24 Cato the Censor — Varro. 



He recommends that they be locked up all night, and even that 

 they should be chained, although there were no reason for the slight- 

 est mistrust. We find also, in this volume, various details on domes- 

 tic economy, the method of making hams, sausages. Sec. The au- 

 thor speaks also of diseases of domestic animals, and their cure. 

 But the whole is limited to the use of some whimsical formulae, 

 composed of words which are neither Greek nor Latin, and to 

 which Cato attributed a magic power. He had, however, received 

 the instruction of a Pythagorean, as we have before stated ; but 

 these philosophers themselves, especially after the renovation of the 

 school, were disposed to admit the influence of mysterious words, 

 as well as numbers. 



Some years after the visit of Carneades, the Romans extended 

 their empire to Greece. They were yet at this period so ignorant 

 in respect of the arts, that the consul JMummius, having taken Co- 

 rinth, and ordered the brazen statutes which ornamented this city 

 to be carried away, declared to the persons employed to convey 

 them to Rome, that if any one of them was lost, they should fur-, 

 nish another of the same weight. This barbarism, however, soon 

 wore away when the Romans were finally masters of Greece. 

 Their connection with Athens, in particular, tended to their im- 

 provement. A comparison of the works of Cato with those of 

 V arro, who wrote sixty years after him, will show the rapidity of 

 their progress. 



Marcus Terentius Varro was born in the year 116 B.C. He went 

 to Athens to study with Cicero, whose friend he was, and to whom 

 he dedicated his treatise De Lingua Latina. He was, as well, 

 as Cicero, banished by Antony ; but he found means to escape 

 death, and lived to a good old age. He was considered as the most 

 learned of all the Romans. He was even acquainted with the 

 practice of medicine, and it is said that he stayed a very destruc- 

 tive epidemic which ravaged the island of Corcyra. He wrote, 

 under the form of dialogues, a treatise De re rustical which, in its 

 method and elegance, presents a striking contrast with the ruder 

 production of Cato. The first book of this work treats of agricul- 

 ture in general, and of the nature of soils ; the second, of domestic, 

 animals, their produce, and their diseases : the third, of farm-yard 

 fowls. We find, from this book, that the Romans already reared, 

 peacocks for the table. They had also all our domestic birds, and 

 even thrushes, which we do not keep. They reared in inclosures. 

 many species of quadrupeds, which now live only in the woods,, 

 such as stags, roebucks, wild boars, three kinds of hares, the com- 

 mon hare, the Spanish hare or rabbit, and the lepus variabilis,. 

 whose fur becomes white in winter. They also fattened the dor- 

 mouse, and even snails, which, by a particular kind of food, they ■ 

 raised to a prodigious size. Varro speaks also of the fish-ponds of 

 the Romans, and of the diiferent kinds of fish which they con-; 

 tained. 



