Reference edition:

Q. Gargilii Martialis. De hortis. Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione di Innocenzo Mazzini, Bologna, Pàtron, 1988 (seconda edizione riveduta e aggiornata)

De hortis is one of the titles used by modern scholars to designate a short fragment on agronomy by Gargilius Martialis. The fragment is transmitted in a palimpsest manuscript (Naples, Bibl. Naz. IV.A.8, ff. 40r-47v); it constituted the text later erased.  It was written not later than the fifth century AD. This fragment transmits an incomplete and lacunose text of four chapters discussing four different fruit-trees: they explain how to grow persimmon-, peach-, almond- and chestnut-trees. The beginning of the text is lost, and scholars have suggested various titles for this treatise:  De arboribus pomiferis (Mai), De re hortensi (Scotti), De hortis (Mazzini). Scholars now prefer to use the title De hortis.

Gargilius' text abounds with explicit references to a number of major Greek and Latin sources on agronomy (Aristotle, Cornelius Celsus, Columella, Curtius Iustus, Diophanes, Dioscorides, Iulius Atticus, Iulius Fronticus, Mago, Pliny, the Quintili). He display a reliable knowledge of these sources. Both Seruius and Palladius quote Gargilius as an authoritative agronomic source on fruit-trees. It is very likely that the fragment transmitted to us comes from that work. [D. Paniagua; translation L. Battezzato]