2IO VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



on the road. To this difference the practice of cas- 

 tration is principally due, for on the removal of 

 their stones horses become gentler because they 

 have no seed. Castrated horses are called geldings 

 {cantherii)y as castrated pigs are termed hogs 

 i6 {maiales\ and castrated cocks capons (capt). As 

 regards medicine, in the case of horses there are 

 very many symptoms of disease, and methods of 

 treatment, and these the groom should have written 

 down. And so veterinary surgeons are in Greece 

 called by the special name of <V7r/aT/?oi (horse doctors).' 



CHAPTER VIII 



OF MULES AND HINNIES 



I As we were talking thus a freedman came from 

 Menas^ to say that the cakes {liba) were ready and 



^ iTnriaTpoi = veterinariiy those who treated veterina animalia. 

 Veterinus. Festus and Nonius derive from veho^ and trans- 

 late ''beasts of burden," omnia quae vehere quid possunt. 

 Nonius quotes Lucretius, v : 



Et genus omne quod est veterino semine partum. 



^ Menate. Cf. ii, i, i, and for tertium actum below cf. ii, 



I, 12. 



One would like to know what Menas was doing all this 

 time! Was he cooking the liha"^ It seems pretty certain, as 

 this book was written for shepherds, and the interlocutors are 

 pecuarii, and as sacrifice was now to be made with liba, that 



