BOOK VII. VI. 9-vii. 2 



well able to endure toil, active and bold — the sort of 

 man who can make his way without difficulty over 

 rocks and deserts and through briers ; he ought not 

 to follow the herd like keepers of the other kind of 

 cattle," but should usually precede it. The she- 

 goat which leads the herd is a very energetic animal ; 

 the one which so advances ought from time to time to 

 be restrained in order that it may not race out in front 

 but may browse quietly and slowly, so that it may have 

 a large udder and not be lean of body. 



VII. Other kinds of domestic animals, when Diseases of 

 they are afflicted with pestilence, begin by wasting fhek cure. 

 away with disease and weakness, but she-goats are 

 the only animals which, though they are plump 

 and lively, are suddenly cut oif and over-whelmed, 

 as it were, with sudden ruin, the whole herd at 

 a time. This usually occurs as a result of too 

 rich a diet. Therefore, when the plague has still 

 stricken only a few of the herd, the goats should all 

 be bled and given no food for a whole day and be 

 kept shut up in their pens for the four middle hours 

 of the day. If besides this, a languor attacks them, 2 

 they are dosed with a beverage consisting of the 

 roots of reeds and white thorn, with which, after 

 we have carefully bruised them with an iron pestle, 

 we mix rain-water and give this, and nothing else, 

 to the goats to drink. If this does not dispel their 

 sickness, the animals must be sold ; or, if this cannot 

 be managed, they should be slaughtered with the 

 knife and their flesh salted. Then, after an interval, 

 the fitting time will come to replace the flock, but 

 not before the pestilential season, if it was winter, 



<• I.e. oxen and cows and sheep. 



283 



