Cassianus Bassus, called Scholasticus (lawyer), was one of the , a group of Greek and Latin writers on agricultural subjects. He lived at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century. Bassus compiled from earlier writers a collection of agricultural literature; the principal source was Vindonius Anatolius. Dedicated to his son, also called Bassus, his work was entitled ''Eklogai peri georgias'' ("Selections on farming"); the usual

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

version of this title is ''Eclogae de re rustica''. The original

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

text of Cassianus Bassus has been lost, but some of the contents have survived as part of a collection entitled ''

Geoponica The ''Geoponica'' or ''Geoponika'' () is a twenty-book collection of agricultural lore, compiled during the 10th century in Constantinople for the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. The Greek word ''Geoponica'' signifies "agricul ...

'', completed about the year 950 and dedicated to the emperor

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (; 17 May 905 – 9 November 959) was the fourth Byzantine emperor of the Macedonian dynasty, reigning from 6 June 913 to 9 November 959. He was the son of Emperor Leo VI and his fourth wife, Zoe Karbonopsina, a ...

. It contains a full list of the authorities drawn upon, and the subjects treated include agriculture, birds, bees, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, fishes and the like. In addition, a 7th-century

Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...

translation and two different

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

translations of respectively the 8th and 9th century have also survived. According to a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

tradition attributed to Cassianus Bassus, pig dung

fertilizer A fertilizer or fertiliser is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

should only be used for

almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', Synonym (taxonomy)#Botany, syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree from the genus ''Prunus''. Along with the peach, it is classified in the subgenus ''Amygdalus'', distinguished from the other subgenera ...

trees. Similar views were expressed by

Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (, Arabic: ) was a prominent Roman writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire. His in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture and ancient Roman cuisin ...

, long pre-dating Islamic taboos related to the animal, though

Ibn Bassal Ibn Bassal () was an 11th-century Andalusian Arab botanist and agronomist in Toledo and Seville, Spain who wrote about horticulture and arboriculture. He is best known for his book on agronomy, the ''Dīwān al-filāha'' (An Anthology of Husb ...

and some later writers from Yemen also recorded negative effects of pig dung "burning" (''haraqa'') plants.Manure Matters: Historical, Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives
/ref>

References

*Wilhelm Gemoll in ''Berliner Studien'', i. (1884) * Cassianus Bassus, Geoponica: Geoponica sive Cassiani Bassi Scholastici De re rustica eclogae, ed. H. Beckh, Leipzig 1895 *Oder in ''Rheinisches Museum'', xlv. (1890), xlviii. (1893) *De Raynal in ''Annuaire de l'Assoc. pour l'Encouragement des Etudes Grecques'', viii. (1874). * Writers of lost works Geoponici 6th-century Byzantine writers 7th-century Byzantine writers Byzantine literature 6th-century Byzantine scientists 7th-century Byzantine scientists {{Biologist-stub