II] CATTLE FARMING: ITS ORIGIN 125 



Greek fleets between Delos and Sicily at the time 

 of the war against the pirates.^ I will here begin. 

 Here we left off.^ 



CHAPTER I 



cattle-farming: its origin, repute, and 

 practice 



Ox the departure of Menates, Cossinius ^ turned to 

 me and said : We shall not let you go until you have 

 finished your exposition of those three matters — you 



' Piratico hello y waged by Pompey in 67 B.C. Varro gained 

 9i corona roslrata {Pliny, N. H., xvl, 4): M. Varrone e piraticis 

 hellis dante Magna Pompeio. 



' Hie intermisimus. These words, found in the archetype in 

 pita! letters, immediately after incipiam hinc, are no doubt 

 c words of the copyists who had been in turn copying a manu- 

 rlpt of this work. They seem mildly facetious. " I will 

 i^in here," said Varro. " Here we left off," said they. Was 

 because, one wonders, the MS. was illegible at this place, 

 r it is obvious that much has been omitted between incipiam 

 ■ 'ic and cum Menates'^ Did they give up in despair here and 

 ' on copying further on, when the MS. was moderately legi- 

 c— though imperfectly so, for we have trouble a few lines 

 f cr with cum poetam sesum, etc. ? 



It seems, at any rate, absurd to suppose with Lachmann 

 it the words are Varro's, who attempts to out -Homer 

 i >mer. 



ILI^* Cossinius. Cicero in two consecutive letters to Atticus 

 ^Bd Att, i, 20, and ii, 1) mentions a L. Cossinius, to whom he 



