ix. 5, 21, 'Ptolemaeum (c. 300 B.C.), qui postea regnavit, huic pugnae adfuisse auctor est Clitarchus et Timagenes (c. 55 B.C.). Sed ipse ... afuisse se missum in expeditionem memoriae tradidit.' The rhetorical tone of the work is seen in the speeches and letters. For the latter cf. iv. 1, 10-74. Curtius has little technical knowledge of war or politics. Thus Alexander's assumption of oriental pomp to conciliate the Asiatics is looked on as ὕβρις. Cf. iii. 12, 18. Like Livy, he attempts to depreciate Alexander's abilities by unduly accentuating his good fortune. Cf. viii. 3, 1, 'Sed hanc quoque expeditionem, ut pleraque alia, fortuna indulgendo ei numquam fatigata pro absente transegit.' COLUMELLA. L. Iunius Moderatus Columella was a native of Gades: x. 185, 'mea [lactuca] quam generant Tartessi littore Gades.' On an inscription he is styled 'trib. mil. leg. vi. ferratae' (_C.I.L._ ix. 325), and it was probably in the course of his military service that he visited Cilicia and Syria: ii. 10, 18, 'hoc semen Ciliciae Syriaeque regionibus ipse vidi.' His uncle, M. Columella, was a leading man in the province of Baetica (v. 5, 15); and he himself possessed land in Italy: iii. 9, 2, 'cum et in Ardeatino agro, quem multis temporibus ipsi ante possedimus, et in Carseolano itemque in Albano generis Aminei vites huius modi notae habuerimus.' He was a contemporary of the younger Seneca, who is spoken of as alive (iii. 3, 3). His chief work is _De Re Rustica_ in twelve Books, dedicated to P. Silvinus--a practical treatise on husbandry for 'negotiosi agricolae' (ix. 2, 5). Book x., on gardening, is in hexameter verse, and was written at the suggestion of Silvinus and another friend, to fill the gap which Virgil had left in the Georgics (iv. 147-8); cf. the preface, 'Cultus hortorum ... sicut institueram, prosa oratione prioribus subnecteretur exordiis, nisi propositum expugnasset frequens postulatio tua, quae pervicit, ut poeticis numeris explerem Georgici carminis omissas partes, quas tamen et ipse Vergilius significaverat, posteris se memorandas relinquere.' The last two Books were added as an afterthought; xi. 1, 2, 'numerum quem iam quasi consummaveram voluminum excessi.' Columella wrote before A.D. 65 (see above); later than Celsus, but earlier than the elder Pliny. There is also extant a book _De Arboribus_, which formed Book ii. of an earlier treatise on agriculture: cf. i. 1, 'Quoniam de cultu agrorum abunde primo volumine praecepisse videmur, non intempestiva erit arborum virgultorumque cura.' It covers the same ground as _De R.R._ iii.-v. Columella also wrote 'adversus astrologos' (xi. 1, 31), and projected a treatise on the religious rites connected with agriculture (ii. 22, 5, 'lustrationum ceterorumque sacrificiorum, quae pro frugibus fiunt, morem priscis usurpatum'). POMPONIUS MELA.