320 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



And so the cook as a rule does not know whether 

 they are alive or dead when he is cooking them. 



4 There are several varieties of snails: the small 

 white ones brought from near Reate, the big ones 

 from Illyricum, and those of middle size which come 

 from Africa. Not but what they differ in these places 

 both in distribution and size; for instance, very big 

 snails come from Africa, called Solitannae^ which 

 are so big that eighty quadrantes ' (three gallons) 

 can be put into their shells. And similarly in other 

 countries snails though of the same kind differ in 



5 size from one another. When breeding they lay an 

 incalculable number of young which are very small 

 and have a soft shell that hardens as time goes on. 

 When large islands are made in the enclosures, they 

 (the snails) bring you a big haul of pence. They 

 are, I may add, fattened usually in the following 

 way. A jar for them to feed in having holes in it is 

 lined with a mixture of sapa and spelt. It must 

 have these holes that air may get in. The snail is 

 certainly " very tenacious of life. 



^ LXXX qvudrantes. Cf. Pliny, ix, 56: Solitannae quihus 

 nohilitas. Quin et saginam earum commentus est sapa etfarre 

 aliisque generilms ut cochleae quoque altiles ganeam implerent: 

 cuius artis gloria in earn magnitudinem perductae sint utoctoginta 

 quadrantis caperent singularum calices. Auctor est M. Varro. 



"' Enim seems hardly the particle required here. One would 

 have expected tamen, as Varro's words imply a doubt as to 

 whether the snails would die even if there were no holes. In 

 Livy, xxiii, 45 (end) enim has almost this sense : Romam vos 

 expugnaturos si quis duceret, fortes lingua iactahatis ; enim nunc 

 minor res est, etc. 



