I 



346 VARRO ON FARMING [bk. 



then go on to his country house/ Whereupon 

 Merula remarked: Some other time, Axius, I will 

 give you the third act * concerning farm-yard feed- 

 ing. They (Merula and Appius) rose, and Axius 

 and I stood looking back at them as they went, for 

 we knew our candidate would come that^ way. 

 Said Axius to me: I am not sorry that Merula 

 has left us at this point, for I know pretty well 

 2 what remains to be said. Thus: there are two sorts 

 of fish-ponds, those of fresh water and those of salt. 



^ Hortos. Varro has the same phrase, discedere in horios, at 

 the end of Book 1 1 : Itaque discedimus ego et Scrofa in horios ad 

 Vitulum. Horti has different meanings: (i) gardens in our 

 sense — Varro (i, 16, 3) speaks of market gardens: suh urhe 

 hortos \ (2) pleasure grounds, whether public or private; (3) 

 the estate of a country gentleman — the villa with its grounds. 

 Entertainments were frequently given in hortis, cf. Cicero 

 (Phil., ii, 6): Hodie non descendit Antonius. Cur? Natalitia 

 dat in hortis. And again, De Officiis, iii, 14: Ad cenam 

 hominem in hortos invitavit in proxivium diem. For dinners in 

 hortis stone triclinia were commonly used. In several of the 

 peristylia of the houses at Pompeii these stone couches are to 

 be seen disposed round a central table. They are very com- 

 fortable. I imagine then that Appius intended to congratulate 

 his candidate (he seems to have been sure that he would be 

 elected !) and then go and dine with him, just as, presumably, 

 Varro and Scrofa went to Vitulus's country place to spend what 

 remained of the holiday. Perhaps Appius's candidate lived on • 

 the slope of the Pincian Hill {collis hortorum) which was less 

 than a mile away from the Villa Publica. 



^ Tertium actuvty i.e., de piscinis. Cf. iii, 3, i. 



3 Et candidaium. I have translated Ursinus's emendation 

 ea, for the et of the Archetype seems pointless, seeing that 

 Appius's candidate was not coming. 



