Writers on Agriculture (Scriptores Rei Rusticae)

to protect the wool, Varro teaches.

Feriæ denicales: were celebrated when the family was purified on account of a dead man.

Artrare: is aratrare to plow, and it is when crops are plowed after they have been born and grown.

Lotium: is urine.

Tubulus fictilis: a larger pipe made of earthenware.

Fiber: is an animal inhabiting the extreme banks of rivers. The Greeks call this castor, but the Latins call it the Pontic beaver fibrum. Its hair is considered softer than down.

Lentiſcus: is the tree from which mastic is gathered, and it is three-bearing.

Tarentina nux: is named from the softness of its shell, because it is broken with difficulty when touched.

Apyrenum: the ancients doctors properly called the pomegranate sweet. Truly, if we wish to explain the Greek term in Latin from its etymology, it is called apyrenum seedless, in which there is no hardness of seeds, or less than in others.

Lac cyrenaicum: is silphium.

Scylla: is a type of onion.

Petiolus: seems to be a diminutive from pes foot.

Thasiae vines: named from the island of Thasos.

Lageos: the hare-herb.

Præcia: early: those which ripen quickly, as if praecoqua precocious.

Rhetica: from the Raetian peoples of the Alps.

Maræotides: Egyptian. For Mareotis is a part of Egypt.

Psitiae: are also vines.

Gemellæ vines: had their name from clusters that are always twin.

Lanatæ grapes: from the down that covers them.

Rubellæ Nomentanæ: are called so from their reddish matter.

Apianis: bees gave them the name, being especially greedy for them.

Allobrogica and biturica: took their name from the tribe.

Hæluolæ: are distinguished by their color, often varying between purple and black, and for that reason they are called varianae variegated.

Albuelis: a type of vine, as is also the visula.

Murgentinam: others call Pompeian.

Oleagina: for its similarity to an olive.

Streptus: because it turns around with the sun.

Dactylides: named from their finger-like slenderness.

Inerticula: a type of vine, because it is inert and harmless in its strength.

Tripedaneæ: named from the measure. Others read crepidaneas from crepida sandal.

Bumaſtus: from the breast of an ox, a large grape cluster.

Stephaniitis: from a decorative quirk of nature with leaves running between the berries.

Alopecia: named from the tail of foxes.

Nomenclator: was he who called by name and knew the names of citizens and servants; from this comes nomenclatio the naming/nomenclature.