256 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



but rarely that you are deceived, for how few are 

 the years in which you don't see a solemn banquet, 

 or a triumph, or in which the clubs do not feast. 

 More than that, he answered, modern luxury creates 

 what one may call a daily banquet within the gates 

 17 of Rome. Was' it not, I went on, a frequent state- 

 ment of L. Abuccius, a most cultured gentleman, 

 as you know, whose satires are modelled on those 

 of Lucilius, that his farm in the Alban country 

 was always beaten by his villa and the animals 

 it bred, for the land made less than 10,000 sesterces 

 (;^8o), the villa more than 20,000 (;^i6o)? It was 

 he too who stated that if he could have had his 

 villa in a place of his own choosing near^ the sea 

 he would have made out of it more than 100,000 

 sesterces (;^8oo). And again, quite recently, when 

 M. Cato became guardian to young Lucullus,^ did 



^ Nonne. Here Varro goes on again. 



2 Secundum mare. So that it might be possible to build 

 fish-ponds, which were enormously profitable. 



^ Luculli. This was the son of the well-known L. Lucullus 

 who fought against Mithridates. When L. Lucullus died he left 

 a little boy, and in his will made Cato (Uticensis), the uncle 

 of the boy, his guardian. It is in keeping with Cato's char- 

 acter that one of his first acts was to sell his ward's fish-ponds 

 as being an unnecessary luxury. Columella, at any rate, says 

 that the fish-ponds (not fishes) were sold for 400,000 sesterces 

 (viii, 16, 5). Pliny also says fish-ponds, and makes the price 

 paid still greater, namely, four million sesterces (ix, 54). The 

 words in Varro's text, quadraginta milihus sestertiis, can only 

 mean 40,000 sesterces. Cf. iii, 16, 11 : dena milia sestertia. 

 Macrobius (ii, 11) agrees with Varro (he alludes to this 

 passage) as to the price, but makes Cato the heir ! 



