BOOK I, PREFACE 13-15 



to farming, from which pursuit came Quinctius 

 Cincinnatus,* summoned from the plough to the 

 dictatorship to be the deHverer of a beleaguered 

 consul and his army, and then, again laying down the 

 power which he relinquished after victory more 

 hastily than he had assumed it for command, to 

 return to the same bullocks and his small ancestral 

 inheritance of four iugera ; * from which pursuit 14 

 came also GaiuS Fabricius "^ and Curius Dentatus,** 

 the one after his rout of Pyrrhus from the confines 

 of Italy, the other after his conquest of the Sabines, 

 tilling the captured land which they had received 

 in the distribution of seven iugera to a man, with an 

 energy not inferior to the bravery in arms with 

 which they had gained it ; and, not unseasonably 

 to run through individual cases at this time, when I 

 observe that so many other renowned captains of 

 Roman stock were invariably distinguished in this 

 twofold pursuit of either defending or tilling their 

 ancestral or acquired estates, I understand that 

 yesterday's morals and strenuous manner of living 

 are out of tune with our present extravagance and 

 devotion to pleasure. For, even as Marcus Varro * 15 

 complained in the days of our grandfathers, all of us 

 who are heads of families have quit the sickle and 

 the plough and have crept within the city-walls ; 

 and we ply our hands '^ in the circuses and theatres 

 rather than in the grainfields and vineyards ; and 

 we gaze in astonished admiration at the posturings 

 of effeminate males, because they counterfeit by 



"* Consul in 290 and 275 B.C. Famous for his frugality and 

 his conquests over the Samnites, Sabines, Lucanians, and 

 Pyrrhus, he retired to his farm, refusing all share in the booty. 



• Varro, i?.i?. II. Praef. 3. 



^ That is, in applauding the performers. 



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