356 VARRO ON FARMING 



he says : "from Varro's statement that the dialogue took 

 place when he was in command of the fleets between 

 Delos and Sicily we must infer that the place was not in 

 Italy, while from xi, 12, lihertus in urhem veniens ex 

 hortis, it is clear that it was in Rome." The problem may 

 be insoluble, but deserves, I think, more consideration 

 than it has received. 



In the first place, then, it is clear from viii, i, and 

 xi, 12, that the interlocutors were met together to cele- 

 brate a hoHday. Now as Varro was careful, in the first 

 book, to choose a time and place especially appropriate 

 to the topic to be discussed — the Sementivae and the 

 temple of Tellus — (in the third there was no divinity or 

 temple which was connected with his subject) it is a 

 priori probable that he took the same course in the 

 second. As the topic was here cattle, and the speakers 

 were pastores — pecuarii — no other festival could be so 

 appropriate as the Palilia, the great shepherd-festi- 

 val and the birthday of Rome, which was founded by 

 shepherds. And there is direct evidence in the text 

 for this supposition. Luciepus, v, i, after greeting the 

 company, leaves them for a few minutes to '*pay his 

 pence to Pales " (I read Pali his for the Palihus of the 

 archetype, Schneider's Palilibus^ or Keil's Laribus) and 

 the lihertus of Menas (viii, i) says; "the liha are 

 ready, and will the gentlemen come and sacrifice for 

 themselves." But liha were especially characteristic 

 of the bloodless sacrifices to Pales, cf. Ovid, Fasti, iv, 

 774: 



At nos faciamus ad annum 

 Pastorum dominae grandia liba Pali. 



It may be regarded, I think, as practically certain that 







