i64 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



called Scrofa. He, being quaestor to Licinius 

 Nerva/ who was praetor in the province of Mace- 

 donia, had been left in command of the army until 

 the return of the praetor, whereupon the enemy, 

 thinking that they had a chance of victory, began 

 2 to assault the camp. My grandfather, as he urged 

 the soldiers to take up their arms and sally forth 

 against the enemy, said that he would scatter them 

 as a sow scatters ^ young pigs. And scatter them 

 he did, for in that battle he routed the enemy so 



^ A. Ltctnius Nerva was one of the envoys (169 B.C.) sent 

 by the Senate to Macedonia to collect information about the 

 general state of affairs for L. Aemilius Paullus (Consul de- 

 signate) who was about to take the field against King Per- 

 seus (Livy, xliv, 18). 



A. Licinius Nerva is mentioned by Livy (xlv, 44) as one of 

 the six praetors created 167 B.C., a year after the battle of Pydna 

 and the deposition of Perseus — so that Varro's story does not 

 relate to the Macedonian war. Macedon, moreover, did not be- 

 come a Roman province before 148 B.C. In 142 B.C. a pretender 

 to the name of Alexander (a brother of Philip) headed a revolt 

 against the Roman power, which was promptly crushed. Prob- 

 ably Nerva was praetor for the second time in 142 B.C. , and it was 

 in this rising that L. Tremellius gained his cognomen Scrofa. 



2 Disiecturum. Cf. Plautus (True, ii, 2, 13) : lam Hercle 

 ego hie tey viuUer, quasi sus catuloSy pedibus proteram. Macro- 

 bius (Saturn, i, 6) makes Tremellius win his name of Scrofa 

 in a very different and much less creditable way. His slaves 

 had stolen and killed a neighbour's sow. His house was 

 surrounded and restitution of the scrofa demanded. Tre- 

 mellius heard that the sow was hidden under his wife's bed,' 

 she being in bed at the time. He gave permission for his house 

 to be searched, and when the bedroom was reached swore that 

 he had no other sow in the house save that under the bed- 



