Mago (agricultural writer)


Mago was a Carthaginian writer, author of an agricultural manual in Punic which was a record of the farming knowledge of the Berbers from North Africa and the Phoenicians from Lebanon. The Punic text has been lost, but some fragments of Greek and Latin translations survive.

Work

Mago's long work was divided into 28 books. It incorporated local Berber and Punic traditional practices. Carthage being a Phoenician colony and North Africa the granary of the central Mediterranean, Berber knowledge of agriculture and veterinary was extensive. It began with general advice which is thus summarized by Columella:
After Rome's destruction of Carthage in 146 BC, the Carthaginian libraries were given to the kings of Numidia. Uniquely, Mago's book was retrieved and brought to Rome. It was adapted into Greek by Cassius Dionysius and translated in full into Latin by D. Junius Silanus, the latter at the expense of the Roman Senate. The Greek translation was later abridged by Diophanes of Nicaea, whose version was divided into six books.
Extracts from these translations survive in quotations by Roman writers on agriculture, including Varro, Columella, Pliny the Elder, and Gargilius Martialis. This is a partial list of surviving fragments: