COLUMELLA, LUTE US JU'N1US MODERA'TUS, the author of one of the most voluminous and valuable works ou Roman agriculture, if not himself a native of Gadee (Cadiz), sprung from a family belonging to that town, which bad been long most intimately connected with Rome. In several parts of his work be speaks of a paternal node, Marcus Columella, who had lived in Bmtica (Andalusia), and had been well known as an intelligent agriculturist. In particular he speaks of his success in the improvement of the breed of sheep by the intro duction of rams from Mauritania, and it has been suggested that the celebrated stock of the Merinos owes its origin to this importation. The author himself possessed an estate in the country of the Ceretani (La Cerdaiia), near the Pyrenees, where he was eminently successful in the growth of the vine. When he wrote his work he appears to have been residing either at Rome, or in the neiahbourhood ; but he had a personal knowledge of many parts of the Itoman empire. He himself mentions a residence of some length in Cilicia and Syria (ii. 10, 18), but without stating the object which carried him into that part of the world. As he mentions having been present at a con veraatiou on agriculture in which L. Volusius who died A.D. 20 (Tac. ' Annales,' iii. 30), took part (i. 7, 3), and as he again speaks of Seneca (whose death occurred in 66) as still living (iii. 3, 31), he must have been born about the beginuiug of the Christian era.
The work of Columella is addressed to Publius Silvinus, and ma sista of twelve books: the first two on the choice of a farm and farm house, the selection of slaves, the cultivation of arable and pasture land; the next three on the cultivation of the vine, olive, and fruits of the orchard, &c.; the sixth and seventh, on the ox, horse, mule, ass, sheep, goat, and dog, that is, the shepherd's dog and the house dog, for he specially excludes the sporting dog, as interfering with, instead of promoting the economic management of a farm. The eighth book treats of the poultry-yard, and the ninth of bees. The next, which has for its subject the vegetable and flower garden, pre sents the unusual spectacle of a poem in the middle of a prose work. This form was selected by Columella at the presaiog solicitation of his friend Silvinus, and the poem was avowedly put forth as a supple ment to the Georgics of Virgil, in answer to the challenge of the Mantuan bard (Georg. iv.). In the eleventh book the author is again on the terra firma of prose, and gives us in three long chapters, not very closely connected, the duties of a bailiff, a farmer's almanac, and the vegetable garden. This book is sometimes entitled the ' (Villicue); as the last bears the name of toe ' Bailiff's Wife' 4Viliica), and treats of the indoor duties, the making wino and viuegar, preserving fruits, &c.
In the composition of this work, Columella has made free use of the Roman writers on agriculture who preceded him. Among these we may particularly mention Cato the Censor, Terentiva Varro, his own contemporaries; Cornelius Celeus and Julius Atticus; and lastly, Julius Grreeinue, the father of .Agricola, who seems to have shown his predilection for the science by the name he selected for his son. But the author of whom be speaks in the hiebeHt terms, and to whom he most williugly appeals, is 31ago the Cardin:stolen, whose work on agriculture, as he tells us, containing eight-and-twenty books, was translated from the Phoenician into Latin, under a apeeial decree of the Rowan senate. The latinity of Calumet's' has nearly all the purity of the Augustan age; but wherever his subject gives him an opportunity, he ()weevers a taste fur that sentimental and declamatory style which distinguishes the writers of the first and acoond a nturier. Colemana is often cited by Pliny the Elder in his 'Natural lliatory,' lent generally with an expression of dissent. Ile ie also quoted by Vegetius and Palladia.. But the treatise on agriculture by Palladius appears to have superseded Columella's work, and to have thrown it altogether into oblivion. Besides the great work of Calumetla, Nebbish we have described, there is a single book entitled De Arboribus,' in which reference is wade to a preceding book now lost. These two appear to have been a portion of an early edition of the work on agriculture, probably in four books, which being afterwards enlarged, swelled into the twelve we now possess. Accordingly the matter of the ' Da Arboribna will be found with some alterations and many additions, in the third, fourth, and fifth books of the greater work; and Cssaitelorus actually speaks of sixteen books written by Coln melte. In ignorance of this, the writers of many of the manuscripts, as well as the early editors, have inserted the minor treatise after the second book of the more complete work, thus anteing many contra dietions and great confusion in the numbers of the following books.
The writings of Columella have generally been published together with the works of the other authors 'Do Ito ItusticA.' The chief editions are these: • The Princeps,' Venice, fol., 1l72; Bologna, fol., 1494; by Aldus, tiro, 1513, or rather 1514 ; by R. Stephens., 8vo, 1513; by Gesoer, Leipzig, 2 vole. Ito, 1735; and that which is much the best es well as most complete, the edition by J. G. Schneider, 4 vols. Svo, 1794.7.