Quintus Gargilius Martialis was a third-century Roman writer on horticulture, botany and medicine. He has been identified by some with the military commander of the same name, mentioned in a Latin inscription of 260 as having lost his life in the colony of

Auzia Auzia was a Roman- Berber colonia in present-day Sour El-Ghozlane, Algeria. The area was located around 150 km south-east of Algiers, in the ancient province of Mauretania Caesariensis. History Auzia probably took the name from the Berbe ...

Mauretania Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...

Caesariensis.''

Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum The ''Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum'' (''CIL'') is a comprehensive collection of ancient Latin inscriptions. It forms an authoritative source for documenting the surviving epigraphy of classical antiquity. Public and personal inscriptions throw ...

'', viii, 9047. Considerable fragments of his work (probably called ''De hortis''), which treated of the cultivation of trees and vegetables, and also of their medicinal properties, have survived, chiefly in the body of and as an appendix to the '' Medicina Plinii'' (an anonymous 4th century handbook of medical recipes based upon Pliny the Elder, '' Naturalis Historiae'', xx–xxxii). Extant sections treat of apples, peaches,

quince The quince (; ''Cydonia oblonga'') is the sole member of the genus ''Cydonia'' in the Malinae subtribe (which also contains apples and pears, among other fruits) of the Rosaceae family. It is a deciduous tree that bears hard, aromatic bright ...

citron The citron (''Citrus medica''), historically cedrate, is a large fragrant citrus fruit with a thick rind. It is said to resemble a 'huge, rough lemon'. It is one of the original citrus fruits from which all other citrus types developed throu ...

s, almonds, chestnuts,

parsnip The parsnip (''Pastinaca sativa'') is a root vegetable closely related to carrot and parsley, all belonging to the flowering plant family Apiaceae. It is a biennial plant usually grown as an annual. Its long taproot has cream-colored skin an ...

s, and various other edibles, with an emphasis on the medical effects they have on the body (quoting Dioscorides sometimes). Gargilius also wrote a treatise on the tending of cattle (). A biography of the emperor

Alexander Severus Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander (1 October 208 – 21/22 March 235) was a Roman emperor, who reigned from 222 until 235. He was the last emperor from the Severan dynasty. He succeeded his slain cousin Elagabalus in 222. Alexander himself was ...

is also attributed to him in the '' Augustan History.'' This attribution has been read as a joke by some critics.

Published Edition

*Edited by Valentin Rose, Teubner edition, 1875, in Latin
Downloadable at Archive.org
*Gargilius: ''Gesundheit aus dem Garten.'' Bilingual edition in Latin and German, by Kai Brodersen. Stuttgart: Reclam 2022, ISBN 978-3-15-014251-6

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martialis, Quintus Gargilius

Martialis Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...

3rd-century Latin writers Ancient Roman writers 3rd-century Roman physicians Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown