270 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



Brundisium and was the first to keep shut up in a 

 pillared hall birds which could be fed through a 

 net thrown over it, but even the great structures on 

 Lucullus's estate at Tusculum. 

 9 You must know, I replied, that near the town of 

 Casinum I have a river flowing through my grounds. 

 It is clear and deep, with stone kerbs. Its breadth 

 is fifty-seven feet, so that bridges are necessary to 

 cross from one part of the villa to the other; its 

 length is 950 feet, and it goes in a straight line from 

 an island in the lower reach of the river, where 

 another stream joins it, to the upper reach where the 

 10 museum ^ (place for study) is situated. Along the 



is the man who Is mentioned by Cicero in his letter to Terentia 

 (Ad Div. xiv, 4) in 58 B.C., who, despising the threats of 

 Clodius, risked his life and fortune by receiving Cicero into his 

 house at Brundisium. But in the text is found M. Laenius 

 Flaccus. 



There is a Strabo mentioned in Ad Atticum, xii, 17, who 

 seems to have been an augur. But cf. Pliny (x, 50): Aviaria 

 primus instituit inclusis omnium generum avibus M. Laelius 

 (Laenius?) Strabo Brundisii equestris ordinis. Ex eo coepimus 

 carcere animalia coercere quibus Naiura caelum assignaverat. 



^ Ubi est Museum. Schneider points out the remarkable 

 likeness of this villa of Varro's to Cicero's at Arpinum (cf. De 

 Legibus, ii, capita i and 3). There the river Fibrenus is divided 

 into two streams by an island, and this island Cicero describes 

 as his museum. Nam. illo loco libentissime soleo uti sive quid 

 m£cum ipse cogito, sive quid aut scribo aut lego. One wonders 

 if Varro's ** museum" were the island itself, and if one should 

 read, ab insula a Museo, etc., and regard Ubi est Museum? as 

 the query of a commentator who did not understand this! In 

 that case huius would refer to the island, and circum would 

 have its proper meaning. Local tradition places **lo studio di 



