from Syria (where he was military tribune in 35); he owned properties near Rome and
repeatedly relates personal experience. His Latin style is conscientious and elegant, espe-
cially in lexical and syntactical variety. The work was highly influential (G
M, P A), but he was not the Yu ̄niyu ̄s of Arabo-Andalusian
medieval writers.
Neither his Aduersus astrologos (11.1.31) nor a projected tract on farmers’ religion (2.21.5)
has survived. De arboribus, transmitted in some MSS, may be a later abridgement of the De re
rustica (Richter) rather than, as conventionally assumed (Goujard), part of an earlier work by
Columella himself.
Ed.: V. Lundström, Å. Josephson, S. Hedberg (1897–1968); concordance: G.G. Betts and W.D.
Ashworth (1971).
PIR2 4.340–341 (I-779); W. Richter, The “Liber de arboribus” und Columella = SBAW (1972) # 1;
R. Martin, “État présent des études sur Columelle,” ANRW 2.32.3 (1985) 1959–1979; R. Goujard,
“Encore à propos de l’authenticité du De arboribus,” Latomus 45 (1986) 612–618; J.I. García
Armendáriz, Agronomía y tradición clásica (1995); OCD3 367, M.S. Spurr; E. Noè, Il progetto di Columella
(2002); BNP 3 (2004) 584–585, E. Christmann.
Robert H. Rodgers
Iunius Crispus (ca 70 – 80 CE)
A in G cites “Crispus”: CMLoc 7.3 (13.67 K.: “freedman”) for cough-
drops, CMGen 5.13 (13.841 K.) for a powder (xe ̄ron), 7.7 (13.984 K.) for an ointment
(malagma), and CMGen 9.4 (13.276 K.), for his preparation of the ko ̄like ̄ of C. K
H in Gale ̄n, CMLoc 5.3 (12.831 K.), cites him as a philos (hence a contempor-
ary?) and gives his remedy for facial leikhe ̄n. M B 23.9 (CML 5,
p. 394) gives his nomen and recipe for the intestinal drug “Ambrosia.”
PIR2 I-747.
PTK
Iunius Nipsus (200 – 400 CE?)
Three works in the Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (see H), Fluminis uaratio, Limitis
repositio, and Podismus, can possibly though not certainly be ascribed to Iunius Nipsus, whose
name appears at the end of the Podismus fragment. Nipsus on the basis of his Latinity was
probably writing in the later Roman Empire. The Fluminis uaratio describes a method for
indirectly calculating the width of a river without actually measuring, by using the surveying
instrument (groma) to establish identical right-angled triangles. The Limitis repositio discusses
the resiting of limites in surveyed land, a method for correcting a measured distance, how to
plot a limes when there was an obstruction, and also analyses inscriptions on centuria stones,
which helped the surveyor find the location of centuriae within the system, and check details
of ownership. The Podismus examines definitions of types of measurement and angles, and
ways of measuring figures.
Ed.: J. Bouma, Marcus Junius Nypsus. Fluminis Varatio, Limitis Repositio: Introduction, Text, Translation, and
Commentary (1993); CAR 3 (1996) 120–138.
A. Roth Congès, “Modalités pratiques d’implantation des cadastres romains: quelques aspects (Quin-
tarios claudere. Perpendere. Cultellare. Varare: la construction des cadastres sur une diagonale et ses
traces dans le Corpus Agrimensorum),” MEFRA 108 (1996) 299–422.
Brian CampbellIUNIUS NIPSUS