Dominus Julius mosaic, Bardo Museum — The Dominus Julius mosaic (Bardo): life on a great African estate, heir to Punic methods

Agronomist · Carthage

Date unknown, before 146 BC

Mago the Agronomist

“The father of agriculture” — so the Roman agronomist Columella calls him.

A Carthaginian, probably a great landowner, who set down in Punic all the farming knowledge of his city. Rome destroyed Carthage, but had his work translated.

books written in Punic

only Carthaginian work translated into Latin by order of the Senate

books in the Greek version by Cassius Dionysius

books in the abridgement by Diophanes of Nicaea

146 BC

Why Rome translated Mago

After taking Carthage, the Roman Senate gave the city’s libraries to the African princes. It kept only one work: the 28 books of Mago, which it ordered translated into Latin.

The task was entrusted to a committee of men who knew Punic, chaired by Decimus Silanus. For the Romans, whose economy rested on the land, this knowledge was too useful to vanish with the city.

Neither the Punic original nor the Latin translation has survived: Mago now exists only through quotations in Greek and Latin authors.

Pliny’s testimony
« When Carthage was taken, our Senate gave its libraries to the petty kings of Africa; it decreed only that Mago’s twenty-eight books should be translated into Latin. »
Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XVIII, 22

The thread of transmission

From Carthage to Rome

Before 146

Mago writes his 28 books in Punic. His exact date is unknown: he is often placed in the 4th–3rd centuries BC, at the height of Carthaginian agriculture.

146 BC

Fall of Carthage. The Senate orders the Latin translation, entrusted to a committee chaired by Decimus Silanus.

88 BC

Cassius Dionysius of Utica produces a Greek version in 20 books, enriched with Greek authors.

1st c. BC

Diophanes of Nicaea abridges it into 6 books for King Deiotarus of Galatia.

37 BC

Varro, in his treatise On Agriculture, places Mago at the head of the reference authors.

1st c. AD

Columella and Pliny the Elder quote him extensively: Columella calls him “the father of agriculture”.

What the 28 books contained

A complete treatise on the great estate, pieced together from the fragments quoted by Latin writers.

Crops

Vine & olive

Choice of land, exposure, planting, pruning: the core of Punic farm wealth.

Orchards

Fruit trees

Pomegranates, almonds, figs: grafting, care and preserving fruit.

Livestock

Oxen, mules, bees

Choosing plough animals, breeding, beekeeping and veterinary care.

Management

The estate

Organising the workforce, the role of the steward and the master’s presence on his land.

Olive tree near Testour — Olive tree, Testour (Tunisia)

Surviving fragments

Some of Mago’s precepts

The master

“Whoever has bought land should sell his town house, so as not to prefer the household gods of the city to those of the country.” Columella I, 1, 18; Pliny XVIII, 35

The vine

Plant vineyards facing north, to shield them from the African heat. Columella III, 12, 5

The olive

Space olive trees widely: 75 feet in good soil, 45 in thin or windy ground. Pliny XVII, 93

Passum

A recipe for sweet wine from sun-dried grapes, which Columella reproduces almost word for word. Columella XII, 39

Oxen

Choose young, compact oxen with sturdy limbs, long dark horns and a broad forehead. Columella VI, 1, 3

Punic houses at Kerkouane — Kerkouane, a Punic town on Cape Bon, in the heart of Carthage’s farmland

Columella, De re rustica
« Mago the Carthaginian, the father of agriculture. »
Columella, I, 1, 13

Carthaginian agriculture →

Legacy

Latin agronomy

A major source

Varro, Columella and Pliny draw on Mago; through them, Punic methods passed into Roman, then medieval, agronomy.

Roman Africa

The granary of Rome

The great estates of Roman Africa — grain, oil, wine — carried on a know-how that Carthage had brought to its peak.

Memory

A name saved

Almost all Punic literature is lost. Mago is one of the few Carthaginian authors whose name and part of whose work we know.