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TECHNICAL WRITING
asserted that his subject does not admit stylistic embellishment, he sets about
providing it. Intricate word-order, anaphora, occasional asyndeta and ellipses,
and variation in the shape of sentences, from expansive to starkly abrupt, are
calculated to earn the reader's attention and regard. The influence of Sallust
may be seen in words and phrases, but there is no sustained imitation. In some
ways Mela resembles Florus: he shares, in particular, a fondness for expressing
admiration and wonderment (e.g. 1.38, 2.57), and lacks any real intellectual
curiosity. The passage on tides at 3-1—2 may "well represent his work as a
whole. It is most carefully written and intended to impress, but to instruct
with evidence or convince by argument is not Mela's business.
2. COLUMELLA
Columella's Res rustica, 'Agriculture', 1 the fullest treatment of the subject in
Latin literature, is a product of wide reading and long personal experience.
Columella is appalled by the decline he sees in Italian agriculture (1 praef. I3ff.)>
and aims to show what knowledge and determination can do to put matters
right. He sets a high value upon rural life, as opposed to urban, and indeed
he shares most of the sentiments expressed by Virgil in his Georgics. But he
is no starry-eyed idealist. If the perfection of farming, as of oratory, is remote
and hard to attain (1 praef. 28ff.), that gives him no motive for despair: secondbest
is better than nothing. He demands discipline, efficiency, and profit, but
does not therefore lack humanity, for he wants his farm to be happy and thriving
as a whole. In his Res rustica we learn much of what life in the country was
like in ancient Italy, hard indeed, but not invariably wretched.
Columella treats first of the site, layout, and staff of a farm (1), then cereals
and vegetables (2), fruit-trees, in particular the vine and olive (3—5), larger
mammals (6), smaller mammals (7), poultry and fish (8), bees (9), the garden
(10), then (11) the duties of the uilicus 'overseer' and (12) the duties of the
overseer's wife. Book 10 is in hexameter verse, so written, Columella tells
us, at the behest of his dedicatee, Silvinus, and the encouragement of Virgil
(Georg. 4.147—8), "who left horticulture for posterity to handle.
Plainly Columella is much indebted to earlier agricultural writers, including
his most recent predecessors Atticus, Celsus, and Graecinus. The lengdi of
his work is partly at least due to his desire to consider and, where necessary,
controvert their views. Comparison with the older treatises of Cato and
Varro would suggest that Columella filled out what they were content to sketch,
adopting from them (and in particular Varro) many basic ideas and certain
divisions in subject matter. He appears to have scrutinized established opinions
very closely, but, when he disagrees, he is normally as courteous in his dis-
1
For the De arboribus, 'On trees*, "which requires no separate discussion here, see Appendix.
668
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