II] OF PIGS 165 



decisively that the praetor Nerva was on that 

 account saluted as ** Imperator," and my grand- 

 father gained his nick-name, being thereafter called 

 *' Scrofa." Neither my great-grandfather, nor any 

 of the Tremellii before him, was ever named Scrofa, 

 and I am one of seven of my gens who were one 

 after another praetors. However, I do not shirk 

 saying what I know about pigs, for I have loved 

 farming from my youth, and the subject, moreover, 

 will have an interest shared in common by you 

 gentlemen and myself, as we are all of us great 

 stock-breeders. For which of us farmers does not 

 keep pigs, and has not heard our fathers say that 

 that man is a lazy spendthrift who buys at the 

 butcher's the flitch ^ hanging up in the larder, in- 

 stead of growing it on his own farm? 



To continue, the man who wants a good herd 

 must firstly choose pigs of the right age, secondly 

 of the right type; that is, having large limbs/ but 



clothes. The searchers withdrew and Tremellius was ever 

 afterwards called "Scrofa." 



' Succidiam. Cf. Varro (L. L., v, 32): Succidia ah suibus 

 ctiedendis; nam id pectis primum occidere coeperunt domini et 

 ut servarent sallere. Cato (Aulus Gellius, xiii, 24) makes use of 

 the expression succidias humanas facere=^^ Ko butcher men," 

 and Cicero (De Senec, xvi) makes Cato say: lam hortum 

 ipsi agricolae succidiam alteram appellant. The farmers them- 

 selves call the garden their second flitch. 



* Cum amplitudine membrorum. Cf. Geoponica (xix, 6): 

 Xttr fijty BffXtiag x^tp^^C coKifxd^nvai tolq irapafitjKfoTepac xai irtpioxijv 

 • X""Tac Kai fuynXai roll aufiaai, iKTui riiQ Kt^aXfjg xai twv ■j^oCuiv. 



Columella (vii, 9, i) says that the boars should be 



