252 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



admitted with a nod that a house which was merely 

 a farm-house was just as much a villa as one which 

 was both a suburban mansion and a farm-house 

 as well, but wanted to know what inference his 

 friend drew from the facts. What inference? said 

 he, why, if we must approve your farm because 

 animals are fed there, and if it is properly called 

 a ''villa," because cattle are fed and stabled in it, 

 the estate of which I speak should with equal reason 

 be called by that name, as great profits are made 



11 in it by feeding animals. For what does it matter 

 whether you make your profit out of sheep or birds? 

 Or do you think the return from the oxen on your 

 farm — which give birth to bees — sweeter than that 

 from the honey-bees which work in the bee-hives 

 at Seius's villa? Do you get more ^ from the pork- 

 butcher for the boar-pigs reared there than Seius 

 does from the man in the market for the wild boars 



12 bred on his estate? But what prevents me, said 

 Axius, from having bees and wild boars on my 

 villa at Reate? Unless indeed the honey made 

 at Seius's is Sicilian,^ that at Reate the bitter 



' Pluris. Probably much less, for the flesh of the wild boar 

 was much esteemed, especially Cullum aprugnum and lumhi 

 aprugni. Cf. Macrobius, ii, 9, where the menu of a cena pon- 

 tijicum is given. It included, amongst many other things, 

 hedge-hogs, raw oysters ^quantum vellent), field-fares, aspar- 

 agus, a fat chicken, oyster patty, boiled moor-fowl, hares, 

 various roast meats, haggis, Picentian rolls, and lumhi aprugni 

 and sinciput aprugnum. 



^ Siculum. The most famous honey came from the bees of 

 Mount Hybla in Sicily. 



