Gargilius Martialis lived in the 3rd century AD. Most scholars accept the hypothesis that this writer is to be identified with the military commander mentioned in a funerary epigraph of 260 AD. This would imply that he died at Auzia, in the Mauretania Cesariensis. The Life of Alexander Severus (37, 9) included in the Historia Augusta mentions that a Gargilius wrote a biography of that emperor. It is very plausible that the biographer is indeed our Gargilius Martialis, for a variety of reasons: Septimius Severus was of African origin, the activity of Gargilius Martialis was probably connected with Roman Africa, and he may have been of African origin himself.

Gargilius Martialis wrote a treatise on agronomy called De hortis that is mentioned by Sevius and Palladius. The extant text of the De hortis is apparently the first section of a longer work.Cassiodorus (Inst. I, 28, 6) mentions Gargilius’ Medicinae ex holeribus et pomis as an authoritative work. This text is a treatise on the therapeutic properties of several herbs and vegetables. Another work is linked to Gargilius’ name: the Curae boum ex corpore Gargili Martialis, a fragmentarycollection of excerpta on veterinary, which is considered to be an adaptation (dating to the period between the 4th and the 6th century AD) of a work on veterinary that may or may not have been written by Gargilius Martialis, in spite of the indication offered by the title.

A number of indications support the hypothesis that Gargilius Martialis translated Dioscorides’ Materia Medica from Greek into Latin. In a later period, the book of prescriptions De herbis femininis as well as several other treatises on phytotherapy used the translation by Gargilius Martialis as a source.

Some scholars have followed Angelo Mai in thinking that Gargilius Martialis was the author of the two short books known under the titles De oleribus Marcialis e De pomis Martialis. They are in fact nothing else but sections of the pseudo-Hippocratic Dynamidia, a work that uses Gargilius Martialis as its main source. [D. Paniagua; tr. L. Battezzato]