98 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



called the grain, its little envelope the husk, 

 and the long slender needle (as it were) that pro- 

 jects from the husk is called the beard (as if husk 

 and beard formed the peaked' cap of the grain). 



2 The words '* beard '* and '' grain " are familiar to 

 nearly every one, the word gluma (husk) to but 

 few, for to my knowledge Ennius is the only 

 writer who has used it, in his translation of the 

 books of Euhemerus. The word {gluma) seems to 

 be derived ixovsx gluhere (to strip), because the grain 

 is stripped of its envelope. Accordingly they call 

 by the same name the envelope of the fig which we 

 eat. The beard (arista) is so called because it is 

 the first to become dry {arescere\ the grain (granum) 

 is from gerere (to bear), as corn is sown that the 

 ear may bear not the husk or the beard, but the 

 grain, just as the vine is planted that it may bear 

 grapes, not leaves. Again the spica (ear), which 

 the countryfolk, following an ancient tradition, call 

 speca,^ seems to have been so called from spes (hope), 



3 for they sow in the hope that it will come. An ear 



^ Apex, the cap worn by the flamens and Salii. It was 

 close-fitting, and from its centre a spike of olive wood stood 

 up. Cf. Servius ad Aeneid, viii, 664: Jlamines in Capite hah- 

 ebant pileum in quo erat brevis virga. The gluma, of course, is 

 the cap proper, the arista the spike. It is strange that the 

 obvious meaning of this passage should have escaped Schneider 

 and all the commentators before him. 



^ Speca, a rustic development of the original speica. The 

 short i normally became h in rustic Latin; as vea for via, 

 mateola for matiola. 



