Upon a parchment (_strumento_) of Ferrara, bearing date A. D. 1113, (Annals of Muratori,) I find a memorandum or contract which looks like reviving civilization. "_Terram autem illam quam roncabo, frui debeo per annos tres; postea reddam serraticum._" The Latin is stiff, but the sense is sound. "If I grub up wild land, I shall hold it three years for pay."
I shall make no apology for introducing next to the reader the "Geoponica Geoponicorum,"--a somewhat extraordinary collection of agricultural opinions, usually attributed, in a loose way, to the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who held the Byzantine throne about the middle of the tenth century. It was undoubtedly under the order of Constantine that the collection took its present shape; but whether a collection under the same name had not previously existed, and, if so, to whom is to be credited the authorship, are questions which have been discussed through a wilderness of Greek and Roman type, by the various editors.
The edition before me (that of Niclas, Leipsic) gives no less than a hundred pages of prolegomena, prefaces, introductory observations, with notes to each and all, interlacing the pages into a motley of patchwork; the whole preceded by two, and followed by five stately dedications. The weight of authority points to Cassianus Bassus, a Bithynian, as the real compiler,--notwithstanding his name is attached to particular chapters of the book, and notwithstanding he lived as early as the fifth century. Other critics attribute the collection to Dionysius Uticensis, who is cited by both Varro and Columella. The question is unsettled, and is not worth the settling.
My own opinion--in which, however, Niclas and Needham do not share--is, that the Emperor Porphyrogenitus, in addition to his historical and judicial labors,[19] wishing to mass together the best agricultural opinions of the day, expressed that wish to some trusted Byzantine official (we may say his Commissioner of Patents). Whereupon the Byzantine official (commissioner) goes to some hungry agricultural friend, of the Chersonesus, and lays before him the plan, with promise of a round Byzantian stipend. The agricultural friend goes lovingly to the work, and discovers some old compilation of Bassus or of Dionysius, into which he whips a few modern phrases, attributes a few chapters to the virtual compiler of the whole, makes one or two adroit allusions to local scenes, and carries the result to the Byzantine official (commissioner). The official (commissioner) has confidence in the opinions and virtues of his agricultural friend, and indorses the book, paying over the stipend, which it is found necessary to double, by reason of the unexpected cost of execution. The official (commissioner) presents the report to the Emperor, who receives it gratefully,--at the same tune approving the bill of costs, which has grown into a quadruple of the original estimates.