CASSIUS DIONYSIUS

flourished 88 BC, Utica [now in Tunisia] ancient North African writer on botany and medicinal substances, best known for his Greek translation of the great 28-volume treatise on agriculture by the Carthaginian Mago (Columella, called Mago; sometimes described as the father of agriculture). The work was highly esteemed and widely used by the Romans in a Latin translation prepared after the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC. Cassius reduced the work to 20 volumes and added material from Greek sources. The Punic and Latin texts of Mago's treatise are lost, and the contents of this work are now known only by surviving fragments of Cassius' translation. Cassius also wrote an original treatise on roots, and an illustrated pharmacopoeia is ascribed to him.