146 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



too, that he has not a black or parti-coloured tongue, 

 for those which have beget as a rule either black 

 or parti-coloured lambs. Again, the offspring will 

 prove the good quality of the breed if they be 

 shapely. 



5 In buying, we make^ use of the rights implied in 

 the form adopted. For in it some people make 

 more, others fewer, reservations. Some people, for 

 example, after settling the price per head of the 

 sheep, stipulate that two lambs born after term should 

 be reckoned as one sheep, and that where sheep 

 have lost their teeth through age, two should count 

 for one. For the rest the ancient ''formula" is 

 generally used : after the purchaser has said, Have 

 I bought them for so much? and the seller has re- 

 plied. You have,^ and the purchaser has pledged 

 himself to pay the price, the latter then asks for a 

 warrant, using the words of the time-honoured for- 



6mula: — Do you guarantee that those sheep before 

 our eyes, about which the bargain is being made, are 



^ Quae lex praescripsit. Cicero (De Oratore, i, 58) speaks of 

 the leges Manilianae venalium vendendorum, concerning which 

 Ernesti (Clavis Cicer. article lex) remarks, Quid sunt nisi 

 formulae a Ilio conceptae quibus uti in emendis vendendisque 

 rebus liceret? They were probably not laws in our sense of the 

 word, but forms — like our forms of agreement between land- 

 lord and tenant — which it was prudent alike for buyers and 

 sellers to use. 



^ Et expromisit nummos. Keil places a comma here, Schnei- 

 der a colon. Either makes the sense obscure, whereas if the 

 comma be placed after emptor it is clear — et expromisit nummos 

 emptor^ 



