254 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



well as hosts of dormice, fishes, wild boars, and 

 other game. And the freedman who keeps his 

 books — he once waited on Varro and used to enter- 

 tain me when his patron was away — told me that 

 his master used to make out of his villa by means 

 of them more than 50,000 sesterces (;^40o) a year. 

 As Axius seemed amazed, I remarked to him: 

 Doubtless you know my maternal aunt's farm in the 

 Sabine country, which is twenty-four miles from 

 15 Rome on the Via Salaria? Naturally, said he, as in 

 summer when I am going to Reate from Rome I 

 generally break the day there at noon, or on my 

 way back in winter pitch my camp there at night. 

 Well, I added, in this villa the aviary alone turned 

 out to my knowledge five thousand fieldfares worth 

 three denarii (2^-. 6d.) apiece, so that in that year 

 that department of the villa made 60,000 sesterces 

 (;^48o), which is twice ^ as much as your farm of 

 200 iugera (130 acres) makes. What! sixty thousand, 



speaks of having given Hirtius a dinner sine pavone\ Plutarch 

 gives a horrid account of the fattening of cranes : dXXot -^ipavniv 

 ofi^ara d-Koppd-^avTfQ Koi dTroKXeiaavreg iv gkoth Triaivovci k.t.X. 

 (De Esu Carnium, ii, near the beginning). 



1 Bis tantum quam. Is this Latin ? I can, after diligent 

 search, find no instance of this use either in Varro or else- 

 where. The nearest parallel I can discover is in Columella 

 (i, 8, 8), duplicia quam numerus servorum exigit, but this is 

 not so violent as bis tantum quam. I imagine that what was 

 written is ^^y tantH quanta tuus. The scribe, suspecting his 

 predecessor of dittography, would without hesitation write 

 quam tuus. On the other hand it may be a colloquial in- 

 accuracy. 



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