Diophanes of Nicaea or Diophanes the Bithynian was an ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 agricultural writer of the 1st century BC. He was a native of or associated with the city of Nicaea in Bithynia

Bithynia

Bithynia was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor, adjoining the Propontis, the Thracian Bosporus and the Euxine .-Description:...

 (northwestern Anatolia

Anatolia

Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...

).

Diophanes abridged into six books the very lengthy farming manual by Cassius Dionysius

Cassius Dionysius

Cassius Dionysius of Utica was an ancient Greek agricultural writer of the 2nd century BC. The Roman nomen, Cassius, combined with the Greek cognomen, Dionysius, make it likely that he was a slave , originally Greek-speaking, who was owned and afterwards freed by a Roman of the gens Cassia...

, which extended to twenty books. Both works were entitled Georgika ("Agriculture"). Diophanes dedicated his work to king Deiotarus

Deiotarus

Deiotarus of Galatia was a Chief Tetrarch of the Tolistobogii at Western Galatia, Asia Minor, and a King of Galatia at Anatolia, Asia Minor. He was considered one of the most adept of Celtic kings, ruling the three tribes of Celtic Galatia from his fortress in Blucium...

 of Celtic Galatia

Galatia

Ancient Galatia was an area in the highlands of central Anatolia in modern Turkey. Galatia was named for the immigrant Gauls from Thrace , who settled here and became its ruling caste in the 3rd century BC, following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC. It has been called the "Gallia" of...

 in central Anatolia, southeast of his homeland.

According to Columella

Columella

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella is the most important writer on agriculture of the Roman empire. Little is known of his life. He was probably born in Gades , possibly of Roman parents. After a career in the army , he took up farming...

 an amount equivalent to eight books of Cassius Dionysius' work, two-fifths of the whole, had been translated from a preceding work in Punic

Punic language

The Punic language or Carthagian language is an extinct Semitic language formerly spoken in the Mediterranean region of North Africa and several Mediterranean islands, by people of the Punic culture.- Description :...

 by Mago

Mago (agricultural writer)

Mago was a Carthaginian writer, author of an agricultural manual in Punic which was a record of the farming knowledge of Carthage. The Punic text has been lost, but some fragments of Greek and Latin translations survive....

. Diophanes' work in turn must therefore have contained extensive extracts reflecting Punic agricultural practice.

Diophanes' abridgement was more popular in ancient times than Cassius Dionysius' original, but both works are now lost. Diophanes is quoted once by the Latin agricultural writer Varro

Varro

Varro was a Roman cognomen carried by:*Marcus Terentius Varro, sometimes known as Varro Reatinus, the scholar*Publius Terentius Varro or Varro Atacinus, the poet*Gaius Terentius Varro, the consul defeated at the battle of Cannae...

, and several times in the Byzantine Greek compilation Geoponica

Geoponica

The Geoponica is a twenty-book collection of agricultural lore, compiled during the 10th century in Constantinople for the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus...

. He was also cited by his fellow-Bithynian Florentinus

Florentinus

Florentinus was a Roman politician who served as Urban prefect of Rome from 395 to 397 AD.-Career:A native of Augusta Treverorum, Florentinus was possibly a Notarius around 379/380 AD. He was the Comes sacrarum largitionum in the west from 385 to 386 and the Quaestor sacri palatii in 395...

. This is a partial list of surviving fragments:

• Planting by the phases of the moon.
• How to determine the soil quality of a farm.
• Use of rainwater.
• Predicting the kind and quality of wine that a vineyard will produce.
• Protecting vines from frost and from rust.
• Fencing a vineyard.
• Preparation and use of fermentation vats (pithoi).
• Wine new and old, white and red.
• Giving a good aroma to olive oil.
• Growing pistachios.
• Grafting apples.
• Growing pears.
• Suitability of different types of grafting.
• Growing bay from seed.
• Drying saffron
  Saffron
  Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...
  
  .
• Killing prasokourides, a pest of leek
  Leek
  The leek, Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum , also sometimes known as Allium porrum, is a vegetable which belongs, along with the onion and garlic, to family Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Allioideae...
  
  crops.
• Dealing with scorpions.
• Honey and how to store it.
• Hunting wolves.
• Adding honey to wine for export.