i. Authors on rural matters (De auctoribus rerum rusticarum) 1. Among the Greeks, Hesiod of Boeotia was the first to make skill in writing on rural matters a part of a liberal education; then Democritus. Mago of Carthage also wrote a study of agriculture in twenty-eight volumes. Among the Romans Cato was first to treat of agriculture, then Marcus Terence (i.e. Varro) refined its study, and then Vergil exalted it with the commendation of his poems. No lesser inquiry was made later by Cornelius Celsus, Julius Atticus, Aemilianus (i.e. Palladius), and the distinguished orator Columella who embraced the whole corpus of that discipline.

2. They say that the first person who yoked oxen to the plow was a certain private citizen, who had been struck by lightning, named Homogirus – but some say Osiris was the inventor of this craft, and some say Triptolemus. Here the question is in what manner Ceres in Greece first established the turning of the soil with iron – with whatever kind of iron implement, not specifically with the plowshare or plow. 3. A certain man named Stercutus first brought the technique of dunging (stercorare) fields to Italy, and his altar in Rome was dedicated by Picus. He invented many agricultural tools, and was the first to enrich fields. Some have thought that this man was Saturn, in order to do him greater honor by that name under which he would sound magnificent and would procure dignity from the title.