Cassianus Bassus, called Scholasticus (lawyer) was one of the , the group of writers on agricultural subjects. He lived at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century. He compiled from earlier writers a collection of agricultural literature; the principal source was

Vindonius Anatolius Vindonius Anatolius of Beirut or Vindonius Anatolius Berytius, also known as Vindanius, Vindanionius, was a Greek author of the 4th century, and may be identical with the praetorian prefect of Illyricum mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus. He was th ...

. Dedicated to his son Bassus, his work was entitled ''Eklogai peri georgias'' ("Selections on farming"); the usual

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

version of this title is ''Eclogae de re rustica''. The original

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

text of Cassianus Bassus has been lost, but some of the contents have survived as part of a collection entitled '' Geoponica'', completed about the year 950 and dedicated to the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. It contains a full list of the authorities drawn upon, and the subjects treated include agriculture, birds, bees, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, fishes and the like. In addition, a 7th-century

Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle ...

translation and two different

Arabic language Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

translations of respectively the 8th and 9th century have also survived. According to a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

tradition attributed to Cassianus Bassus, pig dung

fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

should only be used for almond trees. Similar views were expressed by

Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...

, long pre-dating Islamic taboos related to the animal, though

Ibn Bassal Ibn Bassal ( ar, ابن بصال) was an 11th-century Andalusian Arab botanist and agronomist in Toledo and Seville, Spain who wrote about horticulture and arboriculture. He is best known for his book on agronomy, the ''Dīwān al-filāha'' (An ...

and some later writers from Yemen also recorded negative effects of pig dung "burning" (''haraqa'') plants.Manure Matters: Historical, Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives
/ref>

References

*Wilhelm Gemoll in ''Berliner Studien'', i. (1884) * Cassianus Bassus, Geoponica: Geoponica sive Cassiani Bassi Scholastici De re rustica eclogae, ed. H. Beckh, Leipzig 1895 *Oder in ''Rheinisches Museum'', xlv. (1890), xlviii. (1893) *De Raynal in ''Annuaire de l'Assoc. pour l'Encouragement des Etudes Grecques'', viii. (1874). * Writers of lost works Geoponici 6th-century Byzantine people 7th-century Byzantine people 6th-century Byzantine writers 7th-century Byzantine writers Byzantine literature Byzantine writers 6th-century Byzantine scientists 7th-century Byzantine scientists {{Biologist-stub