II] OF PIGS 179 



prevent them from being lost when scattered apart 

 in the woods. 



21 Boars are best castrated' when they are a year, 

 in any case not less than six months, old; which 

 done, they change their name, and are called 

 **hogs" [maiales)^ instead of boars. 



Touching the health of swine, I will mention but 

 one fact in passing. If the sow cannot supply milk 

 to the sucking-pigs, you should give them cooked 

 wheat (for, if raw, it causes diarrhoea) or barley 

 steeped in water, until they are three months old. 



22 As to number : ten boars are enough, it is thought, 

 for a hundred sows, though some men employ even 

 fewer. The total number of pigs in a herd varies. 

 I myself consider a hundred to be a good average. 

 Some^ owners prefer bigger herds of 150; others 

 have twice as many; others even more than this. 



' Castrantur. Columella (vii, 1 1 ) describes two methods. 



* Maiales. The ancients derived the word from Maia. 

 Schneider quotes Isidorus : Maialis porcus pinguis quod Deae 

 Maiiae sacrificabatur. Maiia (so Cicero spells the word), or 

 Fauna, or Bona Dea {n yvvaiKua dioq) was ** so modest (Macro- 

 bius, Satur., i, § 27) that she never saw or was seen by a 

 man, and on this account no man enters her temple." But to 

 Maia, considered as the Earth, a pregnant sow was sacrificed. 

 Cicero (in Pis., 9) calls Piso no consul but a matalis\ 



* Aliquot. In the MSS. aliquod no doubt for aliquot 

 In these books there are three places where aliquot is used 



without an accompanying noun : this, where Keil thinks the 

 word should be altered to aliqui, and two others, iii, 7, 5, and 

 iii, 7, 1 1, where he actually does alter the text, on the ground 

 that whereas aliquot is frequently used with a noun in these 

 books, it does not seem to be used without. 



