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Illustration of Columela as an imagined marble bust of a Roman agricultural writer in a plain toga, on a stone plinth beside a papyrus scroll, with olive trees and vines behind
Writer Military Roman Gades237 BCE–5th century CE

Columela

Lived c. 4–70 (about 66 years)

Also known as
Columella, Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella

Columela (Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, in Latin) is the Roman writer on farming whom Cádiz claims as its own. Britannica gives Gades as his birthplace, and a Spanish university-journal article points to his own text: in De re rustica he calls the town "our municipium". He is usually dated from about AD 4 to about 70, though the years are approximate.

He spent his early years in Gades with his uncle Marcus Columella, a farmer who experimented with breeding sheep. He later served as a military tribune in Syria in AD 35, then left the army to farm estates at Ardea, Carseoli and Alba, south and east of Rome.

His surviving work is De re rustica, twelve books on soils, vines, olives, livestock, bees and gardens. Book 10, on gardens, is written in hexameter verse in homage to Virgil. The complete text was rediscovered in monastery libraries during the Council of Constance (1414 to 1418), and the first full Spanish translation appeared in Madrid in 1824.

Nothing of his own survives in the city, so go for the Gades he knew. The Roman Theatre is the clearest trace of the town as a Roman municipality, and it lies under El Pópulo, the old quarter that climbs towards the cathedral. A statue of Columella stands in Cádiz's Plaza de las Flores, and Britannica pictures it in its entry on him.

Places to see

Trimmed topiary cypresses and palm trees lining the central promenade of Parque Genovés in Cádiz
Parque Genovés
Regionalist tiled garden promenade of the Alameda Clara Campoamor running beside the northern sea wall and Bay of Cádiz
Alameda & Northern Walls Walk

In their time

  1. Roman Gades

    237 BCE–5th century CE

    After Carthaginian rule and the Roman takeover, Gades became a municipium under Julius Caesar and Augustus, famed for its fish sauce, merchants and dancers. Its theatre, built in the 1st century BCE, is among the largest known in Hispania.

    1. Roman Theatre of Cádiz (Theatrum Balbi)

      50 BCE Monument

      Cádiz's Roman Theatre is the oldest in Iberia: a first-century BCE Gades theatre under El Pópulo, free to enter, with the dig closed during expansion works.

    2. Lucio Cornelio Balbo

      c. 100–32 BCE Historical figure

      Lucius Cornelius Balbus was born in Gades (Cádiz) around 100 BCE and became the first naturalized Roman consul. See the Theatrum Balbi his nephew built.

Read more

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A man walks down a cobbled lane in Cádiz's old town toward the golden cathedral dome, the street where you hear how to pronounce Cádiz in Spain
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