286 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



herself all day long. Birds thus reared fatten more 

 quickly than others, and the mother birds become 

 white. ^ 



At Rome if a pair are handsome, of good colour, 

 without blemish, and of a good breed, they sell 

 quite commonly for 200 sesterces (;Ci 12^.), while 

 a pair of exceptional merit will fetch 1,000 sesterces jb 

 (;^8).^ Lately, when a trader wanted to buy them atH 

 that price from L. Axius, a Roman eques, the latter 

 refused to part with them for less than 400 denarii 

 I (12 guineas). Said Axius: If I could have bought 

 a ready-made pigeon-house just as I bought earth- 

 enware pigeon boxes when I wanted them at my 

 house, I should by this time have gone to buy it 

 and have sent it on to my villa. Just as though, 

 said Pica, there were not at this moment plenty of 

 pigeon-houses in Rome as well as in the country! 

 Or do you ^ consider that people who have dove- 



^ Candidae. One does not see why abundant food and 

 assiduous care of their young should make the parent birds 

 white ! Schneider conjectured grandiores instead of the can- 

 didiores of the ante-Victorian editions. 



^ Singulis milihiLs. Cf. Columella (viii, 8, 9) : "As Marcus 

 Varro, a great authority, assures us, for he states that even 

 in those less luxurious times a pair frequently fetched a 

 thousand sesterces." 



^ Tihe. The reading found in all the MSS. The forms 

 tibe (older tihei)^ sibe, are common in inscriptions of Varro's 

 time. Cf. Lex Rubria, 49 B.C., etc. Quintilian (i, 7, 24) says: 

 Sibe et quase in multorum lihris est; sed an hoc voluerint 

 auctores nescio. T. Livium ita his usum ex Pediano comperi 

 qui et ipse eum sequebatur; haec nos i litterafinimus. 



