i6 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



spring of the she-goat — creatures which even 

 astronomy has removed to a place in the sky not 

 far from the bull. 

 i8 I am afraid, Agrius, said Fundanius to him, 

 that what you quote is wide of the mark, for in 

 the laws it is also written *^ certain cattle," and the 

 reason of this is that certain animals, such as the 

 she-goats you mention, are hostile to cultivation 

 and poisonous to plants, for by nibbling at them 

 they ruin all young plants, and not the least, vines 



19 and olive trees. And so on this ground, though from 

 different motives, it was ordained that a victim of 

 the goat kind should be led to the altar of one god, 

 but that at another's no such sacrifice should be 

 performed. The loathing in each case was the same 

 — the one god wishing to see the goat dying, the 

 other not wanting to see him at all. Hence to 

 Father Liber — discoverer of the vine — he-goats were 

 sacrificed to the end that they might suffer death 

 for their misdeeds, but to Minerva they sacrificed 

 nothing of the goat kind because of the olive tree, 

 which is said to become barren if bruised by it, for 



20 the goat's saliva is poisonous to vegetation. At 

 Athens, too, we are told that on this account goats 

 are not allowed to enter the Acropolis, save once a 

 year for the necessary sacrifice,^ lest the olive tree, 

 which they say first sprang up there, be touched by 

 a she-goat. 



No animals, said I, come within the pro- 



^ NecessaHum sacrificium. Probably the yearly sacrifice of 

 300 goats to Artemis in fulfilment of the vow of Miltiades. 



