Geoponici
Encyclopedia
Geoponici or Scriptores rei rusticae, the Greek
and Roman
writers on husbandry and agriculture
. On the whole the Greeks paid less attention than the Romans to the scientific study of these subjects, which in classical times they regarded as a branch of economics
. Thus Xenophon
's Oeconomicus (see also Memorabilia
ii.4) contains a eulogy of agriculture and its beneficial ethical effects, and much information is to be found in the writings of Aristotle
and his pupil Theophrastus
. About the same time as Xenophon, the philosopher Democritus of Abdera wrote a treatise Περὶ Γεωργίας ("On Agriculture"), frequently quoted and much used by the later compilers of Geoponica (agricultural treatises). Greater attention was given to the subject in the Alexandrian period; a long list of names is given by Varro
and Columella
, amongst them Hiero II and Attalus III
Philometor. Later, Cassius Dionysius
of Utica translated and abridged the great work of the Carthaginian Mago
, which was still further condensed by Diophanes of Nicaea
in Bithynia
for the use of King Deiotarus
. From these and similar works, Cassianus Bassus
compiled his Geoponica, a source of the later Byzantine Geoponica
. Mention may also be made of a little work Περι Γεωργικων by Michael Psellus.
The Romans, aware of the necessity of maintaining a numerous and thriving order of agriculturists, from very early times endeavoured to instil into their countrymen both a theoretical and a practical knowledge of the subject. The occupation of the farmer
was considered next in importance to that of the soldier
, and distinguished Romans did not disdain to practice it. In furtherance of this object, the great work of Mago was translated into Latin by Decimus Junius Silanus at the order of the Roman Senate
; the elder Cato
had meanwhile written his De Agri Cultura
, a simple record in homely language of the rules observed by the old Roman landed proprietors rather than a theoretical treatise. He was followed by the two Saserna
e (father and son), and Gnaeus Tremellius Scrofa, whose works are lost. The learned Marcus Terentius Varro
of Reate, when eighty years of age, composed his Rerum rusticarum libri tres, dealing with agriculture, the rearing of cattle
, and the breeding of fishes. He was the first to systematize what had been written on the subject, and supplemented the labours of others by practical experience gained during his travels.
In the Augustan age
, Julius Hyginus wrote on farming and beekeeping
, Sabinus Tiro on horticulture
, and during the early Empire, Julius Graecinus and Julius Atticus on the culture of vines, and Cornelius Celsus (best known for his De Medicina
) on farming. The chief work of the kind, however, is that of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella
, De Arboribus and De Agricultura. About the middle of the 2nd century, the two Quinctilii, natives of Troja, wrote on the subject in Greek
. It is remarkable that Columella's work exercised less influence in Rome and Italy than in southern Gaul
and Spain
, where agriculture became one of the principal subjects of instruction in the superior educational establishments that were springing up in those countries. One result of this was the preparation of manuals of a popular kind for use in the schools. In the 3rd century, Gargilius Martialis of Mauretania
compiled a Geoponica in which medical botany
and the veterinary art were included. The Opus Agriculturae of Palladius
(4th century), in fourteen books, which is largely derived from Columella, is rearranged into a farmer's calendar, in which the different rural occupations are arranged in order of months. The fourteenth book (on forestry
) is written in elegiac
s (eighty-five couplets). The whole of Palladius and considerable fragments of Gargilius Martialis are extant.
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...
and Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
writers on husbandry and agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. On the whole the Greeks paid less attention than the Romans to the scientific study of these subjects, which in classical times they regarded as a branch of economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
. Thus Xenophon
Xenophon
Xenophon , son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, also known as Xenophon of Athens, was a Greek historian, soldier, mercenary, philosopher and a contemporary and admirer of Socrates...
's Oeconomicus (see also Memorabilia
Memorabilia (Xenophon)
Memorabilia is a collection of Socratic dialogues by Xenophon, a student of Socrates...
ii.4) contains a eulogy of agriculture and its beneficial ethical effects, and much information is to be found in the writings of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and his pupil Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
. About the same time as Xenophon, the philosopher Democritus of Abdera wrote a treatise Περὶ Γεωργίας ("On Agriculture"), frequently quoted and much used by the later compilers of Geoponica (agricultural treatises). Greater attention was given to the subject in the Alexandrian period; a long list of names is given by 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 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...
, amongst them Hiero II and Attalus III
Attalus III
Attalus III Philometor Euergetes was the last Attalid king of Pergamon, ruling from 138 BC to 133 BC....
Philometor. Later, 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...
of Utica translated and abridged the great work of the Carthaginian 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....
, which was still further condensed by Diophanes of Nicaea
Diophanes of Nicaea
Diophanes of Nicaea or Diophanes the Bithynian was an ancient Greek agricultural writer of the 1st century BC. He was a native of or associated with the city of Nicaea in Bithynia ....
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:...
for the use of 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...
. From these and similar works, Cassianus Bassus
Cassianus Bassus
Cassianus Bassus, called Scholasticus was one of the geoponici — the group of writers on agricultural subjects.He lived at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century. He compiled from earlier writers a collection of agricultural literature; the principal source was Vindonius Anatolius...
compiled his Geoponica, a source of the later Byzantine 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...
. Mention may also be made of a little work Περι Γεωργικων by Michael Psellus.
The Romans, aware of the necessity of maintaining a numerous and thriving order of agriculturists, from very early times endeavoured to instil into their countrymen both a theoretical and a practical knowledge of the subject. The occupation of the farmer
Farmer
A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, who raises living organisms for food or raw materials, generally including livestock husbandry and growing crops, such as produce and grain...
was considered next in importance to that of the soldier
Soldier
A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...
, and distinguished Romans did not disdain to practice it. In furtherance of this object, the great work of Mago was translated into Latin by Decimus Junius Silanus at the order of the Roman Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
; the elder Cato
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...
had meanwhile written his De Agri Cultura
De Agri Cultura
De Agri Cultura , written by Cato the Elder, is the oldest surviving work of Latin prose. Alexander Hugh McDonald, in his article for the Oxford Classical Dictionary, dated this essay's composition to about 160 BC and noted that "for all of its lack of form, its details of old custom and...
, a simple record in homely language of the rules observed by the old Roman landed proprietors rather than a theoretical treatise. He was followed by the two Saserna
Saserna
Saserna is a genus of moths of the Noctuidae family.-References:*...
e (father and son), and Gnaeus Tremellius Scrofa, whose works are lost. The learned Marcus Terentius Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...
of Reate, when eighty years of age, composed his Rerum rusticarum libri tres, dealing with agriculture, the rearing of cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
, and the breeding of fishes. He was the first to systematize what had been written on the subject, and supplemented the labours of others by practical experience gained during his travels.
In the Augustan age
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
, Julius Hyginus wrote on farming and beekeeping
Beekeeping
Beekeeping is the maintenance of honey bee colonies, commonly in hives, by humans. A beekeeper keeps bees in order to collect honey and other products of the hive , to pollinate crops, or to produce bees for sale to other beekeepers...
, Sabinus Tiro on horticulture
Horticulture
Horticulture is the industry and science of plant cultivation including the process of preparing soil for the planting of seeds, tubers, or cuttings. Horticulturists work and conduct research in the disciplines of plant propagation and cultivation, crop production, plant breeding and genetic...
, and during the early Empire, Julius Graecinus and Julius Atticus on the culture of vines, and Cornelius Celsus (best known for his De Medicina
De Medicina
De Medicina is a 1st-century medical treatise by Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a Roman encyclopedist and possibly a practicing physician. It is the only surviving section of a much larger encyclopedia; only small parts still survive from sections on agriculture, military science, oratory, jurisprudence...
) on farming. The chief work of the kind, however, is that of Lucius Junius Moderatus 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...
, De Arboribus and De Agricultura. About the middle of the 2nd century, the two Quinctilii, natives of Troja, wrote on the subject in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
. It is remarkable that Columella's work exercised less influence in Rome and Italy than in southern Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, where agriculture became one of the principal subjects of instruction in the superior educational establishments that were springing up in those countries. One result of this was the preparation of manuals of a popular kind for use in the schools. In the 3rd century, Gargilius Martialis of Mauretania
Mauretania
Mauretania is a part of the historical Ancient Libyan land in North Africa. It corresponds to present day Morocco and a part of western Algeria...
compiled a Geoponica in which medical botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
and the veterinary art were included. The Opus Agriculturae of Palladius
Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius
Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius, also known as Palladius Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus or just Palladius, was a Roman writer of the 4th century AD. He is principally known for his book on agriculture, Opus agriculturae, sometimes known as De re rustica.-Opus agriculturae:The Opus agriculturae is...
(4th century), in fourteen books, which is largely derived from Columella, is rearranged into a farmer's calendar, in which the different rural occupations are arranged in order of months. The fourteenth book (on forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...
) is written in elegiac
Elegiac
Elegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. The Classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet: a line of dactylic hexameter, followed by a line of dactylic pentameter...
s (eighty-five couplets). The whole of Palladius and considerable fragments of Gargilius Martialis are extant.