Ian
GOH

 

This project aims to uncover Columella’s intention in instructing a ‘farm manageress’ (vilica), in the final volume, Book 12, of his mid-60s CE agricultural manual, De Re Rustica. Columella’s recipes for pickling in this book have previously unnoticed implications for a contemporary sustainability agenda. I am writing the first major analytical commentary with translation in English on any book of Columella's treatise. This project will study the literary inheritance, especially from Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, of Columella’s presentation of the enslaved vilica as a go-between for the household and outdoor world. Further, six critical chapters of Book 12 concern olive pickling and olive oil production; in this project these will be used as a case study to highlight the innovation of Columella’s account. Analysis of the relationship of Columella’s work to the realities of the Roman villa system, and of its place in literary culture, is much needed to enhance our scholarly understanding.