Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire.His De re rustica in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the works of Cato the Elder and Marcus Terentius Varro, both of which he occasionally cites. A smaller book on trees, De arboribus, is usually attributed to him.
In 1794 the Spanish botanists José Antonio Pavón Jiménez and Hipólito Ruiz López named a genus of Peruvian asterid Columellia in his honour. Wikipedia
“He allows very readily, that the eyes and footsteps of the master are things most salutary to the land.”
Oculos et vestigia domini, res agro saluberrimas, facilius admittit.
De Re Rustica, IV. 18: Quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), Lemma "Agriculture" p. 18-19.
