Ian Goh
Research Interests: Roman satire and the rhetorical invective tradition; Latin fragmentary texts; Republican & early Augustan literature (esp. Horace, Virgil, elegy); Roman political and intellectual history; food history; & the reception of antiquity in 17th–19th century opera and drama
The Role of the Vilica in Columella Book 12
In this project I aim to discern and uncover Columella’s achievement and intention in issuing instructions to a ‘farm manageress’, the vilica, in the final volume, Book 12, of his mid-60s CE agricultural manual, De Re Rustica. Columella’s recipes for pickling, primarily for domestic use, alongside his highly technical delineation of production processes at industrial scale for commercial purposes, have previously unnoticed implications for a contemporary sustainability agenda. I am writing the first major analytical commentary with translation in English on any book of Columella's text, treating Book 12 from a variety of perspectives. I will investigate the literary inheritance, especially from Xenophon’s Oeconomicus, of Columella’s presentation of the slave vilica as a go-between for the household and outdoor world. Further, six critical chapters of Book 12 concern olive pickling and olive oil production; I plan to use these as a case study for grasping the innovation of Columella’s approach. Analysis of the relationship of Columella’s work to the realities of the Roman villa system, and of its place in literary culture, is much needed to enhance our scholarly understanding.
Ian Goh is a Senior Lecturer in Classics at Swansea University. He studied at Harvard and Cambridge and has published extensively on the literary genres of Roman verse satire and Latin love elegy.