196 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



remarked: I choose as my topic asses/ for my 

 native place is Reate, where the best and largest 

 are found. From the Reatine breed I have bred 

 foals there and have sold them more than once even 

 2 to Arcadians themselves. Well, he who wants to 

 make a really good herd of asses must first take 

 care to choose both males and females of the right ^ 

 age, so that both sexes may be a source of profit for 

 as long as possible; he must have them strong, 

 handsome at every point, stout of limb, of good 

 breed — that is, coming from those places where the 

 best are found. Thus do those who in the Pelopon- 

 nesus buy from Arcadia ^ rather than elsewhere, and 

 in Italy from the Reatine land. For it does not follow, 

 you know, because the best ^ ' floating " * lampreys are 



^ De asinis. Pliny (N. H., vlii, 43) says that they were a 

 source of very great profit : Quaestus ex iis opima praedia ex- 

 superat^ that they were useful for carting, sometimes even for 

 ploughing, but that they were especially valuable as the sires 

 of mules. 



^ Bona aetate. In Plautus frequently bona aetas means 

 youth, and mala aetas old age. Cf. Aulularia, i, 1,4. 



^ Arcadia. Isidore (xii, i) speaks of the asses found there 

 as aiti et magni. 



* Murenae fiutae. Varro (quoted by Macrobius, Sat., iii, 

 15, 7) says that '^ murenae Jiutae in Sicily can be caught by the 

 hand, as owing to their fatness ih^y float on the surface of 

 the water." They are the fivpalvai TrXwrai of Athenaeus. This 

 was the most esteemed kind of lamprey, cf. Col., viii, 17, 8: 

 Item /iautas, quae maxiine probantur, muraenas. They were 

 "preserved" by Roman epicures in artificial fish-ponds into 

 which the sea flowed. Pliny (viii, 55) tells how Hortensius, 



