Columella: On Agriculturde

[THE COMPLETE TEXT] to Columella’s De Agricola, written during the second half of the first century of our era, is our most complete surviving account of ancient Greek and Roman farming. He is throughly versed in the writings of his predecessors and contemporaries and refers tothem frequently in his work. The large Roman farm or latifundium was a complete and self sufficient community; it supplied all of its own needs. In a world increasingly concerned about the future petroleum agriculture and the necessities of feeding a burgeoning population, it is hoped this treatise, written before there was any need to create organic and holistic farming may be of interest. Columella was one of a number of distinguished Spanish Latin writers including Seneca, Martial, Quintilian and others who dominate the literature of this period.

The text here translated into English, for Books I-II, VI-VII, X-XI, XXII, is based on that of Lundström, with some changes in orthography, punctuation, and capitalization to conform more nearly to English usage. For the remaining six books the translators have attempted to construct a reasonably comparable text by the collation of five important manuscripts with the latest printed edition, that of Schneider (1794).

I have retained the line numbers from the original as the best way to locate the Latin text.