io8 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



4 The olives go home the same two ways as do 

 grapes; some to be eaten, others to be turned into 

 a liquid, a lubricant for the outside as well as for 

 the inside of the owner's body. And so it follows 

 him to the baths ^ and the gymnasium. The latter 



5 kind of olives, from which oil is made, are generally 

 piled up in heaps (one heap for each day), on 

 shelves, to remain there until they become mod- 

 erately soft, when they are taken down heap by 

 heap in pails,^ in the order in which they were laid 

 down, to the oil vessels and presses. The latter are 

 mill-stones of a hard and rough stone used for 



6 crushing olives. If the olives gathered have re- 

 mained too long in heaps they go soft through the 

 heat, and the oil goes bad. And so if it should be 

 impossible to make your oil in good time, you 

 must air them by frequent stirring. 



7 From the olive we get two products (i) the oil, 

 with which everybody is familar, and (2) amtirca, 

 which (most people are unaware of its usefulness) 

 we may see running from the oil-presses, not only 

 blackening the earth, but, when there is much of it, 

 rendering it barren : whereas this liquid, used in 

 moderation, is of the greatest importance in farm- 



^ Balneas= public baths, balneum being a private bath — 

 so Varro in the Lingua Latina. 



^ Per serias. I have translated the reading of the most 

 ancient MS. as given by Victorius, viz., per sena, taking sena 

 for sina (" pails," as sinum lactis, Columella, vii, 8, 2). Scaliger 

 found always in Nonius senum not sinum^ and the change of 

 i to e in rustic Latin has already been noted. 



