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If you look into our gardens annexed to our houses, how wonderfully is their beauty increased, not only with flowers, which Columella calleth Terrena sydera saying, "Pingit et in varios terrestria sydera flores,"

It is more to the purpose of magic that Columella mentions 'the half-human mandragora. Here we touch the origin of the mandrake superstitions.

In the one he bred his ducks and fowls; the other he cultivated according to the strictest precepts of Cato, Varro, and Columella. He spent his holidays in fishing or bird-catching in the Campagna, or in feasting by some shady spring or on the banks of the Tiber. Wealth and luxury he despised. Free himself from envy and uncharitable speech, he would not suffer them in others.

At these words the ship-master's son colored deeply, while Romanus turned his horse round, laid his hand on the young man's arm and called out to the commander of the cavalry of Arsinoe: "A soldier after Ares' own heart, Columella! Do not let him slip." Before the clouds of dust raised by the officers' horses as they rode off, had fairly settled, Constantine had made up his mind to be a soldier.

The fine-wool sheep thrive most in a dry climate and elevated country. We learn from Strabo, Columella, and Martial, that the fine wool of Italy was raised principally among the Apennines; and in Spain, Estremadura, a part of the ancient Baetica, is still famous for its wool. There the Spanish flocks winter, and thence in spring are sent to pasture in the mountains of Leon and Asturias.