Reference edition:

P. Vegeti Renati digestorum artis mulomedicinae libri, edidit Ernestus Lommatzsch, Lipsiae, in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1903, pp. 277-306.

It was traditionally thought that Vegetius wrote only two technical treatises, one on military techniques, the Epitoma rei militaris, and another on veterinary medicine, the Digesta artis mulomedicinalis (or Mulomedicina, the work’s titulus uulgatus in the manuscripts), both in four books. More recently, however, another hypothesis has come to the fore and became dominant: the fourth book of Digesta artis mulomedicinalis was in fact an independent text on bovine illnesses, which was probably entitled De curis boum epitoma (ex diuersis auctoribus).

It seems that the writing of the veterinary work was already in the ordinatio phase (“Mulomedicinae me commentarios ordinante”) when, on account of an epidemic that was causing illness and death among cows, Vegetius’ friends and compatriots requested him to search through earlier technical literature a way to safeguard and restore the health of the animals, making it available in a new work for the public. In response to this request, Vegetius interrupted his work on the Digesta and produced this text, which he himself calls a libellus paruissimus. Just as he did before, with the Epitoma rei militaris and the Digesta artis mulomedicinae, he selectively compiled a set of information from earlier auctores, reducing it to the essentials and omitting all superfluous or trivial elements. He rewrote all this in language that was clear and accessible to the average reader of moderate education (ex diuersis auctoribus enucleata collegi pedestrique sermone in libellum paruissimum contuli). In the preface, Vegetius declares that he would ideally like to be understood by a bubulcus, without thereby earning disdain from scholars (nec scholasticus fastidiat et bubulcus intelligat). 

Today, the manuscript tradition of De curis boum epitoma is not separate from that of the Digesta artis mulomedicinae. This seems to indicate that the works circulated together as a pair from a very early period. Almost twenty manuscripts transmit this little text, always together with the Digesta. It is either presented as the work’s fourth book, or as the third book, placed about in the middle of the second (to be precise, between chapters 64 and 65). This latter position is certainly due to a movement of some quaternions in the hypearchetype of the manuscripts that show this strange disposition. The editio princeps of the text dates from 1528, published in Basel by Johann Faber in quarto. The De curis appears as the third book of the Digesta artis mulomedicinae (revealing that this edition’s model derived from the hypearchetype in which the order of the books was rearranged).

The work — in which Columella’s influence is easily perceptible — contains a programmatic preface and 25 chapters, which are arranged thematically. In part of the manuscript tradition, there are three additional chapters at the end. The first chapter outlines preventative measures, which aim to maintain the animal’s health; the other 23 discuss how to treat various illnesses, which are presented without a clearly defined taxonomic standard. The last chapter gives instructions on how to build a device (a machina, described by Vegetius as a kind of wooden cage), where animals may be placed so that the veterinarian may examine them and administer the necessary medical attentions. (D. Paniagua, tr. C. Belanger)