Columella

Over the past few years, students of ancient Mediterranean societies have shown consistent interest in the cultural construction of dogs as reflected in texts, artefacts, and other media. However, whereas the cultural and literary implications of the Greek representation of dogs have been the subject of thorough investigations, Roman dogs have remained at the margins of the scholarly debate. By adopting an interdisciplinary methodology that combines cognitive theory, rhetorical analysis, and socio-anthropological research, the present paper discusses some affordances of dogs (in the terms of James Gibson’s 'ecological approach to visual perception') that are given special significance within the metaphoric universe of Roman culture. In the first section, I shall point to some salient characteristics of dogs emerging from the moral, scientific and religious discourse of the Romans. By reassessing the often-overlooked evidence of Latin 'technical' writings in conjunction with relevant pieces of archaeological evidence, I will attempt to point out the central prominence of liminality as the most distinctive symbolic feature of Roman dogs. In the second part of the paper, I will switch to a vehement piece of forensic rhetoric, Cicero’s speech for Roscius Amerinus, in an attempt to show how Cicero intelligently exploits the traditional depiction of dogs as ambiguous beings, at the same time watchful and deceitful. For the sake of comparison, I shall also consider the case of a poet acting, in several respects, as a cultural outsider: Lucretius. While announcing the gospel of a philosophical community frequently associated with pigs and dogs by its opponents, Lucretius never indulges in the double-sided characterization of the canine most familiar to his readers. On the contrary, though clearly aware of the background of his Roman audience, Lucretius chooses to assign new meanings to old and already existing patterns of representation (the hunting hound, the house pet, the Molossian guard dog, the couple mating at a crossroads).

The purpose of this article is to examine the positive and negative properties of menstrual blood in Ancient Rome and its related uses. Building on such premises, I go on to explore the cultural practices involving this ambivalent substance. I argue that menstrual blood and its powers were manipulated to reinforce male order and state control over women’s bodies, becoming an instrument justifying the enactment of new rules to control Roman women. On the other hand, far from pushing away women from public and sacred spaces, the powers of menstruation contributed to strengthen their integration into the life of the city.

Le livre X du De re rustica de Columelle se présente sous la forme d'un poème consacré à l'horticulture. Ce poème didactique est explicitement présenté par son auteur comme le complément de deux œuvres différentes: un supplément aux Géorgiques de Virgile et un couronnement orné pour le De re rustica. L'examen des motifs choisis par Columelle et des références intertextuelles que l'on peut déceler dans ce poème démontre toutefois l'importance, pour son auteur, du modèle ovidien. Columelle semble ainsi présenter une réflexion originale sur le couple Virgile/Ovide. Son poème multiplie les motifs susceptibles de faire l'objet d'une lecture métapoétique et emprunte bien souvent les adjectifs destinés à décrire les realia du jardin à la terminologie de la critique littéraire. L'évocation du jardin se double ainsi d'une réflexion
esthétique: Columelle, qui juxtapose dans son poème la précision lexicale du genus subtile mais aussi des images du sublime qui relèvent du genus grande, semble jouer sur l'une des définitions possibles du genus floridum (style floride). Le texte semble ainsi chercher à concilier les deux genres principaux, le grande et le subtile, ce qui correspond à la définition que Quintilien donne du style floridum comme intermédiaire ou juxtaposition entre ces deux styles. L'une des caractéristiques majeures du genus floridum est aussi le charme qui peut dériver de remarques spirituelles, de l'humour et de la parodie. Or, les éléments de parodie sont bien présents dans le détail de ce texte qui s'inspire d'importants passages programmatiques tirés de Virgile, d'Ovide ou de la poésie hellénistique pour décrire telle ou telle production du jardin, comme le concombre ou le cardon comestible.

The article examines two expressions for the new moon in Latin, luna silens and luna sicca (or  sitiens). Despite the unusual imagery behind the choice of these epithets, the expressions appear  in unremarkable, technical contexts (mostly, in works on agriculture by Cato, Columella,  Pliny the Elder) and denote this particular phase of the lunar cycle without any indication  that the metaphors were perceived by speakers. The paper aims at explaining this paradox.  It is shown that neither of these expressions was based on superstitions or popular lore. They  reflected, in fact, an attempt to present the phase of the lunar cycle when the moon is invisible  in contrast to other visible phases, which are easier to identify. Thus, luna silens was created by  opposition to luna crescens “the waxing moon”, as denoting the moment before active, visible  growth will begin. Luna sicca, on the other hand, was created by opposition to luna plena, “the  full moon”, where the moon would be imagined as a vessel, gradually filled to its fullness by  white light. Finally, luna sitiens was an expression, synonymic to luna sicca, created by analogy  with luna silens. While these expressions were used as terms without any artistic effect,  Augustan poets seem to have recognized their poetic potential and, on some occasions, put it  to use (in particular, Verg. Aen. 2, 255 and Prop. 2, 17, 15).

The victory of Medea on the dragon is known in ltaly in the VII century B.C., thence three passages of Columella (X 367-368), Hyginus (Fab. XXVI 3) and Servius (ad Aen. VII 750) may show an Etruscan ceremonial, because they present Etruscan peculiarities and relate the fight of Medea against the snakes.

In his prose Essay upon Plantership (1750), Samuel Martin talks around the point when advising planters to plant yams, plantains, and potatoes to “fructify the soil” and improve sugar yields. This article examines the nature of his circumlocution and the content of his counsel, which implicitly understood slave excrement as excellent fertilizer. While confusing to modern interpreters, Martin’s stylistic flourish realized Addison’s poetic ideal of discussing dung “with an air of gracefulness.” It reflected Martin’s classical education, his awareness that West Indian agriculture seemed primitive to outsiders, and his modulated adherence to plainspoken norms of the New Science.

A critical analysis was made of cucurbit descriptions in Dioscorides' De Materia Medica, Columella's De Re Rustica and Pliny's Historia Naturalis, works on medicine, agriculture and natural science of the 1st century ce, as well as the Mishna and Tosefta, compilations of rabbinic law derived from the same time period together with cucurbit images dating from antiquity including paintings, mosaics and sculpture. The goal was to identify taxonomically the Mediterranean cucurbits at the time of the Roman Empire. By ancient times, long-fruited forms of Cucumis melo (melon) and Lagenaria siceraria (bottle gourd) were selected, cultivated and used as vegetables around the Mediterranean and, in addition, bottle-shaped fruits of L. siceraria were employed as vessels. Citrullus lanatus (watermelons) and round-fruited forms of Cucumis melo (melons) were also consumed, but less commonly. A number of cucurbit species, including Bryonia alba, B. dioica, Citrullus colocynthis and Ecba...

Nowadays the aim of crop production is to realize the highest possible yield per production area unit by the highest possible crop safety. One of the possible ways for this is to increase of plant density or to decrease row spacing. Therefore, the plant number per unit area can be increased and the potential yield loss of individual plants is compensated by the higher plant density. The development of yield amounts of eight different genotypes was investigated in a small-plot field experiment with four replications on a calcareous chernozem soil type at the Latokep Research Site of the University of Debrecen in the crop years 2013 and 2014. Row distances of 45 and 76 cm, just as plant densities of 50 000, 70 000 and 90 000 plants per ha were set. Significant differences were found between the yield amounts of the studied hybrids in both studied crop years, while the effect of plant density on yield amount showed different results. In the crop year of 2013 the hybrids resulted high y...

El artículo reúne y pondera –con el texto de Columela como hilo conductor - las referencias al perro de guarda en los agrónomos latinos. Partimos de la última edición de la Res rustica, traduciéndola y anotándola en los puntos difíciles. Nuestro objetivo ha sido establecer el método de Columela y sus fuentes (experiencia propia, tradición
oral, autores griegos y romanos). Así, señalamos su velada crítica a Varrón y advertimos distintos niveles de autoexigencia al escribir su tratado. Se incluye una breve reseña de las últimas publicaciones relacionadas con el tema, que muestra perspectivas muy variadas y se enmarca en la valoración de los animales desde la Antigüedad hasta hoy mismo.

This contribution gathers and ponders –with Columella’s text as the main thread– references to the watchdog in Latin agronomists. We use the last edition of the Res rustica, translating it and trying to clear up difficult points. Our goal has been to establish the Columella’s method and sources (his own experience, oral tradition, Greek and Roman authors). Thus we point out his veiled criticism of Varro and we notice different levels of self-demand in writing his treatise. We include a brief review of the latest publications related to the subject, which shows very various perspectives and is framed in the valuation of animals from Antiquity to the present day.

To protect beans from weevils, Columella (R. r. 2. 10. 12) prescribes gathering them “in the dark of the moon before dawn (silente luna ... ante lucem)” and then, when they have dried on the threshing-floor, immediately beat them out, cool them and store them in the granary “before the moon begins its waxing (priusquam luna incrementum capiat)”. Yet, the moon begins its waxing immediately after the
dark of the moon. Since drying of beans in the threshing-fl oor must take at least four or five days, it does not help to take incrementum as 'a (noticeable) increase'. 
I suggest deleting "priusquam luna incrementum capiat" as a gloss on "silente luna ... ante lucem" (cf. "sidus aestatis" in R. r. 7. 3. 24 deleted by Hine 1984, 10 as a gloss on Caniculae).
Palladius, who rephrased Columella’s advice in 7. 3. 2, retained the requi-
rement "antequam luna procedat", but changed "silente luna" to "luna minuente". He must have worked with Columella’s text that had already been glossated, but saw the problem and moved the date for cropping back to the waning moon, in order to increase the time allowed for drying of beans and further operations “before the moon increases”.