i82 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



in case they try to get me to pay them over again? 



2 Atticus said to Murrius, Tell your friend, as^ you 

 go, what has been said and what remains to be said, 

 so that he may come primed for his part, while we 

 in the meantime add to the play the second act, the 

 subject of which is the larger cattle. In which, said 

 Vaccius, there is a part for me, as there are cows 

 {vaccae) in it. I will therefore proceed to tell you what 

 knowledge I have gained about cows and oxen, so 

 that if there is any point a man does not know he 

 may learn it from me, and if he does know may 



3 note whether I make any mistakes. Be careful, 

 Vaccius, said I, what you are about, for in the 

 matter of stock-raising the ox should hold the place 

 of honour— particularly in Italy, since that country 

 is supposed to have derived its name from cattle. 

 For ancient Greece, as Timaeus ^ writes, used to call 



the pirates, commanded a detachment of ships. The place 

 then may well have been somewhere in Sicily — possibly at 

 Catana, not far from which was the temple of the Palici. If 

 we read Palicis, then, the passage makes fair sense. 



Lucienus on going says that he will return bringing the 

 whip for the beating which he has deserved through being 

 absent. He goes as a runaway slave to the Palici to claim 

 their protection after paying a few pence for sacrifice, and 

 then to return sure of lenient treatment from his masters. 

 Cf. Vergil, Aeneid, ix, 585 : Pinguis ubi et placahilis ara 

 Palici. 



^ Eadem. An adverb common in Plautus (Trin., 577, etc.) 

 who always uses with it the Future or Future-Perfect. It 

 means " at the same time." 



* Timaeus^ 352-256 B.C. A Greek historian whose principal 



