Delphi Complete Works of Varro

by Marcus Terentius Varro

  [7] To which Appius replied, with a smile: “As I don’t know what a villa is, I should like you to enlighten me, so that I shall not go wrong from lack of foresight; since I want to buy a villa from Marcus Seius near Ostia. For if buildings are not villas unless they contain the ass which you showed me at your place, for which you paid 40,000 sesterces, I’m afraid I shall be buying a ‘Seian’ house instead of a seaside villa. [8] My friend here, Lucius Merula, made me eager to own this house when he told me, after spending several days with Seius, that he had never been entertained in a villa which he liked more; and this in spite of the fact that he saw there no picture or statue of bronze or marble, nor, on the other hand, apparatus for pressing wine, jars for olive oil, or mills.” [9] Axius turned to Merula and asked: “How can that be a villa, if it has neither the furnishings of the city nor the appurtenances of the country?” “Why,” he replied, “you don’t think that place of yours on the bend of the Velinus, which never a painter or fresco-worker has seen, is less a villa than the one in the Rosea which is adorned with all the art of the stucco-worker, and of which you and your ass are joint owners?” [10] When Axius had indicated by a nod that a building which was for farm use only was as much a villa as one that served both purposes, that of farm-house and city residence, and asked what inference he drew from that admission. “Why,” he replied, “if your place in the Rosea is to be commended for its pasturage, and is rightly called a villa because cattle are fed and stabled there, for a like reason that also should have the name in which a large revenue is derived from pasturing. [11] For if you get a revenue from flocks, what does it matter whether they are flocks of sheep or of birds? Why, is the revenue sweeter on your place from oxen which give birth to bees than it is from the bees which are busy at their task in the hives of Seius’s villa? And do you get more from the butcher for boars born on your place there than Seius does from the market-man for the wild boars from his place?” [12] “Well,” replied Axius, “what is there to prevent me from keeping these at my villa at Reate? You don’t think that honey is Sicilian if it is produced on Seius’s place, and Corsican if it is produced at Reate? And that if mast which has to be bought feeds a boar on his place it makes him fat, while that which is had for nothing on my place makes him thin?” Whereupon Appius remarked: “Merula did not say that you could not have husbandry like Seius’s on your place; but I have, with my own eyes, seen that you have not. [13] For there are two kinds of pasturing: one in the fields, which includes cattle-raising, and the other around the farmstead, which includes chickens, pigeons, bees, and the like, which usually feed in the steading; the Carthaginian Mago, Cassius Dionysius, and other writers have left in their books remarks on them, but scattered and unsystematic. These Seius seems to have read, and as a result he gets more revenue from such pasturing out of one villa than others receive from a whole farm.” [14] “You are quite right,” said Merula; “I have seen there large flocks of geese, chickens, pigeons, cranes, and peafowl, not to speak of numbers of dormice, fish, boars, and other game. His book-keeper, a freedman who waited on Varro and used to entertain me when his patron was away from home, told me that he received, because of such husbandry, more than 50,000 sesterces from the villa every year.” When Axius expressed his surprise, I remarked to him: “Doubtless you know my maternal aunt’s place in the Sabine country, at the twenty-fourth milestone from Rome on the Via Salaria?” [15] “Of course,” he replied; “it is my custom to break the journey there at noon in summer, when I am on my way to Reate from the city, and to camp there at night in winter when I am on my way from there to town.” “Well, from the aviary alone which is in that villa, I happen to know that there were sold 5,000 fieldfares, for three denarii apiece, so that that department of the villa in that year brought in sixty thousand sesterces — twice as much as your farm of 200 iugera at Reate brings in.” “What? Sixty?” exclaimed Axius, “Sixty? Sixty? You are joking!” [16] “Sixty,” I repeated. “But to reach such a haul as that you will need a public banquet or somebody’s triumph, such as that of Metellus Scipio at that time, or the club dinners which are now so countless that they make the price of provisions go soaring. If you can’t look for this sum in all other years, your aviary, I hope, will not go bankrupt on you; and if fashions continue as they now are, it will happen only rarely that you miss your reckoning. For how rarely is there a year in which you do not see a banquet or a triumph, or when the clubs do not feast?” “Why,” said he, “in this time of luxury it may fairly be said that there is a banquet every day within the gates of Rome. [17] Was it not Lucius Abuccius, who is, as you know, an unusually learned man (his writings are quite in the manner of Lucilius), who used to remark likewise that his estate near Alba was always beaten in feeding by his steading? for his land brought in less than 10,000, and his steading more than 20,000 sesterces. He also claimed that if he had got a villa near the sea, where he wanted one, he would take in more than 100,000 from the villa. Come, did not Marcus Cato, when he took over the guardianship of Lucullus recently, sell the fish from his ponds for 40,000 sesterces?” [18] “My dear Merula,” said Axius, “take me, I beg, as your pupil in this villa-feeding.” “Certainly,” he replied; “I will begin as soon as you promise the minerval.” “That is satisfactory to me; you may have it to-day, or I’ll pay it time and again from that feeding.” “Humph,” replied Appius, “the first time some geese or peacocks out of your flock die!” “Well,” retorted Axius, “what does it matter if you eat fowls or fish that have died, seeing that you never eat them unless they are dead? But, I pray you,” said he, “lead me into the way of the science of villa-husbandry, and set forth its scope and method.”

  III.

  Merula non gravate, Primum, inquit, dominum scientem esse oportet earum rerum, quae in villa circumve eam ali ac pasci possint, ita ut domino sint fructui ac delectationi. Eius disciplinae genera sunt tria: ornithones, leporaria, piscinae. Nunc ornithonas dico omnium alitum, quae intra parietes villae solent pasci. Leporaria te accipere volo non ea quae tritavi nostri dicebant, ubi soli lepores sint, sed omnia saepta, afficta villae quae sunt et habent inclusa animalia, quae pascantur. Similiter piscinas dico eas, quae in aqua dulci aut salsa inclusos habent pisces ad villam. Harum rerum singula genera minimum in binas species dividi possunt: in prima parte ut sint quae terra modo sint contentae, ut sunt pavones turtures turdi; in altera specie sunt quae non sunt contentae terra solum, sed etiam aquam requirunt, ut sunt anseres querquedulae anates. Sic alterum genus illud venaticum duas habet diversas species, unam, in qua est aper caprea lepus; altera item extra villam quae sunt, ut apes cochleae glires. Tertii generis aquatilis item species duae, partim quod habent pisces in aqua dulci, partim quod in marina. De his sex partibus ad ista tria genera item tria genera artificum paranda, aucupes venatores piscatores, aut ab iis emenda quae tuorum servorum diligentia tuearis in fetura ad partus et nata nutricere saginesque, in macellum ut perveniant. Neque non etiam quaedam adsumenda in villam sine retibus aucupis venatoris piscatoris, ut glires cochleas gallinas. Earum rerum cultura instituta prima ea quae in villa habetur; non enim solum augures Romani ad auspicia primum pararunt pullos, sed etiam patres familiae rure. Secunda, quae macerie ad villam venationis causa cluduntur et propter alvaria; apes enim subter subgrundas ad initio villatico usae tecto. Tertiae piscinae dulces fieri coeptae et e fluminibus captos recepere ad se pisces. Omnibus tribus his generibus sunt bini gradus; superiores, quos frugalitas antique, inferiores, quos luxuria posterior adiecit. Primus enim ille gradus anticus maiorum nostrum erat, in quo essent aviaria duo dumtaxat: in plano cohors, in qua pascebantur gallinae, et earum fructus erat ova et pulli; alter sublimis, in quo erant columbae in turribus aut summa villa. Contra nunc aviaria sunt nomine mutato, quod vocantur ornithones, quae palatum suave domini paravit, ut tecta maiora habeant, quam tum habebant totas villas, in quibus stabulentur turdi ac pavones. Sic in secunda parti ac leporario pater tuus, Axi, praeterquam lepusculum e venatione vidit numquam. Neque enim erat magnum id saeptum, quod nunc, ut habea
nt multos apros ac capreas, complura iugera maceriis concludunt. Non tu, inquit mihi, cum emisti fundum Tusculanum a M. Pisone, in leporario apri fuerunt multi? In tertia parti quis habebat piscinam nisi dulcem et in ea dumtaxat squalos ac mugiles pisces? Quis contra nunc minthon non dicit sua nihil interesse, utrum iis piscibus stagnum habeat plenum an ranis? Non Philippus, cum ad Ummidium hospitem Casini devertisset et ei e tuo flumine lupum piscem formosum apposuisset atque ille gustasset et exspuisset, dixit, “Peream, ni piscem putavi esse”? Sic nostra aetas in quam luxuriam propagavit leporaria, hac piscinas protulit ad mare et in eas pelagios greges piscium revocavit. Non propter has appellati Sergius Orata et Licinius Murena? Quis enim propter nobilitates ignorat piscinas Philippi, Hortensi, Lucullorum? Quare unde velis me incipere, Axi, dic.

  [3.1] Merula began without hesitation: “In the first place, the owner ought to have so clear an idea of those creatures which can be reared or fed in the villa and around it that they may afford him both profit and pleasure. There are three divisions of this science: the aviary, the hare-warren, and the fish-pond. Under the head of aviary I include enclosures for all fowls which are usually reared within the walls of the villa. [2] Under the head of hare-warrens I wish you to understand, not those which our forefathers called by that name — places where there are only hares — but all enclosures which are attached to the villa and keep animals enclosed for feeding. Similarly, by the term fish-pond I mean ponds which keep fish enclosed near the villa, either in fresh or salt water. [3] Each of these divisions may be subdivided into at least two: thus, under the first head, those which are not content with the land only, but need water also, as geese, teal, and ducks. In the same way the second head — that of game — contains its two diverse classes, one under which come the boar, the roe, and the hare, and the second, those which are also outside the villa, such as bees, snails, and dormice. [4] There are likewise two divisions of the third class, the aquatic, inasmuch as fish are kept sometimes in fresh water, sometimes in sea-water. For the three classes formed of these six subdivisions must be secured three classes of craftsmen — fowlers, hunters, fishers — or else you must purchase from these those creatures which you are to preserve by the activity of your own servants during the period of gestation and up to the time of birth, and when they are born to rear and fatten so that they may reach the market. And there are, moreover, certain other creatures which are to be brought into the villa without the use of net by fowler or hunter or fisher, such as dormice, snails, and chickens. [5] The rearing of the last named, chickens, was the first to be attempted within the villa; for not only did Roman soothsayers raise chickens first for their auspices, but also the heads of families in the country. Next came the animals which are kept in an enclosure near the villa for hunting, and hard by it the bee-hives; for from the first bees took advantage of the roof of the villa under the eaves. Thirdly there began to be built fresh-water ponds, to which were carried fish which had been caught from the streams. [6] Each of these three classes has two stages: the earlier, which the frugality of the ancients observed, and the later, which modern luxury has now added. For instance, first came the ancient stage of our ancestors, in which there were simply two aviaries: the barn-yard on the ground in which the hens fed — and their returns were eggs and chickens — and the other above ground, in which were the pigeons, either in cotes or on the roof of the villa. [7] On the other hand, in these days, the aviaries have changed their name and have become ornithones; and those which the dainty palate of the owner has constructed have larger buildings for the sheltering of fieldfares and peafowl than whole villas used to have in those days. [8] So too in the second division, the warren, your father, Axius, never saw any better game from his hunting than a paltry hare. For in his day there was no great preserve, whereas nowadays people enclose many acres within walls, so as to keep numbers of wild boars and roes. When you bought your place near Tusculum from Marcus Piso,” he added, turning to me, “were there not many wild boars in the ‘hare-warren?’ [9] In the third division, who had a fish-pond, except a fresh-water pond, or kept any fish in it except squali or mugiles? On the other hand what young fop in these days will not tell you that he would as soon have his pond full of frogs as of such fish as these? You remember that Philippus once, when he had turned aside to visit his friend Ummidius at Casinum, was served with a fine pike from your river; he tasted it, spat it out, and exclaimed: ‘I’ll be hanged if I didn’t think it was fish!’ [10] So our generation, with the same extravagance with which it extended the boundaries of its warrens, has thrust its fish-ponds to the sea, and has brought into them whole schools of deep-sea fish. Was it not from these that Sergius Orata (‘Goldfish’) and Licinius Murena (‘Lamprey’) got their names? And, indeed, who does not know, on account of their fame, the fish-ponds of Philippus, Hortensius, and the Luculli? So, then, where do you wish me to begin, Axius?”

  IV.

  Ille, Ego vero, inquit, ut aiunt post principia in castris, id est ab his temporibus quam superioribus, quod ex pavonibus fructus capiuntur maiores quam e gallinis. Atque adeo non dissimulabo, quod volo de ornithone primum, quod lucri fecerunt hoc nomen turdi. Sexaginta enim milia Fircellina excande me fecerunt cupiditate.

  Merula, Duo genera sunt, inquit, ornithonis: unum delectationis causa, ut Varro hic fecit noster sub Casino, quod amatores invenit multos; alterum fructus causa, quo genere macellarii et in urbe quidam habent loca clausa et rure, maxime conducta in Sabinis, quod ibi propter agri naturam frequentes apparent turdi. Ex iis tertii generis voluit esse Lucullus coniunctum aviarium, quod fecit in Tusculano, ut in eodem tecto ornithonis inclusum triclinium haberet, ubi delicate cenitaret et alios videret in mazonomo positos coctos, alios volitare circum fenestras captos. Quod inutile invenerunt. Nam non tantum in eo oculos delectant intra fenestras aves volitantes, quantum offendit quod alienus odor opplet nares.

  [4.1] “Personally,” he replied, “if I may use a military figure, I should like you to begin post principia, that is, with the present rather than the former times, as larger returns are had from peafowl than from chickens. And what is more, I will make no secret of the fact that I want to hear first about the ornithon, because those fieldfares have made the word mean ‘gain’; for those sixty thousand sesterces of Fircellia have set me on fire with greed.”

  [2] “There are,” resumed Merula, “two kinds of ornithon; one merely for pleasure, such as our friend Varro has built near Casinum, which has found many admirers, and the other for profit. Of the latter class are the enclosures which those who supply fowl for the market keep, some in the city, others in the country; especially the leased enclosures in the Sabine district, as, because of the nature of the country, large flocks of fieldfares are found there. [3] Lucullus claimed that the aviary which he built on his place near Tusculum, formed by a combination of these two, constituted a third class. Under the same roof he had an aviary and a dining-room, where he could dine luxuriously, and see some birds lying cooked on the dish and others fluttering around the windows of their prison. But they found it unserviceable; for in it the birds fluttering around the windows do not give pleasure to the eyes to the same extent that the disagreeable odour which fills the nostrils gives offence.

  V.

  Sed quod te malle arbitror, Axi, dicam de hoc quod fructus causa faciunt, unde, non ubi, sumuntur pingues turdi. Igitur testudo, aut peristylum tectum tegulis aut rete, fit magna, in qua milia aliquot turdorum ac merularum includere possint, quidam cum eo adiciant praeterea aves alias quoque, quae pingues veneunt care, ut miliariae ac coturnices. In hoc tectum aquam venire oportet per fistulam et eam potius per canales angustas serpere, quae facile extergeri possint (si enim late ibi diffusa aqua, et inquinatur facilius et bibitur inutilius), et ex eis caduca quae abundat per fistulam exire, ne luto aves laborent. Ostium habere humile et angustum et potissimum eius generis, quod cocliam appellant, ut solet esse in cavea, in qua tauri pugnare solent; fenestras raras, per quas non videantur extrinsecus arbores aut aves, quod earum aspectus ac de
siderium marcescere facit volucres inclusas. Tantum locum luminis habere oportet, ut aves videre possint, ubi assidant, ubi cibus, ubi aqua sit. Tectorio tacta esse levi circum ostia ac fenestras, nequa intrare mus aliave quae bestia possit. Circum huius aedifici parietes intrinsecus multos esse palos, ubi aves assidere possint, praeterea perticis inclinatis ex humo ad parietem et in eis transversis gradatim modicis intervallis perticis adnexis ad speciem cancellorum scaenicorum ac theatri. Deorsum in terram esse aquam, quam bibere possint, cibatui offas positas. Eae maxime glomerantur ex ficis et farre mixto. Diebus viginti antequam tollere vult turdos, largius dat cibum, quod plus ponit et farre subtiliore incipit alere. In hoc tecto caveas, quae caveae tabulata habeant aliquot ad perticarum supplementum. Contra hic aviarius, quae mortuae ibi sunt aves, ut domino numerum reddat, solet ibidem servare. Cum opus sunt, ex hoc auiario ut sumantur idoneae, excludantur in minusculum aviarium, quod est coniunctum cum maiore ostio, lumine illustriore, quod seclusorium appellant. Ibi cum eum numerum habet exclusum, quem sumere vult, omnes occidit. Hoc ideo in secluso clam, ne reliqui, si videant, despondeant animum atque alieno tempore venditoris moriantur. Non ut advenae volucres pullos faciunt, in agro ciconiae, in tecto hirundines, sic aut hic aut illic turdi, qui cum sint nomine mares, re vera feminae quoque sunt. Neque id non secutum ut esset in merulis, quae nomine feminino mares quoque sunt. Praeterea volucres cum partim advenae sint, ut hirundines et grues, partim vernaculae, ut gallinae ac columbae, de illo genere sunt turdi adventicio ac quotannis in Italiam trans mare advolant circiter aequinoctium autumnale et eodem revolant ad aequinoctium vernum, et alio tempore, turtures ac coturnices immani numero. Hoc ita fieri apparet in insulis propinquis Pontiis, Palmariae, Pandateriae. Ibi enim in prima volatura cum veniunt, morantur dies paucos requiescendi causa itemque faciunt, cum ex Italia trans mare remeant.