14 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



that you are now the great agricultural ^ expert, as 

 was Stolo before you. 



We must first decide, said Scrofa, whether farm- 

 ing is concerned only with the sowing of land, 

 or with such things also as are brought on to the 



13 land, such as sheep and cattle; for I find that those 

 who have written on agriculture in Phoenician, 

 Greek and Latin, have travelled too far afield. 



It is my opinion, answered Stolo, that we are 

 not bound to imitate them in every particular, 

 and that certain writers have done better who have 

 kept within a narrower boundary and excluded from 

 it everything irrelevant to the subject. Thus the 

 feeding of stock in general, which most people 

 make a branch of farming, seems more the province 



14 of the shepherd than of the farmer; and so the 

 headmen in each case are distinguished by different 

 names, the one being called the bailiff {vilicus)^ the 

 other the flock-master. The vilicus was appointed 

 to cultivate the ground and was named after the 

 villa, as he conveys the produce into the farmhouse, 

 and out of it when it is being sold. Hence the 

 country-folk even to-day say vea for ma (road)^ 



^ Ad te enim rudem esse. Rudis was the wooden foil given 

 to a distinguished gladiator in token of his discharge. Such 

 a gladiator frequently became a lanista (fencing-master). Ad 

 te is perhaps an archaism for apud te, of which I can find no ex- 

 ample. The quotation given by Victorius from Cicero, quod ad 

 fratrem promiserat, has, of course, no bearing on the question. 



^ Vea. The use of e for i (in hiatus) in rustic Latin was 

 common. Vea is found for via in Umbrian. Cf. Lindsay, 

 "The Latin Language," p. 22. 



