COLUMELLA RES RUSTICA 10: A STUDY AND COMMENTARY By DAVID J. WHITE A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2013 1 © 2013 David J. White 2 Uxori Carissimae Parentibusque Optimis Dicatum Sine Quibus Non 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my very supportive wife, Amanda Smith; my parents, James and Marie White; my sister, Ellen White, and brother-in-law, Bob Recny; the rest of my extended family; the many good friends who have supported and encouraged me through the years; my professors and fellow students at the University of Akron, the University of Pennsylvania, Kent State University, and the University of Florida; my colleagues in the Classics Department at Baylor University; my current and former students; and Dr. Kathryn Paterson of The Dissertation Coach. I want to extend particular thanks to the staff of the Interlibrary Services Department in the Baylor University Libraries, for all their hard work in tracking down and filling the many requests I submitted to them, and without whose efforts I would not have been able to write this thesis. For similar reasons, I want to give a special note of appreciation to the staff and contributors to Google Books, for their efforts to make older out-of-print works accessible online. I would also like to thank the members of my committee: Dr. Konstantinos Kapparis, Dr. Jennifer Rea, and Dr. Judith Page. Finally, I would like to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to my adviser, Dr. Victoria E. Pagán, who directed this project, for her willingness to work with me and for her enthusiasm for the project itself, as well as for all her suggestions, recommendations, criticisms, patience, and encouragement. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………… 4 LIST OF TABLES………………………………………………………………………………..6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………………………. 7 ABSTRACT ……………………………………………….……………………………...….…. 9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………... 10 Columella and Res Rustica 10 ……………………………………………………… 10 Approaches to Res Rustica 10 and Roman Gardens ……….…………………….12 The Res Rustica and Vergil’s Georgics …...…………………..………………….. 30 Organization and Themes of Res Rustica 10 …………………………………….. 46 The Commentary and the Text …………………………………………………….. 62 2 TRANSLATION ………………………………………………………………………. 67 3 COMMENTARY ……………………………………………………………………… 90 APPENDIX: INDEX OF PLANT NAMES ………………………………….……………... 338 LIST OF REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………... 348 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ………………………………………………………………… 364 5 LIST OF TABLES Table page 1-1 Readings in Rodgers’ text compared with readings preferred in the present translation and commentary……………………………………………….. 66 6 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Aen. Vergil, Aeneid AG Greenough, J. B. et al. ed. 2001. Allen & Greenough’s New Latin Grammar. Updated by Anne Mahoney. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing Col. Columella cent. Century Ecl. Vergil, Eclogues f. Feminine G. Vergil, Georgics GL Gildersleeve, B. L. and Lodge, G. 2003. Gildersleeve’s Latin Grammar, 3rd ed. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci LS A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary. 1879. Rev. & ed. C. T. Lewis and C. Short. Oxford: Clarendon Press LSJ Liddell, H. G. and Scott, Robert. 1968. A Greek-English Lexicon. Rev. H. S. Jones, with supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press m. Masculine ms. Manuscript mss. Manuscripts n. Neuter (when describing nouns); note (in citations) NP Cancik, Hubert, Schneider, Helmuth, and Landfester, Manfred, ed. 1996. Der Neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike. 16 vols. + Suppl. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler OCD Hornblower, Simon and Spawforth, Anthony, ed. 2012. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press 7 OLD Oxford Latin Dictionary. 1982. Ed. P. G. W. Glare. Oxford: Clarendon Press Pr. Preface; by itself without a book number, it designates the prose preface of Res Rustica Book 10 RE Pauly, A. et al., ed. 1956-1972. Pauly’s Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. 24 vols. Stuttgart: A. Druckenmüller Rust. Columella, Res Rustica v. Volume For Latin and Greek authors and their works, the abbreviations of the Oxford Classical Dictionary 4th ed. are used. For Latin authors and works for which the OCD does not provide abbreviations, those of the Oxford Latin Dictionary are used; for Latin authors not included in the OCD or OLD, the abbreviations of Lewis and Short’s A Latin Dictionary are used. For Greek authors and works for which OCD abbreviations are lacking, those of Liddell & Scott’s A Greek-English Lexicon (rev. Jones) are used. Several of the scientific botanical names cited include the name, often abbreviated, of the botanist who first published that plant name. The abbreviations used for these botanists’ names were standardized in Brummitt (1992); an up-to-date list is available at The International Plant Names Index (www.ipni.org). 8 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy COLUMELLA RES RUSTICA 10: A STUDY AND COMMENTARY By David J. White May 2013 Chair: Victoria E. Pagán Major: Classical Studies Columella, an agricultural writer of Spanish birth, lived and wrote during the Neronian period in the mid-first century C.E. His sole surviving complete work is Res Rustica, a compendium of instructions on agricultural lore and practice in twelve books. The work was written in prose with the exception of Book 10, which covers gardening. Columella wrote Book 10 in hexameter verse partly in homage to Vergil’s Georgics and partly as a way of completing or finishing the Georgics by adding a book about gardening; this was a subject which Vergil had briefly touched on but chose not to cover more fully, saying that he would leave it to posterity (G. 4. 147-148). The work has not received a complete commentary in English since that of Harrison Boyd Ash (1930). The present study rectifies this omission and further explores the relationship between Res Rustica 10 and the Georgics, the trope of the poet as gardener, and the identification of the plants mentioned, while also incorporating more recent scholarship in these areas. It also includes historical, mythological, and grammatical aids to the reader, who is presumed to be familiar with the Georgics. 9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Columella and Res Rustica 10 What we know of Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella is derived from his Res Rustica: born in Gades, in Spain (8. 16. 9; 10. 185),1 he was a contemporary and friend of the younger Seneca (cf. 3. 3. 3) and Seneca’s brother, Gallio (9. 16. 2)—both fellow Spaniards—and a younger contemporary of Pliny the Elder, who cites him (Plin. HN 8. 153, 15. 66, 18. 70, 18. 303). He speaks admiringly of an uncle, Marcus Columella, a successful farmer and landowner who had a farm in Baetica in Spain (2. 15. 4; 5. 5. 15; 7. 2. 4). Columella himself had farms in Italy in Caere (3. 3. 3) and in Ardea, Carseoli, and Alba (3. 9. 2). His sole surviving complete work is an exhaustive compendium of agricultural information titled Res Rustica, dedicated to a Publius Silvinus. He claims to have consulted a great many agricultural writers, Greek and Roman, prose writers and poets, when preparing it (1. 1. 1-14), though he also draws on his own experience (3. 3. 3; 3. 9. 2). A reference to an ex-consul P. Volusius, which seems to imply that he is no longer living (1. 7. 3), may refer to Lucius Volusius (RE II 3) Saturninus,2 who died in 56 C.E. (Tac. Ann. 13. 30; Plin. HN 7. 62, 156). Taken together with the reference to 1 All unattributed references are to Col.’s Res Rustica. 2 Gesner (1735, 408) reads “L. Volusium,” whom he identifies with this Lucius Volusius Saturninus; cf. Columella 1745, 38. Lundström (1917), Ash (1941), and Rodgers (2010) read “P. Volusium.” 10 Seneca, who died in 65 C.E. (Tac. Ann. 15. 60-64), as being alive and well (3. 3. 3), this gives a probable window of 56-65 C.E. for the composition of the work.3 Res Rustica consists of twelve books, all in prose except for Book 10. Book 1 discusses the general layout and organization of the farm; Book 2 describes plowing; Books 3-5 concern vines and trees; Books 6-7 deal with livestock; Books 8-9 focus on the raising of poultry, fish, game, and bees; Book 10 is a poetic book on gardening, and was perhaps originally planned as the last book; Book 11 covers gardening again and also lays out the duties of the vilicus, or overseer; and Book 12 outlines the duties of the vilica, the overseer’s wife. Many manuscripts also preserve, after Book 11, an index to the contents of Books 1-11, which is very detailed for Books 1-9.4 An additional book, De arboribus, also preserved with the text of the Res Rustica, falls between Books 2 and 3. De arboribus may be a surviving part of an earlier work by Columella or it may be the work of another author;5 in either event, it does not form part of the extant Res Rustica.6 Columella refers to another work of his, Adversus astrologos (11. 1. 31), which has not survived. Res Rustica 10 consists of 436 hexameter lines preceded by a prose Preface. Columella claims to have written it in verse at the specific urging of his addressee, Publius Silvinus, as a reply to an apparent challenge that Vergil left in the fourth book of 3 Cf. Columella (1745, ix-x): the anonymous translator concisely lays out the internal evidence in the Res Rustica for the date of its composition. 4 Henderson (2004, 7) says that this index “adds up to an extremely coherent overall reference system. One which makes Columella … the most consultable classical text to have come down to us.” 5 Richter (1972) argues on the basis of style, content, and vocabulary that De arboribus is not the work of Col.