BOOK XVIII. vm. 39-43 



armies while the senate acted as their baiUff. Then 

 come all those other oracular utterances : ' Whoever 

 buyp what his farm could sujiply liim with is a worth- 

 less fariner : whoever doos by day work that he could 

 do by niglit, except during bad weather, is a bad 

 head of a family, and he who does on working days 

 things that he ought to do on holidays is a worse ; 

 and one who works indoors on a fine day rather than 

 in the field is the worst farmer of all.' I cannot re- 

 frain from adducing one instance from old times 

 which will show that it was customary to bring before 

 the Commons even questions of agriculture, and will 

 exhibit the kind of plea that men of those days 

 used to relv on to defend their conduct. Gaius Furius 

 Chresimus, a hberated slave, was extremely unpopular 

 because he got much larger returns from a rather 

 small farm than the ncighbourhood obtained from 

 very large estates, and he was supposed to be asing 

 magic spells to entice away other people's crops. He 

 was consequently indicted by the curule aedile 

 Spurius Albinus ; and as he was afraid he would be 

 found guiltv, when the time came for the tribes to 

 vote their verdict, he brought all his agricultural 

 implements into court and produced his farm servants, 

 sturdy people and also according to Piso's description 

 well looked after and well clad, his iron tools of 

 excellent make, heavy mattocks, ponderous plough- 

 shares, and well-fed oxen. Then he said : ' These 

 are my magic spells, citizens, and I am not able to 

 exhibit to you or to produce in court my midnight 

 hibours and early risings and my sweat and toil.' 

 This procured his acquittal by a unanimous verdict. 

 The fact is that husbandry depcnds on expenditure 

 of labour, and this is the reason for the saying of our 



217 



