De agri cultura[a] ([deː ˈaɡriː kʊlˈtuːraː]), also known as On Farming or On Agriculture, is a treatise on Roman agriculture by Cato the Elder. It is the oldest surviving work of Latin prose. Alexander Hugh McDonald, in his article for the Oxford Classical Dictionary, dated this essay's composition to about 160 BC and noted that "for all of its lack of form, its details of old custom and superstition, and its archaic tone, it was an up-to-date "treatise" constructed from his own knowledge and experience to the new capitalistic farming."[1] Cato was revered by many later authors for his practical attitudes, his natural stoicism and his tight, lucid prose. He is much quoted by Pliny the Elder, for example, in his Naturalis Historia.
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- ^ "Cato (1)", Oxford Classical Dictionary, second edition. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 215.