Geoponici

[2] 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.

[1] The Latin authors on agriculture, whose works have reached the present age, are Cato, Varro, Virgil, Columella, Pliny, and Palladius; there were many more, whose writings are lost.

[3] The Romans, aware of the necessity of maintaining a numerous and thriving order of agriculturists, from very early times endeavoured to instill into their countrymen both a theoretical and a practical knowledge of the subject.

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.

[1] 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.