Columella: On Agriculture, Vol. I (Loeb)

belonged to the Galeria tribe, which furnished troops for the SIXTH FERRATA LEGION, stationed at that time in Syria.¹ From this inscription it is generally believed that Columella died and was buried at Tarentum.

Columella is known to us by the twelve books of his Res Rustica original: "On Agriculture" and the book De Arboribus original: "On Trees". Cassiodorus,² however, mentions sixteen books of his authorship, a number thought by some³ to have been due to an error of transcription, but defended by others,⁴ who hold the opinion that the larger work is an expansion of an earlier manual of three or four books on the same subject, of which only the second,⁵ De Arboribus, has survived. This view is supported by the fact that the book on trees deals with the same subjects that are discussed at greater length in Books III–V of the Res Rustica. The De Arboribus appears in the manuscripts and first printed editions as the third book of the whole work, so that the book now properly marked as the third stands in the

¹ The legion was stationed in Syria in A.D. 23 and remained there during the rule of Tiberius; cf. H. M. D. Parker, The Roman Legions (Oxford, 1928), pp. 119, 129, 267.
² Div. Lect. 28: "Columella, eloquent and fluent, flows on in sixteen books about the various species of agriculture, suitable for the learned rather than the unlearned, so that students of his work are satisfied not only by the common fruit but also by the most delightful feasts."
³ Cf. Becher, De Col. Vit. et Scr., p. 58; M. L. W. Laistner in Am. Jour. Phil. LIX. 116.
⁴ Cf. Gesner, Script. Rei Rust., Introd., p. 9; Häussner, op. cit., p. 7; Becher, op. cit., p. 29.
⁵ That one book preceded is evident from De. Arb. 1. 1: "Since we seem to have instructed abundantly about the cultivation of fields in the first volume, it will not be untimely to discuss the care of trees and shrubs."