Ancient Latin Agricultural Writers, Vol. I

kindness, or the chest of Thomas Fritsch, which I suspected would be of little use to the final result. Whether I conjectured correctly, the readers themselves will judge, to whom we exhibit the entire variety of this manuscript as well, which has become known to us. So much for Cato.

IV. M. TERENTIUS VARRO has now polished agriculture, having been made eloquent by the benefit of the Sasernas (Col. I, 1, 12). This is both because he applied a method to it through subtly established divisions, which he then usually follows accurately (see, for example, 1, 5, 3 & 4; 1, 37, 4; 2, 1, 12; 3, 3, 1 ff.), and because he uses an erudite style of speaking, which everywhere reflects polymathia wide-ranging knowledge, especially Greek literature. Hence, he pursues etymologies (see the Index under this word), so that you may easily recognize the author of the books on the Latin language; he also selects interlocutors and characters, as if for his own play, whose names fit aptly to the matters being discussed. He mixes in quite a few proverbs (see the Index under this word), teaches antiquities in matters and words, laws, histories, and fables here and there in passing; he enlivens his diction almost everywhere with metaphors (see the Index under this word); and he constantly follows a learned and more abstruse style of speaking (see Pleonasmus redundancy, Synesis agreement according to sense rather than strict grammar in the Index). He has reached us in a more complete state than Cato, except for a suspicion that the passage 1, 5, 4 has raised in us, which we indicated there; and toward the end, he seems to have some incurable wounds. Finally, in Pliny 18, 29, f. 70, a passage of Varro is praised that undoubtedly pertains to rustic affairs, but it is not found in our books: Varro is the author of the claim that if, at the setting of the Pleiades original: "si fidiculae occasu" which is the beginning of autumn, a painted grape is consecrated among the vines, the weather will cause less harm.