I30 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



from him by Thyestes/ or like the ram in Colchis 

 in the possession of Aeetes, in quest of whose fleece 

 went the Argonauts of kingly race, so runs the 

 story; or like the golden mala^- that is, in the 

 ancient manner of speech, goats and sheep which 

 were in the garden of the Hesperides in Libya, and 

 were brought thence from Africa to Greece by 

 7 Hercules. For the Greeks called these animals 

 mela from the sound they utter, while our fellow 

 countrymen to express the same sound use much 

 the same word, changing only the initial letter, (for 

 the sound which sheep make seems to be rather 

 he^ than me)^ and speak of sheep when they bleat 

 as making the sound he^ bealare: and this word 

 healare becomes balare by the excision of a letter, as 

 happens in many cases. Again, if sheep and goats, 

 etc., had not been highly esteemed amongst the an- 

 cients, then astrologers in mapping out the heavens 

 would not have given their names to constellations; 

 and this they not only did without hesitation, but 

 many of them even, in their enumeration of the 



^ Thyestem suhduxe. Pacuvius, quoted by Cicero (N. D., 

 iii, 27) : 



Agnum inter pecudes a'Area clarum coma 



Quern cldm (v.l., quondam) Thyestem cUpere ausum ist e 

 rigia. 



2 Aurea mala, *' the golden apples " of the Hesperides; but 

 as firika = either mala or oveSy Varro gives it the latter sense 

 of " sheep." 



^ Sed he sonare videntur. Cf. Cratinus (Dion., 5) : b h' rjXiOios 

 utainp irpofiarov ^rj (irj Xkywv /3a^t^ct. 



