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.

Contents

Opus agriculturae

The Opus agriculturae is a treatise on farming in 14 parts or books. The first book is general and introductory. Books 2 to 13 give detailed instructions for the typical activities on a Roman farm for each month of the year, starting with January. The fourteenth book, De Veterinaria Medicina, was rediscovered only in the 20th century, and gives instructions for the care of animals and elements of veterinary science.[1] Most of the work is in prose, but the final part, formerly considered to be book 14, De Insitione, on Grafting, consists of eighty-five couplets of elegiac verse.[2]

The agricultural writings of Palladius may be compared to those of Marcus Priscus Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro and particularly Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, whose De re rustica appears to have served as a model for Palladius,[1] to such an extent that the Opus agriculturae has been described as an "abridgement" of Columella.[3]

The work of Palladius was well known in the Middle Ages. A translation into Middle English verse survives from circa 1420, entitled On Husbondrie;[4] it can be seen as part of a genre of instructional agricultural writing that was to develop in England into works such as those of Thomas Tusser and Gervase Markham. Two notable thirteenth century works that draw on Palladius are the Commoda ruralia of Petrus de Crescentius, written c. 1305 and printed at Augsburg in 1471; and the Speculum Maius of Vincentius Bellovacensis (Vincent de Beauvais) written about 1250, printed in Strasburg, 1473.[5]

Water-mills

The book is known for reference to a water-mill in Chapter 1, section 42, where Palladius suggests that waste water from an aqueduct should be used to drive a mill. Such mills had been described by Vitruvius in 25 BC, and there is a growing number of examples of such Roman water-mills. The most spectacular is the set of 16 mills at Barbegal in southern France, using water fed by a stone aqueduct along the line of the same aqueduct which supplied nearby Arles.

Principal early editions

The earliest editions of Palladius group his works with those on agriculture of Cato the Elder, Varro and Columella. Some modern library catalogues follow Brunet in listing these under "Rei rusticae scriptores" or "Scriptores rei rusticae".[6]

Further reading

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Kenney, E.J. (ed); W.V. Clausen (1982). The Cambridge history of classical literature, vol. 2: Latin literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 973. ISBN 0521210437. 
  2. ^ Smith, Sir William (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood (2nd ed.). Boston; London[printed]: C. Little, and J. Brown. p. 98, vol. 3. http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/2432.html. Retrieved May 2011. 
  3. ^ Anthon, Charles (1841). A classical dictionary : containing an account of the principal proper names mentioned in ancient authors, and intended to elucidate all the important points connected with the geography, history, biography, mythology, and fine arts of the Greeks and Romans. Together with an account of coins, weights, and measures, with tabular values of the same. New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 366. http://books.google.com/books?id=Wn949Sr-POkC. Retrieved June 2011.  (facsimile)
  4. ^ Lodge, Barton, S.J.H. Herrtage (eds.) (1873–79). Translation of Palladius on Husbondrie: edited from the unique MS. of about 1420 AD in Colchester Castle. London, Hertford [printed]. 
  5. ^ Eschenburg, Johann Joachim, Nathan Welby Fiske (1839). Manual of classical literature (3rd ed.). Frederick W. Greenough. http://books.google.com/books?id=RU0ZAAAAYAAJ. Retrieved June 2011.  (Eschenburg cites the Speculum Historiale of Vincentius)
  6. ^ Brunet, Jacques-Charles (1843) (in French). Manuel du Libraire et de l'Amateur de Livres, vol 4., R–Z (4th ed.). Paris: Silvestre. p. 238. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GKzPOXskNJgC. Retrieved May 2011. 

External links