BOOK VI, PREFACE 5-7 



profit from cattle more than makes up for a 

 moderate amount of carelessness on the part of their 

 owner." 



It is on this account, Silvinus, that, following the 6 

 precepts of our forefathers, we have taken all the 

 pains which we can to hand on to posterity an account 

 of this department of agriculture also. There are, 

 then, two classes of fourfooted animals, one of which 

 we procure to share our labours, such as the ox, the 

 mule, the horse and the ass, and the other which we 

 keep for our pleasure and the profit which they bring 

 us or for keeping watch, such as the sheep, the goat, 

 the pig and the dog. We will deal first with the class 

 which we employ to take part in our work. There is 7 

 no doubt, as Varro says, that the ox ought to be 

 ranked above all other cattle, especially in Italy, 

 which is believed to have derived its name from this 

 animal, which the Greeks formerly called italos," 

 and in that city " at the founding of whose walls an 

 ox and a cow drew the plough which marked its 

 boundaries ; also because, to go still further back, 

 at Athens in Attica the ox too is said to have been 

 the attendant of Ceres (D emeter) and Triptolemus , and 

 because it has its place in the heavens, among the 

 most brilliant constellations, and, lastly, because it 

 is still man's most hardworking associate in agri- 

 culture, and so great was the respect in which it was 

 held among the ancients that it was equally a capital 

 crime to have killed an ox and to have killed a fellow- 

 citizen. Let us, therefore, begin the task before us 

 with the ox. 



" Cicero, de Off. II, § 89, gives a fourth way of getting rich, 

 by tilling the soil. 

 * Or, more usually, vitulus, calf. * I.e. Rome. 



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