INTRODUCTION

The time and place are chosen with care, and in most cases, the names of the speakers are suggestive of the subject being treated. As a work of art, it is not, one must admit, entirely successful. The language is at times sloppy and slipshod, now jolting along in short, jerky sentences, now dragging through heavy and often ungrammatical periods. The conversations degenerate into lectures, and we look in vain for the graceful ease and urbanity of Cicero or the beautiful clarity of Columella Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, a Roman writer on agriculture.. Yet there is so much dry, sly humor, such sturdy patriotism, such vigorous sense, and here and there such real poetry—in the rough ore at least, such as the description of the life of the bees in Book III—and the little pictures of urban and rural life are so vivid, that one feels a better-written book might be harder to spare. Varro’s style also has a certain flavor and zest of its own that one learns to like; the study of it, beginning with amazement, ends in a sort of love even for its roughness and difficulty, which are so different from the easy fluency of his great friend and rival.

As a work of science, Rerum Rusticarum original: "On Farming." is admittedly of distinguished merit. To its composition, Varro brought great learning, practical experience, and much knowledge of the subject gained firsthand from travel in many countries—and used...