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Mago (agricultural Writer)
Mago ( xpu, 𐤌𐤂𐤍, ) was a Carthaginian writer, author of an agricultural manual in Punic which was a record of the farming knowledge of Carthage, The Punic text has been lost, but some fragments of Greek and Latin translations survive. Work Mago's long work was divided into 28 books. It incorporated local Berber and Punic traditional practices. Carthage being a Phoenician colony and North Africa the granary of the central Mediterranean, knowledge of agricultural and veterinary practices was extensive. It began with general advice which is thus summarized by Columella: After Rome's destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, the Carthaginian libraries were given to the kings of Numidia. Uniquely, Mago's book was retrieved and brought to Rome. It was adapted into Greek by Cassius Dionysius and translated in full into Latin by D. Junius Silanus, the latter at the expense of the Roman Senate. The Greek translation was later abridged by Diophanes of Nicaea, whose version ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Carthage
Carthage () was a settlement in modern Tunisia that later became a city-state and then an empire. Founded by the Phoenicians in the ninth century BC, Carthage reached its height in the fourth century BC as one of the largest metropolises in the worldGeorge Modelski, ''World Cities: –3000 to 2000'', Washington DC: FAROS 2000, 2003. . Figures in main tables are preferentially cited. Part of former estimates can be read at Evolutionary World Politics Homepage Archived 2008-12-28 at the Wayback Machine and the centre of the Carthaginian Empire, a major power in the ancient world that dominated the western Mediterranean. Following the Punic Wars, Carthage was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, who later rebuilt the city lavishly. Carthage was settled around 814 BC by colonists from Tyre, a leading Phoenician city-state located in present-day Lebanon. In the seventh century BC, following Phoenicia's conquest by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Carthage became independent, gradually ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
De Oratore
''De Oratore'' (''On the Orator''; not to be confused with ''Orator'') is a dialogue written by Cicero in 55 BC. It is set in 91 BC, when Lucius Licinius Crassus dies, just before the Social War and the civil war between Marius and Sulla, during which Marcus Antonius (orator), the other great orator of this dialogue, dies. During this year, the author faces a difficult political situation: after his return from exile in Dyrrachium (modern Albania), his house was destroyed by the gangs of Clodius in a time when violence was common. This was intertwined with the street politics of Rome. Amidst the moral and political decadence of the state, Cicero wrote ''De Oratore'' to describe the ideal orator and imagine him as a moral guide of the state. He did not intend ''De Oratore'' as merely a treatise on rhetoric, but went beyond mere technique to make several references to philosophical principles. Cicero believed that the power of persuasion—the ability to verbally manipulate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoponici
Geoponici (the Latinized form of a nonexistent Γεωπονικοί, used for convenience), or ''Scriptores rei rusticae'', is a collective term for the Greek literature, Greek and Latin literature, Latin writers on husbandry and agriculture. In classical times it was regarded as a branch of economics. Greek writers From the writing of the Roman Varro, it is known that there were more than fifty ancient Greeks authors on the subject of agriculture. Among them were Hesiod, Xenophon, Democritus, Aristotle and his pupil Theophrastus. Most of the works Varro enumerated have been lost. What we know of the agriculture of Greece is chiefly derived from the poem of Hesiod, entitled ''Works and Days''. All that remain of Democritus are only a few extracts preserved in the ''Geoponica'', an agricultural treatise published at Constantinople by the Greeks of the 10th century. The ''Oeconomicus'' by Xenophon is a Socratic dialogue principally about household management and agriculture, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenicians And Wine
The culture of the ancient Phoenicians was one of the first to have had a significant effect on the history of wine. Phoenicia was a civilization centered in current day Lebanon. Between 1550 BC and 300 BC, the Phoenicians developed a maritime trading culture that expanded their influence from the Levant to North Africa, the Greek Isles, Sicily, and the Iberian Peninsula. Through contact and trade, they spread not only their alphabet but also their knowledge of viticulture and winemaking, including the propagation of several ancestral varieties of the ''Vitis vinifera'' species of wine grapes. They either introduced or encouraged the dissemination of wine knowledge to several regions that today continue to produce wine suitable for international consumption. These include modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, and Portugal. The Phoenicians and their Punic descendants of Carthage had a direct influence on the growing winemaking cultures o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passum
Passum was a raisin wine (wine from semi-dried grapes) apparently developed in ancient Carthage (in now modern Tunisia) and transmitted from there to Italy, where it was popular in the Roman Empire. The earliest surviving instruction constitutes the only known Carthaginian recipe. It is a fragment from the Punic farming manual by Mago in its Latin translation by Decimus Junius Silanus (2nd century BC). It survives because it was summarised by Columella (1st century AD): Mago A recipe for passum was recorded in an agricultural manual by Mago, a Punic writer. The original Punic work is lost, but the recipe is quoted in a later latin work, '' De Agricultura'' by Columella. Later, less detailed, instructions are found in other Latin and Greek sources. ''Passum'' was produced extensively in the eastern Mediterranean through the Roman period, and its popularity is referred to by Pliny the Elder in his '' Natural History''. Research indicates that it found popularity amongst women i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgics
The ''Georgics'' ( ; ) is a poem by Latin poet Virgil, likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word , ''geōrgika'', i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The ''Georgics'' is considered Virgil's second major work, following his ''Eclogues'' and preceding the ''Aeneid''. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. Description and summary The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now. Book One Virgil begins his poem with a summary of the four books, followed by a prayer to various agricultural deities as well as Augustus himself. It takes as its model the work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the ''Eclogues'' (or ''Bucolics''), the ''Georgics'', and the epic ''Aeneid''. A number of minor poems, collected in the ''Appendix Vergiliana'', were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious. Virgil's work has had wide and deep influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's ''Divine Comedy'', in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil has been traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His ''Aeneid'' is also considered a national epic of ancient Rome, a title held since composition. Life and works Birth and biographical tradition Virgil's biographical tradition is thought to depend on a lost biography by the Roman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gargilius Martialis
Quintus Gargilius Martialis was a third-century Roman writer on horticulture, botany and medicine. He has been identified by some with the military commander of the same name, mentioned in a Latin inscription of 260 as having lost his life in the colony of Auzia in Mauretania Caesariensis.''Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum'', viii, 9047. Considerable fragments of his work (probably called ''De hortis''), which treated of the cultivation of trees and vegetables, and also of their medicinal properties, have survived, chiefly in the body of and as an appendix to the '' Medicina Plinii'' (an anonymous 4th century handbook of medical recipes based upon Pliny the Elder, '' Naturalis Historiae'', xx–xxxii). Extant sections treat of apples, peaches, quinces, citrons, almonds, chestnuts, parsnips, and various other edibles, with an emphasis on the medical effects they have on the body (quoting Dioscorides sometimes). Gargilius also wrote a treatise on the tending of cattle (). A biography ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Natural History''), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus: Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume work ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius. Tacitus—who many scholars agree had never travelled in Germania—used ''Bella Germani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus. Biography Varro was born in or near Reate (now Rieti) to a family thought to be of equestrian rank, and always remained close to his roots in the area, owning a large farm in the Reatine plain, reported as near Lago di Ripasottile, until his old age. He supported Pompey, reaching the office of praetor, after having been tribune of the people, ''quaestor'' and ''curule aedile''. It is probable that Varro was discontented with the course on which Pompey entered when the First Triumvirate was formed, and he may thus have lost his chance of rising to the consulate. He actually ridiculed the coalition in a work entitled the ''Three-Headed Monster'' ( in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diophanes Of Nicaea
Diophanes of Nicaea or Diophanes the Bithynian (; grc-gre, Διοφάνης) was a Greek agricultural writer of the 1st century BC. He was a native of or associated with the city of Nicaea in Bithynia (northwestern Anatolia). Diophanes abridged into six books the very lengthy farming manual by Cassius Dionysius, which extended to twenty books. Both works were entitled ''Georgika'' ("Agriculture"). Diophanes dedicated his work to king Deiotarus of Celtic Galatia in central Anatolia, southeast of his homeland. According to Columella an amount equivalent to eight books of Cassius Dionysius' work, two-fifths of the whole, had been translated from a preceding work in Punic by Mago. Diophanes' work in turn must therefore have contained extensive extracts reflecting Punic agricultural practice. Diophanes' abridgement was more popular in ancient times than Cassius Dionysius' original, but both works are now lost. Diophanes is quoted once by the Latin agricultural writer Varro, and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
