R. H. Rodgers – författare

For readers of the mid-first century CE, Columella compiled a comprehensive curriculum of the agricultural discipline, aiming to cover every aspect of the field that might effect economic profit and environmental stewardship. Columella combines traditional Roman moralism with an interest in experimental practices and a plea for sound fiscal sense; his work was cited for its scientific currency by a younger contemporary, the Elder Pliny, while Cassiodorus included him, for literary eloquence and practical value, in a selective list for monastic readers. Nonetheless, the medieval manuscript tradition is very slender, and the transmitted text is of mediocre quality. Independent testimony, happily available in authors of late antiquity, is often crucial to successful restoration. This freshly constituted critical edition builds upon the solid recension of pioneering Swedish scholars but incorporates the products of conjectural emendation more consistently and more extensively than has previously been thought necessary.

In 97 CE Julius Frontinus was appointed by the Emperor Nerva to the post of water commissioner for the city of Rome. In the De Aquaductu Urbis Romae he sets forth his duties, responsibilities and accomplishments during his first year in office. He sketches the history of the aqueducts, furnishes a wealth of technical data and quotes verbatim from legal documents. This edition is the first since 1922 to be based on the single authoritative witness discovered at Monte Cassino in 1429 and is also the first to take into account the idiosyncrasies of its twelfth-century scribe, Peter the Deacon, a man notorious for literary affectations of his own. R. H. Rodgers provides the first full commentary since the early eighteenth century, dividing his attention between text and language on the one hand and content and interpretation on the other.