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 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 ...

inscription of 260 as having lost his life in the colony of

Auzia Auzia was a Roman- Berber colonia in present-day Sour El-Ghozlane, Algeria. The area was located around 150 km south-east of Algiers, in the ancient province of Mauretania Caesariensis. History Auzia probably took the name from the Ber ...

Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...

Caesariensis.''

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum The ''Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum'' (''CIL'') is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity. Public and personal inscriptions throw ...

'', 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 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 Historiae'', xx–xxxii). Extant sections treat of

apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

peach The peach (''Prunus persica'') is a deciduous tree first domesticated and cultivated in Zhejiang province of Eastern China. It bears edible juicy fruits with various characteristics, most called peaches and others (the glossy-skinned, non-fu ...

es,

quince The quince (; ''Cydonia oblonga'') is the sole member of the genus ''Cydonia'' in the Malinae subtribe (which also contains apples and pears, among other fruits) of the Rosaceae family (biology), family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard ...

citron The citron (''Citrus medica''), historically cedrate, is a large fragrant citrus fruit with a thick rind. It is said to resemble a 'huge, rough lemon'. It is one of the original citrus fruits from which all other citrus types developed throu ...

almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree native to Iran and surrounding countries, including the Levant. The almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genus ...

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelat ...

parsnip The parsnip (''Pastinaca sativa'') is a root vegetable closely related to carrot and parsley, all belonging to the flowering plant family Apiaceae. It is a biennial plant usually grown as an annual. Its long taproot has cream-colored skin an ...

s, and various other edibles, with an emphasis on the medical effects they have on the body (quoting

Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of ''De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-vol ...

sometimes). Gargilius also wrote a treatise on the tending of cattle (). A biography of the emperor

Alexander Severus Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235) was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was ...

is also attributed to him in the ''

Augustan History The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the sim ...

.'' This attribution has been read as a joke by some critics.

Published Edition

*Edited by Valentin Rose,

Teubner The Bibliotheca Teubneriana, or ''Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana'', also known as Teubner editions of Greek and Latin texts, comprise one of the most thorough modern collection published of ancient (and some medieval) ...

edition, 1875, in Latin
Downloadable at Archive.org
*Gargilius: ''Gesundheit aus dem Garten.'' Bilingual edition in Latin and German, by

Kai Brodersen Kai Brodersen (born 6 June 1958) is a contemporary ancient historian and classicist on the faculty of the University of Erfurt. He has edited, and translated, both ancient works and modern classical studies. His research focuses on "Applied Scie ...

. Stuttgart: Reclam 2022, ISBN 978-3-15-014251-6

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martialis, Quintus Gargilius Martialis 3rd-century Latin writers Ancient Roman writers 3rd-century Roman physicians Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown