.
⁴ III. 9. 2.
⁵ III. 3. 3. Cf. Wilhelm Becher, “Das Caeretanum des L. Iunius Moderatus Columella,” Philologisch-historische Beiträge original: "Philological-Historical Contributions", Kurt Wachsmuth (1897), pp. 186-191.
⁶ II. 10. 18. Perhaps in A.D. 36, under Trebellius; cf. Cichorius, op. cit., pp. 417-422.
⁷ C.I.L. IX. 235 (= Dessau 2923).