Columella

For other uses, see Columella (disambiguation).

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella
Portrait of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella by Jean de Tournes (Insignium aliquot virorum icones, Lyon, 1559)
Portrait of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella by Jean de Tournes (Insignium aliquot virorum icones, Lyon, 1559)
Born4 AD
Gades, Hispania Baetica
Diedc. 70 AD
CitizenshipRoman
Notable worksDe re rustica
Statue of Columella, holding a sickle and an ox-yoke, in the Plaza de las Flores, Cádiz

Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (/ˌkɒljəˈmɛlə/, Arabic: Yunius[1]: 12 ) was a prominent Roman writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire.[2]

His De re rustica in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the works of Cato the Elder and Marcus Terentius Varro, both of which he occasionally cites. A smaller book on trees, De arboribus, is usually attributed to him.

In 1794 the Spanish botanists José Antonio Pavón Jiménez and Hipólito Ruiz López named a genus of Peruvian asterid Columellia in his honour.[3]

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  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference mich was invoked but never defined (see the help page).