BASSUS

bassus, cassianus, called scholasticus (lawyer), one of the _geoponici_ or writers on agricultural subjects. he lived at the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century a.d. he compiled from earlier writers a collection of agricultural literature (_geoponica_) which was afterwards revised by an unknown editor and published about the year 950, in the reign of constantine porphyrogenitus, to whom the work itself has been ascribed. it contains a full list of the authorities drawn upon, and the subjects treated include agriculture, birds, bees, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, fishes and the like. complete editions.--needham (1704), niclas (1781), beckh (1895); see also gemoll in _berliner studien_, i. (1884); oder in _rheinisches museum_, xlv. (1890), xlviii. (1893), and de raynal in _annuaire de l'assoc. pour l'encouragement des etudes grecques_, viii. (1874).