How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land [1 ed.] 2021010078, 2021010079, 9780691211749, 9780691224732

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HOW TO BE A FARMER

ancient wisdom for modern readers For a full list of titles in the series, go to https://­press​.­princeton​.­edu​ /­series​/­ancient​-­wisdom​-­for​-­modern​-­readers​.­ How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land by Many Hands How to Innovate: An Ancient Guide to Creative Thinking by Aristotle How to Tell a Joke: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humor by Marcus Tullius Cicero How to Keep an Open Mind: An Ancient Guide to Thinking Like a Skeptic by Sextus Empiricus How to Be Content: An Ancient Poet’s Guide for an Age of Excess by Horace How to Give: An Ancient Guide to Giving and Receiving by Seneca How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing by Vincent Obsopoeus How to Be a Bad Emperor: An Ancient Guide to Truly Terrible Leaders by Suetonius How to Be a Leader: An Ancient Guide to Wise Leadership by Plutarch How to Think about God: An Ancient Guide for Believers and Nonbelievers by Marcus Tullius Cicero How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management by Seneca How to Think about War: An Ancient Guide to Foreign Policy by Thucydides How to Be F ­ ree: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life by Epictetus How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship by Marcus Tullius Cicero How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life by Seneca

HOW TO BE A FARMER An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land

A Work of Many Hands

Selected, translated, and introduced by M. D. Usher

PRINC E ­T O N U N IV E RSIT Y P RE SS PRIN C E ­T O N AN D O X FO RD

Copyright © 2021 by Prince­ton University Press Prince­ton University Press is committed to the protection of copyright and the intellectual property our authors entrust to us. Copyright promotes the pro­gress and integrity of knowledge. Thank you for supporting ­free speech and the global exchange of ideas by purchasing an authorized edition of this book. If you wish to reproduce or distribute any part of it in any form, please obtain permission. Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to permissions@press​.­princeton​.­edu Published by Prince­ton University Press 41 William Street, Prince­ton, New Jersey 08540 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press​.­princeton​.­edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Usher, M. D. (Mark David), 1966– compiler, translator. Title: How to be a farmer : an ancient guide to life on the land / selected, translated, and introduced by M.D. Usher. Description: Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2021] | Series: Ancient wisdom for modern readers | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021010078 (print) | LCCN 2021010079 (ebook) | ISBN 9780691211749 (hardback ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780691224732 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Classical literature—Translations into English. | Farm life— Greece—Literary collections. | Farm life—Rome—Literary collections. | Country life—Greece—Literary collections. | Country life—Rome— Literary collections. | Agriculture, Ancient—Greece—Literary collections. | Agriculture, Ancient—Rome—Literary collections. | BISAC: PHILOSOPHY / History & Surveys / Ancient & Classical | SELF-HELP /  Personal Growth / Happiness Classification: LCC PA3621 .H58 2021 (print) | LCC PA3621 (ebook) | DDC 880—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010078 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021010079 British Library Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data is available Editorial: Rob Tempio and Matt Rohal Production Editorial: Sara Lerner Text and Jacket Design: Pamela L. Schnitter Production: Erin Suydam Publicity: Maria Whelan and Amy Stewart Copyeditor: Jennifer Harris Jacket Credit: Statue of Ceres / Deposit Photos This book has been composed in Stempel Garamond Printed on acid-­free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of Amer­i­ca 1 ​3 ​5 ​7 ​9 ​10 ​8 ​6 ​4 ​2

It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language. . . . ​ It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. —­Henry David Thoreau, “Reading,” from Walden (1856)

CO NTENTS introduction

ix

1. Keeping Up with the Joneses. Livelihood Is Hard to Come By

1

2. The Benefits of Righ­teous Living

9

3. On Work and Wealth

15

4. Cultivating Good Neighbors. On Thrift

21

5. Procrastination. Good and Bad Days

27

6. A Bucolic Utopia

31

7. The Philosophy of Compost

55

8. Dedication to Mrs. Farmer. Invocation of Rustic Muses

69

9. The Prestige and Antiquity of Rearing Livestock 77 10. Praise for the Countryside

85

11. Reverie of a Would-­Be Farmer

97

12. ­Simple Tastes

105

13. Avoiding the Rat Race

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14. Culture from Agriculture

125

15. The Ideal of Smallholding

135

16. On Barley and Bread-­Making

145

17. Getting and Naming a Dog

153

18. On Asses

157

19. What to Look for in a Ram

163

20. The Joint Venture Farm

169

21. Why Farming Is the Best Job for a Phi­los­o­pher

183

22. A Garden on Lesbos

197

23. The Numinous Landscape

205

24. A Farmer’s Memorial

225

Notes

229

Passages Translated

245

viii

INTRO DU CTI O N ­ eople young and old have been leaving their desk P jobs since at least the mid-­n ineteenth ­century in search of a better life in the country. It seems e­ very generation has its reasons for returning to the land. A recent article in the Washington Post describes “a growing movement of highly educated, ex-­urban, first-­time farmers who are capitalizing on booming consumer demand for local and sustainable foods and who, experts say, could have a broad impact on the food system.”1 This is a phenomenon that we have seen playing itself out ­here in Vermont as well, where my wife and I have been farming for over twenty years. The corresponding new interest in agricultural history and agrarian values among the professional class is fast becoming a rural Re­nais­sance of sorts. While t­ here are modern classics that cater to this interest already—­for example, M. G. Kains’s Five Acres and In­de­pen­dence (1935), Scott and Helen Nearing’s Living the Good Life: How to Live Sanely and Simply in a Troubled

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

World (1954), Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of Amer­i­ca (1977)—it is hoped that an anthology of ancient wisdom on country ­matters ­will broaden the horizon and help deliver us from our blinkered presentism. And yet, the topic of country living could not be more con­temporary, or more urgent. One need look no further than architect Rem Koolhaas’s extravaganza “Countryside, the ­Future,” an interactive installation on display at the Guggenheim ­Museum from February  2020 to February  2021. Koolhaas articulates the urgency of country living in the exhibition’s companion volume, Countryside, A Report, as follows: “In 2020, two blatant tasks stand out. The inevitability of Total Urbanization must be questioned, and the countryside must be rediscovered as a place to resettle, to stay alive; enthusiastic h ­ uman presence must reanimate it with new imagination.”2 How to Be a Farmer pre­sents a small contribution to that new imaginary. As an anthology of excerpts, it possesses an exhibition quality of its own that embraces the necessarily developmental and collective nature of agronomic knowledge and endeavor. (Many hands, as the saying goes, make light work.) A unifying ele­ment is provided for in the choice of se­lections,

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which focus on Greek and Roman attitudes, dispositions, and reflections on what it means to live, work, and think in a landscape. This strikes me as far more in­ter­est­ing and useful to modern readers than practical advice on, for example, how to make a plow, when to hoe your beans, or what va­ri­e­ties of grape to plant in your vineyard. (Do you own a vineyard? I know I d ­ on’t.) That kind of information, which abounds in the ancient sources, while intrinsically fascinating and of historical importance, is dated, locale-­specific, and often outmoded or inaccurate. Attitudes and values, however, as I hope t­ hese se­lections w ­ ill show, are per­sis­tent, instructive, and still relevant ­today. Again, as Koolhaas summarizes his multidimensional vision for reanimating the countryside: amid “new ways of paying, new ways of cultivating, new ways of building, new ways of remembering, new ways of exploring, new ways of acting, . . . ​new ways of owning, . . . ​new ways of protecting, new ways of planting,” and so on, we must rediscover “old ways of contemplating and being.”3 In selecting the excerpts, I aimed for variety and accessibility. ­There is a mixture ­here of ethical precept, local color, historical observation, philosophical perspective, humor, satire, and poetry that



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evokes the beauty and bounty of Nature. I have ­included a few pieces that are not obviously or overtly agronomic (Plato, for example, and Lucretius). But even ­these, I think, ­will pleasantly surprise the reader by their intrinsic suitability and relevance to the overall theme. They certainly contribute to variety, which is, a­ fter all, the spice of life. Think of the result as a Poor Richard’s Almanack for a frenetic, digital age. One need not actually be a farmer to enjoy this book. My own enthusiasm for the subject m ­ atter, however, does stem from hands-on experience with farming. My wife and I produce lamb, eggs, and maple syrup on 125 hardscrabble acres in Vermont and sell our products from the farm to private customers, at the local natu­ ral foods co-op, and ­wholesale to New York and Boston area markets. We also keep a few Scottish Highland c­ attle, tend large gardens, and dote on two lovely donkeys. In a separate book—­Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations: Ancient Guides to Living with Nature (Cambridge, 2020)—­I offer sundry thoughts about the joys, contradictions, and entanglements involved in any farming venture, and suggest more specifically than I can h ­ ere in t­hese pages how the ancient Greeks and Romans still inform the pursuit of

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sustainable, ecologically meaningful lifestyles today. As for the book in your hands: How to Be a Farmer? I say try it and find out for yourself. In your backyard, on your balcony, in an urban allotment, or on a thousand acres. Anyone can do it. All of us used to. Ultimately, I believe, farming is a state of mind, and it is well worth the trou­ble to cultivate that. Note on the Sources and Translations

Some of the works translated ­here are poetic in form. Hesiod, the hymnists, Lucretius, Vergil, and Horace, for example, all wrote in meter. I have not attempted to render t­ hese works metrically in En­ glish, and to capture all the irony, double-­entendres, and wordplay of t­ hese texts was simply not pos­si­ ble, though I have striven to communicate some of their poetic qualities. In any event, at ­every turn I have studiously avoided translationese, while still trying to convey accurately what a given author actually wrote and meant. I hope I have succeeded, and also captured something of each writer’s personality and charm. Unlike in many parts of the world, agricultural field work in ancient Greece and Italy fell largely to men. Doubtless ­women also did their share, but



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the information we have suggests that their primary role consisted of managing the farmstead and h ­ ouse­hold. (See se­lection no. 20.) Our sources reflect this fact, and so ancient writers speak inordinately of farming as a male activity. W ­ omen could take an interest in agronomy, to be sure, and well-­to-do w ­ omen could even own farms of their own (see se­lection no. 8), but the pronouns and adjectives he/him/his proliferate in ­these texts. How far ­we’ve come in this regard can be seen in the fact that, according the most recent US Census of Agriculture taken in 2017, the number of female farmers increased twenty-­seven p ­ ercent over the previous five years.4 In the interest of capturing the excitement for farming among con­ temporary ­women, I have tried to convey gendered expressions as inclusively as pos­si­ble without distorting the original. Fortunately, in my experience, farmers, what­ever their gender, tend to be levelheaded ­people and ­will prob­ably neither be surprised nor stumbled by the bias of the ancient sources, but ­will readily understand that every­t hing said h ­ ere applies as equally to ­women as to men. The ancient institution of slavery is more problematic. The unvarnished truth is that enslaved ­people supplied the bulk of agricultural ­labor, in

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the Roman world especially. One should be quick to add, however, that slavery in ancient Greece and Rome had nothing to do with race, but was a residual of war, of which t­ here was no shortage in antiquity. In spite of the real­ity on the ground, and in some senses ­because of it (see se­lection no. 15), the ideal farmer of the Classical world was always envisaged as a citizen smallholder. Slave and ­free could and did work together on the farm, but the fundamental violation of ­human agency and dignity that slavery represents is a source of unpleasant noise r­ unning in the background of some of ­these texts. In the case of Rome in par­tic­u­lar, the situation represents a failure to refuse to exploit persons and populations as instruments for economic gain, a moral prob­lem that, frankly, the modern world has not properly solved yet ­either. The Greek and Latin texts on which the translations are based are t­hose printed in Harvard’s Loeb Classical Library, with the exception of ­Hesiod, for which I use the edition of M. L. West (Oxford, 1978). Musonius Rufus and the Orphic Hymns do not have a Loeb edition. For Musonius, I used Cora E. Lutz’s text.5 For the Orphic Hymns, I found I still preferred Hermann’s 1805 text to the more recent edition by Quandt. The text for the



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farmer’s epitaph, an inscription, comes from the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Brief introductions to each se­lection provide some context for appreciating the passage in question, though I think the excerpts speak pretty well for themselves. Notes h ­ ere and ­there offer additional information and/or explanation of unfamiliar references or allusions.

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1  Keeping Up with the Joneses. Livelihood Is Hard to Come By (Hesiod, Works & Days 1–46) Hesiod was shepherd-­ poet from cow-­ country (Boeotia, in Greece), who lived around 750 BCE. The Works & Days is a didactic miscellany, in which Hesiod gives folksy and sometimes practical advice about living in a small community or­ga­nized around agricultural exchange. The passage h ­ ere, addressed to his ­ brother Perses (the historicity of whom has been doubted by some scholars), is Hesiod’s opening salvo. In announcing his discovery of a second sort of Strife, one that impels p­ eople t­ oward self-­improvement, Hesiod sets himself apart from Homeric poetry, which deals in the other, destructive kind of Strife that precipitated the Trojan War. Hesiod, in other words, a farmer, pre­sents himself as a poet of peacetime, where the main adversaries one needs to ­ counter are impudence, laziness, wrongful living, and greed.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Μοῦσαι Πιερίηθεν, ἀοιδῇσι κλείουσαι, δεῦτε, Δί᾽ ἐννέπετε σφέτερον πατέρ᾽ ὑμνείουσαι, ὅν τε διὰ βροτοὶ ἄνδρες ὁμῶς ἄφατοί τε φατοί τε ῥητοί τ᾽ ἄρρητοί τε Διὸς μεγάλοιο ἕκητι. 5

ῥέα μὲν γὰρ βριάει, ῥέα δὲ βριάοντα χαλέπτει, ῥεῖα δ᾽ ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀέξει, ῥεῖα δέ τ᾽ ἰθύνει σκολιὸν καὶ ἀγήνορα κάρφει Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης ὃς ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει. κλῦθι ἰδὼν ἀιών τε, δίκῃ δ᾽ ἴθυνε θέμιστας 10 τύνη· ἐγὼ δέ κε Πέρσῃ ἐτήτυμα μυθησαίμην.

οὐκ ἄρα μοῦνον ἔην Ἐρίδων γένος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ γαῖαν εἰσὶ δύω· τὴν μέν κεν ἐπαινήσειε νοήσας, ἡ δ᾽ ἐπιμωμητή· διὰ δ᾽ ἄνδιχα θυμὸν ἔχουσιν. ἡ μὲν γὰρ πόλεμόν τε κακὸν καὶ δῆριν ὀφέλλει, 15 σχετλίη· οὔ τις τήν γε φιλεῖ βροτός, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀνάγκης ἀθανάτων βουλῇσιν Ἔριν τιμῶσι βαρεῖαν. τὴν δ᾽ ἑτέρην προτέρην μὲν ἐγείνατο Νὺξ ἐρεβεννή, θῆκε δέ μιν Κρονίδης ὑψίζυγος, αἰθέρι ναίων γαίης τ᾽ ἐν ῥίζῃσι καὶ ἀνδράσι πολλὸν ἀμείνω·

2

K eeping Up with the Joneses

Muses of Pieria, bestowers of glory in song, come to me now, singing hymns about Zeus, your ­father, at whose behest mortals have fame—or do not; they are spoken of—or not, with no clear distinction, but according to g­ reat Zeus’s w ­ ill. For Zeus easily gives strength. Easily, too, he crushes the strong. With ease he cuts the prominent down to size and raises up the obscure. It is easy for him to straighten the bent and make a mighty man wither and fade—­Zeus, roarer above, who dwells in the highest abodes: Hear me, watch and attend, and with justice keep my pronouncements straight while I attempt to speak the truth h ­ ere to Perses. So, all this time t­ here’s not been just one goddess Strife engendered on Earth, t­ here are two!1 One you’d praise, upon seeing her work. But the other is deserving of blame. Their hearts are completely opposed. For one foments evil war and conflicts and she’s savage. ­T here’s not a person alive that loves her. Of necessity, by the Immortals’ decrees, do p ­ eople give that grievous Strife her due. But the other Strife dark Night birthed first, and the Son of Cronos, seated on high, dwelling in ether, lodged her in the roots of Earth. She’s far better for p ­ eople. For she rouses even the useless man to work in spite



3

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R 20

ἥ τε καὶ ἀπάλαμόν περ ὁμῶς ἐπὶ ἔργον ἔγειρεν. εἰς ἕτερον γάρ τίς τε ἰδὼν ἔργοιο χατίζων πλούσιον, ὃς σπεύδει μὲν ἀρώμεναι ἠδὲ φυτεύειν οἶκόν τ᾽ εὖ θέσθαι, ζηλοῖ δέ τε γείτονα γείτων εἰς ἄφενος σπεύδοντ᾽· ἀγαθὴ δ’ Ἔρις ἥδε βροτοῖσιν.

25

καὶ κεραμεὺς κεραμεῖ κοτέει καὶ τέκτονι τέκτων, καὶ πτωχὸς πτωχῷ φθονέει καὶ ἀοιδὸς ἀοιδῷ.

ὦ Πέρση, σὺ δὲ ταῦτα τεῷ ἐνικάτθεο θυμῷ, μηδέ σ᾽ Ἔρις κακόχαρτος ἀπ᾽ ἔργου θυμὸν ἐρύκοι νείκε᾽ ὀπιπεύοντ᾽ ἀγορῆς ἐπακουὸν ἐόντα. 30 ὤρη γάρ τ᾽ ὀλίγη πέλεται νεικέων τ᾽ ἀγορέων τε, ᾧτινι μὴ βίος ἔνδον ἐπηετανὸς κατάκειται ὡραῖος, τὸν γαῖα φέρει, Δημήτερος ἀκτήν. τοῦ κε κορεσσάμενος νείκεα καὶ δῆριν ὀφέλλοις κτήμασ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλοτρίοις.

35

4

σοὶ δ᾽ οὐκέτι δεύτερον ἔσται ὧδ᾽ ἔρδειν, ἀλλ᾽ αὖθι διακρινώμεθα νεῖκος ἰθείῃσι δίκῃς, αἵ τ᾽ ἐκ Διός εἰσιν ἄρισται. ἤδη μὲν γὰρ κλῆρον ἐδασσάμεθ᾽, ἄλλά τε πολλὰ

K eeping Up with the Joneses

of himself. For when an idle man looks at his neighbor, a rich man, say, who is prompt to plow and sow and to put his ­house in order, he envies him, ­because that neighbor is prompt with a view to wealth. This Strife is good for p ­ eople. And so, as the saying goes, Potter vies with potter, carpenters with their kin; beggar rivals beggar, and bard begrudges bard.

So, you, Perses, take ­these ­matters to heart. Do not let the Strife that delights in evil keep your heart from work while you attend hearings and gawk at disputes at assembly. If a man does not have a good year’s livelihood stored indoors, harvested in due season—­Demeter’s grain, what the Earth brings forth—he has l­ ittle concern for disputes and assemblies. Once ­you’ve sated yourself on that, go right ahead and advance your disputes and conflicts in your quest to acquire another man’s goods. You ­won’t get a second chance to do this, so let’s decide one dispute right ­here on the spot using straight judgments—­the best kind that come from Zeus. For you and I have already divided our plot



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

ἁρπάζων ἐφόρεις μέγα κυδαίνων βασιλῆας δωροφάγους, οἳ τήνδε δίκην ἐθέλουσι δικάσσαι, 40 νήπιοι, οὐδὲ ἴσασιν ὅσῳ πλέον ἥμισυ παντός, οὐδ᾽ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγ᾽ ὄνειαρ. κρύψαντες γὰρ ἔχουσι θεοὶ βίον ἀνθρώποισιν· ῥηιδίως γάρ κεν καὶ ἐπ᾽ ἤματι ἐργάσσαιο ὥστέ σε κεἰς ἐνιαυτὸν ἔχειν καὶ ἀεργὸν ἐόντα· 45 αἶψά κε πηδάλιον μὲν ὑπὲρ καπνοῦ καταθεῖο, ἔργα βοῶν δ᾽ ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἡμιόνων ταλαεργῶν.

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K eeping Up with the Joneses

of land. Yet you keep snatching it up and carry­ing it off with much ­else besides, gratifying the rulers, ­those gift-­eaters, who stand ready to pass judgment on this question. ­T hose fools! They have no idea how much more the half is than the ­whole, or what a banquet t­ here is in mallow and asphodel!2 For the gods have kept livelihood hidden from humankind.3 If that w ­ ere not so, it might be easy to work only a day and have enough for a year—­w ithout even working. You could store your steering-­oar up in the smoke right now,4 and the oxen’s work and that of toiling mules could go to hell.5



7

2  The Benefits of Righ­teous Living (Hesiod, Works & Days 213–247) Perses, as we learned in the previous se­lection, has been meddling in lawsuits and perhaps town politics, leaving his own affairs in disarray. Hesiod warns his b ­ rother in this passage of the consequences of any and all such insolence, and of violations against Lady Justice (who is personified ­here as a goddess). T ­ here is a better path, Hesiod urges—­ that of straight judgments that lead to peace and prosperity in the land. The alternative? Hesiod’s description at the end of this passage recalls the fate of fallen Troy.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

ὦ Πέρση, σὺ δ᾽ ἄκουε Δίκης, μηδ᾽ Ὕβριν ὄφελλε· Ὕβρις γάρ τε κακὴ δειλῷ βροτῷ· οὐδὲ μὲν ἐσθλὸς 215 ῥηιδίως φερέμεν δύναται, βαρύθει δέ θ᾽ ὑπ᾽ αὐτῆς ἐγκύρσας ἄτῃσιν· ὁδὸς δ᾽ ἑτέρηφι παρελθεῖν κρείσσων ἐς τὰ δίκαια· Δίκη δ᾽ ὑπὲρ Ὕβριος ἴσχει ἐς τέλος ἐξελθοῦσα· παθὼν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω· αὐτίκα γὰρ τρέχει Ὅρκος ἅμα σκολιῇσι δίκῃσιν, 220 τῆς δὲ Δίκης ῥόθος ἑλκομένης ᾗ κ᾽ ἄνδρες

ἄγωσιν δωροφάγοι, σκολιῇς δὲ δίκῃς κρίνωσι θέμιστας. ἡ δ᾽ ἕπεται κλαίουσα πόλιν καὶ ἤθεα λαῶν, ἠέρα ἑσσαμένη, κακὸν ἀνθρώποισι φέρουσα οἵ τέ μιν ἐξελάσουσι καὶ οὐκ ἰθεῖαν ἔνειμαν. 225 οἳ δὲ δίκας ξείνοισι καὶ ἐνδήμοισι διδοῦσιν ἰθείας καὶ μή τι παρεκβαίνουσι δικαίου, τοῖσι τέθηλε πόλις, λαοὶ δ᾽ ἀνθέουσιν ἐν αὐτῇ· Εἰρήνη δ᾽ ἀνὰ γῆν κουροτρόφος, οὐδέ ποτ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἀργαλέον πόλεμον τεκμαίρεται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς· 230 οὐδέ ποτ᾽ ἰθυδίκῃσι μετ᾽ ἀνδράσι λιμὸς ὀπηδεῖ οὐδ᾽ ἄτη, θαλίῃς δὲ μεμηλότα ἔργα νέμονται. τοῖσι φέρει μὲν γαῖα πολὺν βίον, οὔρεσι δὲ δρῦς ἄκρη μέν τε φέρει βαλάνους, μέσση δὲ μελίσσας· εἰροπόκοι δ᾽ ὄιες μαλλοῖς καταβεβρίθασι·

10

T he B enefits of R igh­teous L iving

As concerns you, Perses, heed Justice; ­don’t foment Vio­lence. Vio­lence is a bane to the low-­born. Even a nobleman cannot easily endure it but is brought low u ­ nder its weight once he’s met with ruin. The better road to just dealings passes by on the other side. And Justice prevails over Vio­lence once it has reached its end. It is a fool who learns this only ­after suffering it. Oath-­ t aking runs alongside bent judgments posthaste and a ruckus arises—of lady Justice being hauled off. Gift-­eating men lead her on and issue verdicts, their judgments bent. She follows, into the city and into p ­ eople’s abodes, weeping, clothed in mist, carry­ing woe in her train for t­ hose who would drive her out and not ply her straight. But t­ hose who do render their judgments straight, to foreigners and citizens alike, and do not veer from what is just, their city blooms, and ­people come to full flower in it. Peace, a nurse to youths, prevails in their land, and far-­sighted Zeus never allots them grievous war. Nor is Famine ever the companion of straight-­judging men, nor Ruin, but in feasting they give and take a share of the fields they tend. For such ­people, the Earth produces life aplenty: in the mountains, the oak produces acorns on its



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

235 τίκτουσιν δὲ γυναῖκες ἐοικότα τέκνα γονεῦσιν·

θάλλουσιν δ᾽ ἀγαθοῖσι διαμπερές· οὐδ᾽ ἐπὶ νηῶν νίσονται, καρπὸν δὲ φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.

οἷς δ᾽ ὕβρις τε μέμηλε κακὴ καὶ σχέτλια ἔργα, τοῖς δὲ δίκην Κρονίδης τεκμαίρεται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς. 240 πολλάκι καὶ ξύμπασα πόλις κακοῦ ἀνδρὸς ἀπηύρα, ὅστις ἀλιτραίνει καὶ ἀτάσθαλα μηχανάαται. τοῖσιν δ᾽ οὐρανόθεν μέγ᾽ ἐπήγαγε πῆμα Κρονίων, λιμὸν ὁμοῦ καὶ λοιμόν· ἀποφθινύθουσι δὲ λαοί· οὐδὲ γυναῖκες τίκτουσιν, μινύθουσι δὲ οἶκοι 245 Ζηνὸς φραδμοσύνῃσιν Ὀλυμπίου· ἄλλοτε δ᾽ αὖτε ἢ τῶν γε στρατὸν εὐρὺν ἀπώλεσεν ἠ’ ὅ γε τεῖχος ἢ νέας ἐν πόντῳ Κρονίδης ἀποτείνυται αὐτῶν.

12

T he B enefits of R igh­teous L iving

branches, and bees in its trunk; their woolly sheep are weighed down, heavy with fleeces; their wives birth ­children that resemble their parents, and they thrive with good t­ hings all of their days. They do not embark upon ships: rather, the grain-­g iving land produces their crops. But for ­those who practice base vio­lence and wicked deeds, far-­sighted Zeus, son of Kronos, allots punishment. Often an entire city reaps the fruit of a bad man—­t he sort who commits an offense and contrives reckless plans. Upon men like t­ hese, the son of Kronos hurls calamity down from the sky—­famine together with plague—­and the p ­ eople wither away. Wives do not give birth, homesteads dwindle by the designs of Olympian Zeus. Indeed, sometimes the son of Kronos destroys their broad army—or their wall; or he exacts his vengeance on their ships at sea.



13

3  On Work and Wealth (Hesiod, Works & Days 286–319 and 381–382) Hesiod is arguably the first proponent of the dignity of l­abor. But he is also a fierce (and first) advocate for a kind of self-­sufficiency tempered by prudent openness to good advice. Both qualities are desirable attributes in a farmer. Hesiod has already told us in se­lection no. 1 that a livelihood is hard to come by. ­Here he exhorts Perses t­oward the only dignified means to securing that end—­“work at work upon work!”

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

σοὶ δ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση. τὴν μέν τοι κακότητα καὶ ἰλαδὸν ἔστιν ἑλέσθαι ῥηιδίως· λείη μὲν ὁδός, μάλα δ᾽ ἐγγύθι ναίει· τῆς δ᾽ ἀρετῆς ἱδρῶτα θεοὶ προπάροιθεν ἔθηκαν 290 ἀθάνατοι· μακρὸς δὲ καὶ ὄρθιος οἶμος ἐς αὐτὴν καὶ τρηχὺς τὸ πρῶτον· ἐπὴν δ᾽ εἰς ἄκρον ἵκηται, ῥηιδίη δἤπειτα πέλει, χαλεπή περ ἐοῦσα. οὗτος μὲν πανάριστος, ὃς αὐτῷ πάντα νοήσει, φρασσάμενος τά κ᾽ ἔπειτα καὶ ἐς τέλος ᾖσιν ἀμείνω· 295 ἐσθλὸς δ᾽ αὖ καὶ κεῖνος, ὃς εὖ εἰπόντι πίθηται· ὃς δέ κε μήτ᾽ αὐτὸς νοέῃ μήτ᾽ ἄλλου ἀκούων ἐν θυμῷ βάλληται, ὁ δ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἀχρήιος ἀνήρ. ἀλλὰ σύ γ᾽ ἡμετέρης μεμνημένος αἰὲν ἐφετμῆς ἐργάζεο Πέρση, δῖον γένος, ὄφρα σε Λιμὸς 300 ἐχθαίρῃ, φιλέῃ δέ σ᾽ ἐυστέφανος Δημήτηρ αἰδοίη, βιότου δὲ τεὴν πιμπλῆσι καλιήν· Λιμὸς γάρ τοι πάμπαν ἀεργῷ σύμφορος ἀνδρί. τῷ δὲ θεοὶ νεμεσῶσι καὶ ἀνέρες, ὅς κεν ἀεργὸς ζώῃ, κηφήνεσσι κοθούροις εἴκελος ὀργήν, 305 οἵ τε μελισσάων κάματον τρύχουσιν ἀεργοὶ ἔσθοντες· σοὶ δ᾽ ἔργα φίλ᾽ ἔστω μέτρια κοσμεῖν, ὥς κέ τοι ὡραίου βιότου πλήθωσι καλιαί. ἐξ ἔργων δ᾽ ἄνδρες πολύμηλοί τ᾽ ἀφνειοί τε·

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On W ork and W ealth

Perses, you ­great fool, I have something to say to you, and my thinking is sound: Wickedness is easy to get hold of—it comes in bunches. Its road is smooth and it lives close by. But in front of Excellence, the immortal gods have placed the sweat of your brow. Its path is long and steep, and rough, at first. But when you reach the top, then it, too, becomes easy, though it is tough all the same. The best man of all thinks out every­t hing for himself, mulling over what is better ­later on, and in the end. And yet good, too, is he who heeds words well-­spoken by another. But whoever neither thinks for himself nor listens to another when he takes something to heart is a useless person. As for you, Perses, sprung from divine stock, always keep my command in mind and work, so that Famine w ­ ill loathe you, whereas august, fair-­ crowned Demeter w ­ ill love you and fill your barn with the staff of life. For Famine is the constant companion of an idle man. Gods and men both resent the man who lives idly. His attitude smacks of stingless drones who idly waste the bees’ toil, gobbling it down. But as for you, be amenable to arranging your work in due mea­sure, so that your barns w ­ ill be full with the staff of life in its season.



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

καί τ᾽ ἐργαζόμενος πολὺ φίλτερος ἀθανάτοισιν 310 ἔσσεαι ἠδὲ βροτοῖς· μάλα γὰρ στυγέουσιν

ἀεργούς. ἔργον δ᾽ οὐδὲν ὄνειδος, ἀεργίη δέ τ᾽ ὄνειδος· εἰ δέ κεν ἐργάζῃ, τάχα σε ζηλώσει ἀεργὸς πλουτέοντα· πλούτῳ δ᾽ ἀρετὴ καὶ κῦδος ὀπηδεῖ· δαίμονι δ᾽ οἷος ἔῃσθα, τὸ ἐργάζεσθαι ἄμεινον, 315 εἴ κεν ἀπ᾽ ἀλλοτρίων κτεάνων ἀεσίφρονα θυμὸν εἰς ἔργον τρέψας μελετᾷς βίου, ὥς σε κελεύω.

αἰδὼς δ᾽ οὐκ ἀγαθὴ κεχρημένον ἄνδρα κομίζειν, αἰδώς, ἥ τ᾽ ἄνδρας μέγα σίνεται ἠδ᾽ ὀνίνησιν· αἰδώς τοι πρὸς ἀνολβίῃ, θάρσος δὲ πρὸς ὄλβῳ. . . . . σοὶ δ᾽ εἰ πλούτου θυμὸς ἐέλδεται ἐν φρεσὶν ᾗσιν, ὧδ᾽ ἔρδειν, καὶ ἔργον ἐπ᾽ ἔργῳ ἐργάζεσθαι.

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On W ork and W ealth

Work is the source of men having many sheep and becoming wealthy. If you work, ­you’re much dearer to immortals and mortals. For they despise idle men. Work is no reproach, but idleness is a reproach. If, however, you work, an idle man grows instantly jealous of you once ­you’re rich. Excellence and praise accompany wealth. What­ever sort of person you happen to be by lot, to work is better—if, that is, you turn your senseless heart away from other ­people’s possessions t­ oward work and take care for a livelihood, as I bid you to do. Shame’s no good at providing for a man in need—­ shame, who both harms and helps men greatly. Shame, as every­one knows, attends financial disgrace, whereas self-­assuredness attends wealth. So, if the heart in your chest longs for wealth, do as follows: work at work upon work!



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4  Cultivating Good Neighbors. On Thrift (Hesiod, Works & Days 342–369) The prescience of Hesiod extends also to his insights into the importance of social capital. Good fences might make good neighbors, but relationships, like fences, need to be built and maintained with craft and skill. Hesiod offers some time-­proven advice on that topic ­here.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

τὸν φιλέοντ᾽ ἐπὶ δαῖτα καλεῖν, τὸν δ᾽ ἐχθρὸν ἐᾶσαι· τὸν δὲ μάλιστα καλεῖν ὅστις σέθεν ἐγγύθι ναίει· εἰ γάρ τοι καὶ χρῆμ᾽ ἐγχώριον ἄλλο γένηται, 345 γείτονες ἄζωστοι ἔκιον, ζώσαντο δὲ πηοί. πῆμα κακὸς γείτων, ὅσσόν τ᾽ ἀγαθὸς μέγ᾽ ὄνειαρ· ἔμμορέ τοι τιμῆς, ὅς τ᾽ ἔμμορε γείτονος ἐσθλοῦ· οὐδ᾽ ἂν βοῦς ἀπόλοιτ᾽, εἰ μὴ γείτων κακὸς εἴη. εὖ μὲν μετρεῖσθαι παρὰ γείτονος, εὖ δ᾽ ἀποδοῦναι, 350 αὐτῷ τῷ μέτρῳ, καὶ λώιον, αἴ κε δύνηαι, ὡς ἂν χρηίζων καὶ ἐς ὕστερον ἄρκιον εὕρῃς. μὴ κακὰ κερδαίνειν· κακὰ κέρδεα ἶσ᾽ ἄτῃσιν. τὸν φιλέοντα φιλεῖν καὶ τῷ προσιόντι προσεῖναι, καὶ δόμεν ὅς κεν δῷ, καὶ μὴ δόμεν ὅς κεν μὴ δῷ· 355 δώτῃ μέν τις ἔδωκεν, ἀδώτῃ δ᾽ οὔ τις ἔδωκεν· Δὼς ἀγαθή, Ἅρπαξ δὲ κακή, θανάτοιο δότειρα. ὃς μὲν γάρ κεν ἀνὴρ ἐθέλων ὅ γε καὶ μέγα δώῃ, χαίρει τῷ δώρῳ καὶ τέρπεται ὃν κατὰ θυμόν· ὃς δέ κεν αὐτὸς ἕληται ἀναιδείηφι πιθήσας, 360 καί τε σμικρὸν ἐόν, τό γ᾽ ἐπάχνωσεν φίλον ἦτορ. εἰ γάρ κεν καὶ σμικρὸν ἐπὶ σμικρῷ καταθεῖο, καὶ θαμὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἔρδοις, τάχα κεν μέγα καὶ τὸ γένοιτο.

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C ultivating G ood N eighbors

Invite your friend to a feast, but leave your e­ nemy be. Invite in par­tic­u­lar whoever lives near you. For if a farm-­problem arises, neighbors ­will come in their bedclothes, whereas in-­laws would get dressed. A bad neighbor is as much a pain as a good one is a blessing. The man whose portion includes a good neighbor possesses something of value. Not even a cow would be lost—­unless the neighbor’s a bad one. Mea­sure t­ hings out properly from your neighbor, and pay him back properly, too, with the exact measure—and even better, if you can. That way you can find enough should you be in need l­ater on. ­Don’t seek ill-­gotten gain; ill-­gotten gain is on par with ruin. Treat your friend like a friend and go visit your visitor. Give to him who gives. D ­ on’t give to him who d ­ oesn’t give. Anyone would give to a giver. No one gives to a nongiver. Giving is good. Snatching is bad. (It’s a “giver” of death.) For the man who gives willingly, even if he gives much, rejoices in the gift and feels glad in his heart. The man who takes for himself, observing no sense of shame, even if it involves a small amount, hardens the heart. For if you add a ­little to a ­little and do it often, even that amounts to much in no time.



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ὃς δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἐόντι φέρει, ὁ δ᾽ ἀλέξεται αἴθοπα λιμόν· οὐδὲ τό γ᾽ εἰν οἴκῳ κατακείμενον ἀνέρα κήδει· 365 οἴκοι βέλτερον εἶναι, ἐπεὶ βλαβερὸν τὸ θύρηφιν. ἐσθλὸν μὲν παρεόντος ἑλέσθαι, πῆμα δὲ θυμῷ χρηίζειν ἀπεόντος· ἅ σε φράζεσθαι ἄνωγα. ἀρχομένου δὲ πίθου καὶ λήγοντος κορέσασθαι, μεσσόθι φείδεσθαι· δειλὴ δ᾽ ἐν πυθμένι φειδώ.

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C ultivating G ood N eighbors

He who adds to what he has wards off burning hunger. What’s stored at home, at least, d ­ oesn’t worry a man. At home is better; what’s outside is apt to spoil. To take from what you have is fine, though it pains the heart to need what you d ­ on’t have. I urge you to take note of ­these ­things. When a jar is at its beginning or near its end, take your fill. In the m ­ iddle be sparing. To be sparing at the bottom, though, is stingy.



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5  Procrastination. Good and Bad Days (Hesiod, Works & Days 410–413 and 825) Why do t­ oday what you can put off till tomorrow? Hesiod tells us why not in brief compass and also scores a proverbial bon mot about the favorable and unfavorable character of certain days.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R 410 μηδ᾽ ἀναβάλλεσθαι ἔς τ᾽ αὔριον ἔς τε ἔνηφιν·

οὐ γὰρ ἐτωσιοεργὸς ἀνὴρ πίμπλησι καλιὴν οὐδ᾽ ἀναβαλλόμενος· μελέτη δέ τοι ἔργον ὀφέλλει· αἰεὶ δ᾽ ἀμβολιεργὸς ἀνὴρ ἄτῃσι παλαίει. . . . . 825 ἄλλοτε μητρυιὴ πέλει ἡμέρη, ἄλλοτε μήτηρ

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P rocrastination

­ on’t put ­things off till tomorrow or the next day. D For the dilly-­dallier ­doesn’t fill his barn; nor does the procrastinator. Stewardship, by contrast, fosters work. The man who puts off work grapples constantly with ruin. Concerning the character of days: Sometimes a day is a m ­ other, sometimes a stepmother.



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6  A Bucolic Utopia (Plato, Republic 368d–373a) The Republic, Plato’s masterpiece, is a thought-­ experiment in sustainable living, the prob­lem at the heart of which is this: What qualities in individuals and socie­ties make for harmonious, mutually advantageous interactions over time? The solution lies in what Plato calls Justice, and the prescriptions of the Republic (the Guardian class, Philosopher-­ Kings, and so on) are administered as a palliative for a po­liti­cal state of affairs depicted as “ feverish,” sick, and in need of remediation. Before embarking on that curative regimen, however, Plato offers this account in book 2 of the “genuine,” “true,” and “healthy” city, notable for its communitarian values and rustic, vegetarian simplicity, even though Socrates’s interlocutor Glaucon derides it as a city fit only for pigs.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Τὸ ζήτημα ᾧ ἐπιχειροῦμεν οὐ φαῦλον ἀλλ’ ὀξὺ βλέ­ ποντος, ὡς ἐμοὶ φαίνεται. ἐπειδὴ οὖν ἡμεῖς οὐ δεινοί, δοκεῖ μοι, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, τοιαύτην ποιήσασθαι ζήτησιν αὐτοῦ, οἵανπερ ἂν εἰ προσέταξέ τις γράμματα σμικρὰ πόρρωθεν ἀναγνῶναι μὴ πάνυ ὀξὺ βλέπουσιν, ἔπειτά τις ἐνενόησεν, ὅτι τὰ αὐτὰ γράμματα ἔστι που καὶ ἄλ­ λοθι μείζω τε καὶ ἐν μείζονι, ἕρμαιον ἂν ἐφάνη οἶμαι ἐκεῖνα πρῶτον ἀναγνόντας οὕτως ἐπισκοπεῖν τὰ ἐλάττω, εἰ τὰ αὐτὰ ὄντα τυγχάνει.

Πάνυ μὲν οὖν, ἔφη ὁ Ἀδείμαντος· ἀλλὰ τί τοιοῦτον, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐν τῇ περὶ τὸ δίκαιον ζητήσει καθορᾷς; Ἐγώ σοι, ἔφην, ἐρῶ. δικαιοσύνη, φαμέν, ἔστι μὲν ἀνδρὸς ἑνός, ἔστι δέ που καὶ ὅλης πόλεως;

Πάνυ γε, ἦ δ’ ὅς. Οὐκοῦν μεῖζον πόλις ἑνὸς ἀνδρός; Μεῖζον, ἔφη. Ἴσως τοίνυν πλείων ἂν δικαιοσύνη ἐν τῷ μείζονι ἐνείη καὶ ῥᾴων καταμαθεῖν. εἰ οὖν βούλεσθε, πρῶτον ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν ζητήσωμεν ποῖόν τί ἐστιν· ἔπειτα οὕτως ἐπισκεψώμεθα καὶ ἐν ἑνὶ ἑκάστῳ, τὴν τοῦ

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A B ucolic U topia

“The inquiry ­we’re undertaking is no trifle but seems to me to call for someone with sharp eyesight. Since we ourselves are not clever,” I said,1 “I think we should approach our inquiry as if someone had arranged for us to read small letters from a distance and then realized, given our poor eyesight, that the same letters existed elsewhere, larger, and in a larger format. It would seem a stroke of luck, I think, to be able to read ­those big letters first and only then to look at ­whether the smaller ones ­were the same.” “Absolutely,” said Adeimantus. “But what is it you see in this scenario that has to do with our inquiry into what is just?” “I’ll tell you,” I said. “When it comes to justice, ­don’t we say t­ here is a kind pertaining to an individual and a kind that belongs, in a way, to a ­whole city, too?” “Very much so,” he said. “And a city is a bigger ­t hing than one person, right?” “Yes, it is,” he said. “Perhaps, then, justice might be greater in its larger format and easier to comprehend. And so, if you wish, let’s inquire to see first what kind of ­thing justice is in cities. Then let us consider it like-



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

­είζονος ὁμοιότητα ἐν τῇ τοῦ ἐλάττονος ἰδέᾳ μ ἐπισκοποῦντες. “Ἀλλά μοι δοκεῖς, ἔφη, καλῶς λέγειν. Ἆρ’ οὖν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, εἰ γιγνομένην πόλιν θεασαίμεθα λόγῳ, καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτῆς ἴδοιμεν ἂν γιγνο­ μένην καὶ τὴν ἀδικίαν; Τάχ’ ἄν, ἦ δ’ ὅς. Οὐκοῦν γενομένου αὐτοῦ ἐλπὶς εὐπετέστερον ἰδεῖν ὃ ζητοῦμεν; Πολύ γε. Δοκεῖ οὖν χρῆναι ἐπιχειρῆσαι περαίνειν; οἶμαι μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ὀλίγον ἔργον αὐτὸ εἶναι· σκοπεῖτε οὖν. Ἔσκεπται, ἔφη ὁ Ἀδείμαντος· ἀλλὰ μὴ ἄλλως ποίει. Γίγνεται τοίνυν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, πόλις, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, ἐπειδὴ τυγχάνει ἡμῶν ἕκαστος οὐκ αὐτάρκης, ἀλλὰ πολλῶν ἐνδεής· ἢ τίν’ οἴει ἀρχὴν ἄλλην πόλιν οἰκίζειν;

Οὐδεμίαν, ἦ δ’ ὅς. Οὕτω δὴ ἄρα παραλαμβάνων ἄλλος ἄλλον, ἐπ’ ἄλλου, τὸν δ’ ἐπ’ ἄλλου χρείᾳ, πολλῶν δεόμενοι, πολ­ λοὺς εἰς μίαν οἴκησιν ἀγείραντες κοινωνούς τε καὶ βο­ ηθούς, ταύτῃ τῇ συνοικίᾳ ἐθέμεθα πόλιν ὄνομα· ἦ γάρ;

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A B ucolic U topia

wise in each individual by observing similarities of the larger in the form of the smaller.” “Go on then. Your proposition seems good to me,” he said. “And so,” I said, “If we w ­ ere to observe, in theory, a city coming into existence, we’d also see its justice arising as well, and its injustice, yes?” “Yes, prob­ably,” he said. “And once it’s come to be, we can expect to see more readily what ­we’re seeking, right?” “Yes, much more readily.” “Should we then try to embark on this? For I’m thinking it’s no small task . . . ​Think it over now.” “It’s been thought over,” said Adeimantus. “Get on with it, please!” “Alright, then,” I said. “To my way of thinking, a city comes into existence ­because, as individuals, we are not self-­sufficient, but need many ­things. Or do you think ­there is some other source for establishing a city? “No, no other source,” he said. “OK, then. Insofar as one person has recourse to one person, and another to another—­the one ­because of one need, the other for a dif­fer­ent need—­ lacking as they do many t­ hings, they gather many ­people into one settlement to be both partners and



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Πάνυ μὲν οὖν. Μεταδίδωσι δὴ ἄλλος ἄλλῳ, εἴ τι μεταδίδωσιν, ἢ με­ ταλαμβάνει, οἰόμενος αὑτῷ ἄμεινον εἶναι; Πάνυ γε. Ἴθι δή, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, τῷ λόγῳ ἐξ ἀρχῆς ποιῶμεν πόλιν· ποιήσει δὲ αὐτήν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἡ ἡμετέρα χρεία.

Πῶς δ’ οὔ; Ἀλλὰ μὴν πρώτη γε καὶ μεγίστη τῶν χρειῶν ἡ τῆς τροφῆς παρασκευὴ τοῦ εἶναί τε καὶ ζῆν ἕνεκα. Παντάπασί γε. Δευτέρα δὴ οἰκήσεως, τρίτη δὲ ἐσθῆτος καὶ τῶν τοιούτων. Ἔστι ταῦτα. Φέρε δή, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, πόση πόλις ἀρκέσει ἐπὶ το­ σαύτην παρασκευήν; ἄλλο τι γεωργὸς μὲν εἷς, ὁ δὲ οἰκοδόμος, ἄλλος δέ τις ὑφάντης; ἢ καὶ σκυτοτόμον αὐτόσε προσθήσομεν ἤ τιν’ ἄλλον τῶν περὶ τὸ σῶμα θεραπευτήν; Πάνυ γε.

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helpers. 2 To this joint living arrangement, we have given the name ‘city,’ have we not?” “Indeed, we have.” “­People give and take a share one with another, each thinking that it is better for himself that way, no?” “Yes, of course.” “Well let’s continue, then,” I said. “Let’s build our theoretical city from scratch, though I think the need we have for one another ­w ill build it for us.” “How not?” So, the first and greatest need is the provision of food for survival, and to live.” “Entirely so.” “Second is the need for a dwelling, and third, clothes and ­those sorts of t­ hings.” “Correct.” “Right then,” I said. “How large a city w ­ ill suffice for provisions on that scale? T ­ here’ll be one farmer to do his bit, a builder to do his. ­Will some other person be a weaver? And perhaps we ­will add a shoemaker into the mix as well, or someone ­else to take care of the body’s needs?” “Yes.”



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Εἴη δ’ ἂν ἥ γε ἀναγκαιοτάτη πόλις ἐκ τεττάρων ἢ πέντε ἀνδρῶν. Φαίνεται. Τί δὴ οὖν; ἕνα ἕκαστον τούτων δεῖ τὸ αὑτοῦ ἔργον ἅπασι κοινὸν κατατιθέναι, οἷον τὸν γεωργὸν ἕνα ὄντα παρασκευάζειν σιτία τέτταρσιν καὶ τετραπλάσιον χρό­ νον τε καὶ πόνον ἀναλίσκειν ἐπὶ σίτου παρασκευῇ καὶ ἄλλοις κοινωνεῖν, ἢ ἀμελήσαντα ἑαυτῷ μόνον τέταρτον μέρος ποιεῖν τούτου τοῦ σίτου ἐν τετάρτῳ μέρει τοῦ χρόνου, τὰ δὲ τρία, τὸ μὲν ἐπὶ τῇ τῆς οἰκίας παρασκευῇ διατρίβειν, τὸ δὲ ἱματίου, τὸ δὲ ὑποδη­ μάτων, καὶ μὴ ἄλλοις κοινωνοῦντα πράγματα ἔχειν, ἀλλ’ αὐτὸν δι’ αὑτὸν τὰ αὑτοῦ πράττειν;

Καὶ ὁ Ἀδείμαντος ἔφη· Ἀλλ’ ἴσως, ὦ Σώκρατες, οὕτω ῥᾷον ἢ ‘κείνως. Οὐδέν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, μὰ Δία ἄτοπον. ἐννοῶ γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸς εἰπόντος σοῦ, ὅτι πρῶτον μὲν ἡμῶν φύεται ἕκαστος οὐ πάνυ ὅμοιος ἑκάστῳ, ἀλλὰ διαφέρων τὴν φύσιν, ἄλλος ἐπ’ ἄλλου ἔργου πρᾶξιν. ἢ οὐ δοκεῖ σοι;

Ἔμοιγε.

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“Then a city at bare minimum would consist of four or five p ­ eople.” “Seems so.” “Let’s see what follows on this. Each one of ­these ­people would have to perform his own work with a view to it being common to all. The lone farmer, for example, must provide food for four ­people and spend fourfold the time and effort on its provision and share it with the ­others. On the other hand, he could disregard the o ­ thers and produce only his quarter part of this food in a quarter of the time and spend the other three quarters on providing a ­house, clothes, and shoes and have nothing to do with the o ­ thers, but take care himself of his own affairs for his own sake.”3 And Adeimantus said: “Perhaps, Socrates, the first scenario is easier than the second.” “­There’s nothing usual about that, by Zeus,” I said. “For I myself was thinking, when you just spoke, that, first of all, we are each of us not very much like one another. Rather, since we are dif­fer­ ent by nature, each of us is inclined to pursue our own par­tic­u­lar work. ­Don’t you agree?” “I do.”



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Τί δέ; πότερον κάλλιον πράττοι ἄν τις εἷς ὢν πολ­ λὰς τέχνας ἐργαζόμενος, ἢ ὅταν μίαν εἷς; Ὅταν, ἦ δ’ ὅς, εἷς μίαν. Ἀλλὰ μὴν οἶμαι καὶ τόδε δῆλον, ὡς, ἐάν τίς τινος παρῇ ἔργου καιρόν, διόλλυται. Δῆλον γάρ. Οὐ γὰρ οἶμαι ἐθέλει τὸ πραττόμενον τὴν τοῦ πράτ­ τοντος σχολὴν περιμένειν, ἀλλ’ ἀνάγκη τὸν πράττοντα τῷ πραττομένῳ ἐπακολουθεῖν μὴ ἐν παρέργου μέρει. Ἀνάγκη. Ἐκ δὴ τούτων πλείω τε ἕκαστα γίγνεται καὶ κάλλιον καὶ ῥᾷον, ὅταν εἷς ἓν κατὰ φύσιν καὶ ἐν καιρῷ, σχολὴν τῶν ἄλλων ἄγων, πράττῃ.

Παντάπασι μὲν οὖν. Πλειόνων δή, ὦ Ἀδείμαντε, δεῖ πολιτῶν ἢ τεττάρων ἐπὶ τὰς παρασκευὰς ὧν ἐλέγομεν. ὁ γὰρ γεωργός, ὡς ἔοικεν, οὐκ αὐτὸς ποιήσεται ἑαυτῷ τὸ ἄροτρον, εἰ μέλλει καλὸν εἶναι, οὐδὲ σμινύην, οὐδὲ τἆλλα ὄργανα ὅσα περὶ γεωργίαν. οὐδ’ αὖ ὁ οἰκοδόμος· πολλῶν δὲ καὶ τούτῳ δεῖ. ὡσαύτως δὲ ὁ ὑφάντης τε καὶ ὁ σκυτοτόμος.

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“What then? Would a single person perform better work ­doing many jobs or is it better when one person does one job?” “When one person does one job,” he said. “And h ­ ere’s another t­ hing: This much is clear, I think, that if someone misses the right opportunity for some job, it’s ruined.”4 “Yes, that’s clear.” “For I ­don’t think that a job that’s u ­ nder way ­will wait around for a worker’s leisure. The worker must pay close attention to that job and not treat it as by-­work.” “A worker must, yes.” “So, based on t­ hese arguments, t­ hings turn out to be more plentiful, of better quality, and done more easily when one person performs one job according to his natu­ral disposition and at the right moment, leaving be other concerns.” “Absolutely.” “Yet, Adeimantus, we need more than four citizens to provide what we ­were discussing. For the farmer, as seems likely, w ­ ill not make his own plow himself if it’s ­going to be good one, nor his hoe, nor the other equipment used for farming. Same is true in turn of a house-­builder. We need many ­people for that, too. And likewise for the weaver and the shoemaker.



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Ἀληθῆ. Τέκτονες δὴ καὶ χαλκῆς καὶ τοιοῦτοί τινες πολλοὶ δημιουργοί, κοινωνοὶ ἡμῖν τοῦ πολιχνίου γιγνόμενοι, συχνὸν αὐτὸ ποιοῦσιν. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν. Ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἄν πω πάνυ γε μέγα τι εἴη, εἰ αὐτοῖς βου­ κόλους τε καὶ ποιμένας τούς τε ἄλλους νομέας eπρο­ σθεῖμεν, ἵνα οἵ τε γεωργοὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἀροῦν ἔχοιεν βοῦς, οἵ τε οἰκοδόμοι πρὸς τὰς ἀγωγὰς μετὰ τῶν γεωργῶν χρῆ­ σθαι ὑποζυγίοις, ὑφάνται δὲ καὶ σκυτοτόμοι δέρμασίν τε καὶ ἐρίοις. Οὐδέ γε, ἦ δ’ ὅς, σμικρὰ πόλις ἂν εἴη ἔχουσα πάντα ταῦτα. Ἀλλὰ μήν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, κατοικίσαι γε αὐτὴν τὴν πόλιν εἰς τοιοῦτον τόπον οὗ ἐπεισαγωγίμων μὴ δεήσεται, σχεδόν τι ἀδύνατον. Ἀδύνατον γάρ. Προσδεήσει ἄρα ἔτι καὶ ἄλλων, οἳ ἐξ ἄλλης πόλεως αὐτῇ κομιοῦσιν ὧν δεῖται. Δεήσει. Καὶ μὴν κενὸς ἂν ἴῃ ὁ διάκονος, μηδὲν ἄγων ὧν ἐκεῖνοι δέονται παρ’ ὧν ἂν κομίζωνται ὧν ἂν αὐτοῖς χρεία, κενὸς ἄπεισιν. ἦ γάρ;

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“True enough.” “Carpenters and smiths and many vari­ous workers of that kind sharing our l­ ittle city with us ­will make it quite substantial.” “They certainly ­will.” “But I suppose it w ­ ouldn’t be an overly large entity if we ­were to add cowherds, shepherds, and other herdsmen so that the farmers can have oxen for plowing, and so house-­builders, too, along with the farmers, can have draft animals to use for transportation, and weavers can have fleeces and shoe-­ makers leather.” “No, nor yet would it be a small city,” he said, “if it ­were to have all t­ hose ­things.” “But then again,” I said, “to establish the city at all in the sort of location where ­there’s no need for imports would be practically impossible.” “Impossible, yes.” “So ­we’ll need additional ­people, too, who ­will import for our city from another city the ­things it lacks.” “Yes, we w ­ ill.” “And t­ here’s also this point: If a sales-­agent goes empty-­handed, bringing none of the ­things needed by the ­people from whom he’s meant to import



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Δοκεῖ μοι. Δεῖ δὴ τὰ οἴκοι μὴ μόνον ἑαυτοῖς ποιεῖν ἱκανά, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἷα καὶ ὅσα ἐκείνοις ὧν ἂν δέωνται.

Δεῖ γάρ. Πλειόνων δὴ γεωργῶν τε καὶ τῶν ἄλλων δημιουρ­ γῶν δεῖ ἡμῖν τῇ πόλει. Πλειόνων γάρ. Καὶ δὴ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων διακόνων που τῶν τε εἰσαξό­ ντων καὶ ἐξαξόντων ἕκαστα. οὗτοι δέ εἰσιν ἔμποροι· ἦ γάρ; Ναί. Καὶ ἐμπόρων δὴ δεησόμεθα. Πάνυ γε. Καὶ ἐὰν μέν γε κατὰ θάλατταν ἡ ἐμπορία γίγνηται, συχνῶν καὶ ἄλλων προσδεήσεται τῶν ἐπιστημόνων τῆς περὶ τὴν θάλατταν ἐργασίας. Συχνῶν μέντοι. Τί δὲ δή; ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ πόλει πῶς ἀλλήλοις μεταδώ­ σουσιν ὧν ἂν ἕκαστοι ἐργάζωνται; ὧν δὴ ἕνεκα καὶ κοινωνίαν ποιησάμενοι πόλιν ᾠκίσαμεν. Δῆλον δή, ἦ δ’ ὅς, ὅτι πωλοῦντες καὶ ὠνούμενοι.

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t­hings his own ­people need, ­he’ll leave empty-­ handed, right?” “Seems so to me.” “So the citizens need not only to make home-­ goods sufficient for themselves but also to make ­things of a kind and quantity that other p ­ eople need.” “They must indeed.” “So our city ­will need even more farmers, then, and other artisans.” “More, yes.” “And w ­ e’ll need other service-­workers, too, to import and export vari­ous ­t hings. T ­ hese are our merchants, correct?” “Yes.” “So ­we’ll need merchants?” “Yes, very much so.” “And if our commerce is by sea, ­we’ll need plenty of ­others, too, who understand the work of sea-­faring.” “Yes, plenty.” “Now what about this issue: In the city itself, how w ­ ill p ­ eople share with one another the products of their l­ abor? That, ­after all, is why we formed a community and built a city.” “Clearly,’ he said, “by buying and selling.”



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Ἀγορὰ δὴ ἡμῖν καὶ νόμισμα σύμβολον τῆς ἀλλαγῆς ἕνεκα γενήσεται ἐκ τούτου. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν. Ἂν οὖν κομίσας ὁ γεωργὸς εἰς τὴν ἀγοράν τι ὧν ποιεῖ, ἤ τις ἄλλος τῶν δημιουργῶν, μὴ εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον ἥκῃ τοῖς δεομένοις τὰ παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἀλλάξασθαι, ἀργήσει τῆς αὑτοῦ δημιουργίας καθήμενος ἐν ἀγορᾷ; Οὐδαμῶς, ἦ δ’ ὅς, ἀλλὰ εἰσὶν οἳ τοῦτο ὁρῶντες ἑαυ­ τοὺς ἐπὶ τὴν διακονίαν τάττουσιν ταύτην, ἐν μὲν ταῖς ὀρθῶς οἰκουμέναις πόλεσι σχεδόν τι οἱ ἀσθενέστατοι τὰ σώματα καὶ ἀχρεῖοί τι ἄλλο ἔργον πράττειν. αὐτοῦ γὰρ δεῖ μένοντας αὐτοὺς περὶ τὴν ἀγορὰν τὰ μὲν ἀντ’ ἀργυρίου ἀλλάξασθαι τοῖς τι δεομένοις ἀποδόσθαι, τοῖς δὲ ἀντὶ αὖ ἀργυρίου διαλλάττειν ὅσοι τι δέονται πρίασθαι. Αὕτη ἄρα, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ἡ χρεία καπήλων ἡμῖν γένεσιν ἐμποιεῖ τῇ πόλει. ἢ οὐ καπήλους καλοῦμεν τοὺς πρὸς ὠνήν τε καὶ πρᾶσιν διακονοῦντας ἱδρυμένους ἐν ἀγορᾷ, τοὺς δὲ πλανήτας ἐπὶ τὰς πόλεις ἐμπόρους; Πάνυ μὲν οὖν. Ἔτι δή τινες, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, εἰσὶ καὶ ἄλλοι διάκονοι, οἳ ἂν τὰ μὲν τῆς διανοίας μὴ πάνυ ἀξιοκοινώνητοι ὦσιν,

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“And for that ­we’ll have a marketplace, and currency as a token of exchange?” “Absolutely.” “In that case, if a farmer, or some other artisan, ­were to bring some of his products to market and not arrive at the same time as t­ hose needing to exchange goods with him, w ­ ill he have to take a day off work to sit idly by in the marketplace?” “Not at all,” he said. “­There are ­people who have taken note of that prob­lem and placed themselves in this ser­vice. In cities properly established, ­these persons are usually the weakest physically, and useless for ­doing other work. For they must remain ­t here in the marketplace and exchange goods for money with p ­ eople who need to sell something, or again, to exchange goods for money with folks needing to buy something.” “Ah, I see, then,” I said, “it’s this need that’s the source of our city’s retailers. Or do we not call ­‘retailers’ ­those ministers of the marketplace who break their sweats at buying and selling, while t­ hose who wander off to cities to trade we call ‘merchants’?” “Certainly so, yes.” “­T here are some other service-­workers as well, I think, who might not be altogether community-­ worthy in terms of intelligence, but who do possess



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τὴν δὲ τοῦ σώματος ἰσχὺν ἱκανὴν ἐπὶ τοὺς πόνους ἔχω­ σιν· οἳ δὴ πωλοῦντες τὴν τῆς ἰσχύος χρείαν, τὴν τιμὴν ταύτην μισθὸν καλοῦντες, κέκληνται, ὡς ἐγᾦμαι, μι­ σθωτοί· ἦ γάρ; Ναί. [πάνυ μὲν οὖν] Πλήρωμα δὴ πόλεώς εἰσιν, ὡς ἔοικε, καὶ μισθωτοί. Δοκεῖ μοι Ἆρ’ οὖν, ὦ Ἀδείμαντε, ἤδη ἡμῖν ηὔξηται ἡ πόλις, ὥστ’ εἶναι τελέα; Ἴσως. Ποῦ οὖν ἄν ποτε ἐν αὐτῇ εἴη ἥ τε δικαιοσύνη καὶ ἡ ἀδικία; καὶ τίνι ἅμα ἐγγενομένη ὧν ἐσκέμμεθα; Ἐγὼ μέν, ἔφη, οὐκ ἐννοῶ, ὦ Σώκρατες, εἰ μή που ἐν αὐτῶν τούτων χρείᾳ τινὶ τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλους. Ἀλλ’ ἴσως, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, καλῶς λέγεις· καὶ σκεπτέον γε καὶ οὐκ ἀποκνητέον. Πρῶτον οὖν σκεψώμεθα τίνα τρόπον διαιτήσονται οἱ οὕτω παρεσκευασμένοι. ἄλλο τι ἢ σῖτόν τε ποιοῦντες καὶ οἶνον καὶ ἱμάτια καὶ ὑποδήματα; καὶ οἰκοδομησά­ μενοι οἰκίας, θέρους μὲν τὰ πολλὰ γυμνοί τε καὶ ἀνυ­ πόδητοι ἐργάσονται, τοῦ δὲ χειμῶνος ἠμφιεσμένοι τε καὶ ὑποδεδεμένοι ἱκανῶς· θρέψονται δὲ ἐκ μὲν τῶν κριθῶν ἄλφιτα σκευαζόμενοι, ἐκ δὲ τῶν πυρῶν ἄλευρα, τὰ μὲν πέψαντες, τὰ δὲ μάξαντες, μάζας γενναίας καὶ ἄρτους ἐπὶ κάλαμόν τινα παραβαλλόμενοι ἢ φύλλα

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bodily strength to provide hard graft. T ­ hose who sell the needed use of their strength, calling the price for this a ‘wage,’ are called wage-­earners, I think. Am I right?” “Yes.” “And so wage-­earners, it seems, make up the sum total of the city.” “Seems so.” “So then, Adeimantus, has our city now grown to completion?” “Perhaps it has.” “Where, then, might justice and injustice be found in it? In which of t­ hose lines w ­ e’ve been investigating together did they originate?” “I have no idea, Socrates,” he said, “­unless it was somewhere in some need the p ­ eople in question have for one another.” “Perhaps y ­ ou’re right,” I said. “We must take a look and not avoid the question. First, then, let’s look at what kind of life ­people who have been provided for in this fashion w ­ ill lead. W ­ on’t it amount to making food, wine, clothing, and shoes? When they build their h ­ ouses, t­ hey’ll do their work in summer for the most part naked and barefoot,5 and in winter ­they’ll be adequately bundled up with their feet shod. ­They’ll be fed on barley meal that t­hey’ve



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καθαρά, κατακλινέντες ἐπὶ στιβάδων ἐστρωμένων μίλακί τε καὶ μυρρίναις, εὐωχήσονται αὐτοί τε καὶ τὰ παιδία, ἐπιπίνοντες τοῦ οἴνου, ἐστεφανωμένοι καὶ ὑμνοῦντες τοὺς θεούς, ἡδέως συνόντες ἀλλήλοις, οὐχ ὑπὲρ τὴν οὐσίαν ποιούμενοι τοὺς παῖδας, εὐλαβούμε­ νοι πενίαν ἢ πόλεμον.

Καὶ ὁ Γλαύκων ὑπολαβών, Ἄνευ ὄψου, ἔφη, ὡς ἔοι­ κας, ποιεῖς τοὺς ἄνδρας ἑστιωμένους. Ἀληθῆ, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, λέγεις. ἐπελαθόμην ὅτι καὶ ὄψον ἕξουσιν, ἅλας τε δῆλον ὅτι καὶ ἐλάας καὶ τυρόν, καὶ βολβοὺς καὶ λάχανά γε, οἷα δὴ ἐν ἀγροῖς ἑψήματα, ἑψήσονται. καὶ τραγήματά που παραθήσομεν αὐτοῖς τῶν τε σύκων καὶ ἐρεβίνθων καὶ κυάμων, καὶ μύρτα καὶ φηγοὺς σποδιοῦσιν πρὸς τὸ πῦρ, μετρίως ὑποπίνο­ ντες· καὶ οὕτω διάγοντες τὸν βίον ἐν εἰρήνῃ μετὰ ὑγι­ είας, ὡς εἰκός, γηραιοὶ τελευτῶντες ἄλλον τοιοῦτον βίον τοῖς ἐκγόνοις παραδώσουσιν.

Καὶ ὅς, Εἰ δὲ ὑῶν πόλιν, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἔφη, κατε­ σκεύαζες, τί ἂν αὐτὰς ἄλλο ἢ ταῦτα ἐχόρταζες;

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prepared for themselves—­and wheat—­baking some of it and mashing some into excellent loaves and cakes. This ­they’ll spread out to eat on any old patch of reeds or clean leaves. Reclining on beds woven out of bryony and myrtle boughs, they and their ­children ­will feast sumptuously, then sip wine, hymning the gods. They ­will enjoy one another’s com­pany, yet not produce ­children beyond their means, thus on their guards against poverty, or war.”6 Then Glaucon chimed in: “Without cuisine, then, it seems, you’d have your p ­ eople dine.”7 “True enough,” I said. “I neglected to mention that they w ­ ill have cuisine as well. Naturally, ­they’ll have salt, olives, and cheese. And ­they’ll boil up wild and cultivated vegetables for the kinds of soups folks cook in the countryside. I suppose w ­ e’ll add in sweetmeats, too, made out of figs, chickpeas, and beans, and ­they’ll roast myrtle berries and acorns in the coals near the fire, imbibing in moderation. And living life in this manner in peace and with good health (so it would seem), they w ­ ill reach old age and pass on to their progeny a life similar to the one they themselves enjoyed.” “If you ­were founding a city for pigs,” Glaucon added, “what e­ lse would you fodder them on but ­those foods!”



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Ἀλλὰ πῶς χρή, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ὦ Γλαύκων; Ἅπερ νομίζεται, ἔφη· ἐπί τε κλινῶν κατακεῖσθαι οἶμαι τοὺς μέλλοντας μὴ ταλαιπωρεῖσθαι, καὶ ἀπὸ τρα­ πεζῶν δειπνεῖν, καὶ ὄψα ἅπερ καὶ οἱ νῦν ἔχουσι καὶ τραγήματα. Εἶεν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ· μανθάνω. οὐ πόλιν, ὡς ἔοικε, σκο­ ποῦμεν μόνον ὅπως γίγνεται, ἀλλὰ καὶ τρυφῶσαν πόλιν. ἴσως οὖν οὐδὲ κακῶς ἔχει· σκοποῦντες γὰρ καὶ τοιαύτην τάχ’ ἂν κατίδοιμεν τήν τε δικαιοσύνην καὶ ἀδικίαν ὅπῃ ποτὲ ταῖς πόλεσιν ἐμφύονται. ἡ μὲν οὖν ἀληθινὴ πόλις δοκεῖ μοι εἶναι ἣν διεληλύθαμεν, ὥσπερ ὑγιής τις· εἰ δ’ αὖ βούλεσθε, καὶ φλεγμαίνουσαν πόλιν θεωρήσωμεν· οὐδὲν ἀποκωλύει.

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“Well, how should I have them dine, Glaucon?” I said. “In the usual way,” he said. “I think that to avoid hardship, they should recline on couches and dine at t­ ables on the foods and desserts t­oday’s ­people have.” “Ah,” I said, “I understand: W ­ e’re not investigating how any old city comes to be, but a city that’s given to luxury. But perhaps that’s not a bad ­thing. For by investigating one like that, too, we might catch sight of how justice and injustice grow up in cities generally. In my opinion, though, the true city is the one we just described, and it’s healthy to boot. But if you wish, let’s look, too, at the feverish city. ­There’s nothing to prevent that.”



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7  The Philosophy of Compost (Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 1.146–264) Lucretius was an adherent of the Epicurean school of philosophy, whose premise was that the universe is composed entirely of tiny invisible particles called atoms. The cornerstone of Epicurean physics (upon which its ethics w ­ ere also based) is the belief sprung from empirical demonstration that “nothing comes from nothing or returns to nothing.” Earth’s life cycles, Lucretius argues in this extract from his poem De Rerum Natura (“On the Nature of T ­ hings”), provide ample proof of this postulate. For Lucretius, Nature is a closed-­loop system of symbiotic interrelationships among plants, animals, and ­humans in which nothing is ultimately lost in the pro­cess of organic transfer. In fact, what Lucretius describes ­here is, in the language of modern science, an early adumbration of the Law of the Conservation of Energy as it unfolds in photosynthesis and other biogeochemical systems—­processes that an ordinary farmer, he says, sees transpiring ­every day.

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Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest non radii solis neque lucida tela diei discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque. principium cuius hinc nobis exordia sumet, 150 nullam rem e nilo gigni divinitus umquam. quippe ita formido mortalis continet omnis, quod multa in terris fieri caeloque tuentur quorum operum causas nulla ratione videre possunt, ac fieri divino numine rentur. 155 quas ob res ubi viderimus nil posse creari de nilo, tum quod sequimur iam rectius inde perspiciemus, et unde queat res quaeque creari et quo quaeque modo fiant opera sine divom.

Nam si de nilo fierent, ex omnibu’ rebus 160 omne genus nasci posset, nil semine egeret.

e mare primum homines, e terra posset oriri squamigerum genus et volucres erumpere caelo; armenta atque aliae pecudes, genus omne ferarum, incerto partu culta ac deserta tenerent; 165 nec fructus idem arboribus constare solerent, sed mutarentur: ferre omnes omnia possent. quippe ubi non essent genitalia corpora cuique,

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The mind’s darkness and dread must be dispelled—­ not by the sun’s rays or the bright darts of day, but by the outward form and inward laws of Nature, whose premise takes its cue from this: Nothing arises from nothing by divine agency. Ever. Of course, as h ­ uman beings, fear grips all of us in this regard, since we observe many phenomena in the sky and on the earth, the results of which we see, but whose ­causes we ­can’t understand, and so we infer that they arise by divine power. However, in spite of this state of affairs, once we realize that nothing can be created out of nothing, then we ­w ill accurately perceive our objective—­namely, that t­ here is a source from which creation is pos­ si­ble, and that it can happen without the gods’ interventions. For if ­t hings ­were to arise from nothing, anything could arise from anything. Nothing would need a seed.1 First off, p ­ eople could arise from the sea 2 and species of scaly fish from the earth; birds would simply erupt from the sky; ­cattle and other livestock, ­every kind of wild animal, too, would inhabit deserts and/or cultivated land alike b ­ ecause their births would be not be fixed to a specific environment. Nor would the same fruit cleave consistently to the same tree but would be changeable:



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qui posset mater rebus consistere certa? at nunc seminibus quia certis quaeque creantur, 170 inde enascitur atque oras in luminis exit materies ubi inest cuiusque et corpora prima; atque hac re nequeunt ex omnibus omnia gigni, quod certis in rebus inest secreta facultas. Praeterea cur vere rosam, frumenta calore, 175 vites autumno fundi suadente videmus, si non, certa suo quia tempore semina rerum cum confluxerunt, patefit quodcumque creatur, dum tempestates adsunt et vivida tellus tuto res teneras effert in luminis oras?

180 quod si de nilo fierent, subito exorerentur

incerto spatio atque alienis partibus anni, quippe ubi nulla forent primordia quae genitali concilio possent arceri tempore iniquo. Nec porro augendis rebus spatio foret ususs 185 seminis ad coitum, si e nilo crescere possent; nam fierent iuvenes subito ex infantibu’ parvis, e terraque exorta repente arbusta salirent.

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All could bear all. For in cases where t­ here are no productive bodies par­tic­u ­lar to each t­hing, how could t­ here be a fixed and stable m ­ other for ­things? Rather, as ­things are, every­thing is created from its own par­t ic­u ­lar seeds. The material of each ­t hing and its primary bodies comprise the source from which something is born and makes its way out to the regions of light. Therefore, it is impossible that every­thing arises from every­thing, since the power that is inherent in par­tic­u­lar ­things is distinct. Why ­else, then, do we see the r­ ose bloom in spring, wheat in hot weather, and grapes when autumn coaxes them to ripen, if it w ­ ere not b ­ ecause each created ­t hing reveals itself ­a fter the fixed seeds of t­ hings have mixed together in their own time; then, when the right season is upon us, the life-­g iving earth pushes up soft new growth safely into the regions of light. If ­things came from nothing, you see, ­things would pop up at indiscriminate spates of time and in the wrong parts of the year. Primordial ele­ments would not be prevented by an unfavorable season from joining in procreative ­union. Nor, moreover, would t­here be any need for intervals of time for ­things to grow so that seeds can comingle—if, that is, they could in fact grow from nothing. Small



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quorum nil fieri manifestum est, omnia quando paulatim crescunt, ut par est, semine certo, 190 crescentesque genus servant; ut noscere possis quidque sua de materie grandescere alique. Huc accedit uti sine certis imbribus anni laetificos nequeat fetus submittere tellus nec porro secreta cibo natura animantum 195 propagare genus possit vitamque tueri; ut potius multis communia corpora rebus multa putes esse, ut verbis elementa videmus, quam sine principiis ullam rem existere posse. Denique cur homines tantos natura parare 200 non potuit, pedibus qui pontum per vada possent transire et magnos manibus divellere montis multaque vivendo vitalia vincere saecla, si non materies quia rebus reddita certast gignundis e qua constat quid possit oriri?

205 nil igitur fieri de nilo posse fatendumst,

semine quando opus est rebus quo quaeque creatae

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infants would suddenly become young men, and trees would spring up from the ground with a sudden burst of growth. But it is obvious that none of ­t hese ­t hings actually happens. Every­t hing grows ­little by l­ittle, as it should, from a par­tic­u­lar seed, and, in growing, it preserves its kind. You may infer from this that each t­hing grows up from its own par­tic­u­lar material. Another point to make is that without fixed annual rains, the earth cannot yield its offspring to cheer our hearts. Nor is it the nature of t­hings that living beings, if kept from food, can produce their own kind and ensure the continuation of life. You might more readily believe that many bodies are shared by many t­ hings, as we see with letters in words, than that anything can come into existence without primordial ­ele­ments. Indeed, why ­couldn’t Nature produce ­people so large as to cross the sea on foot as if it ­were a shoal, or rend ­great mountain ranges with their hands, and to conquer many ages of life in their lifetimes, if it w ­ ere not b ­ ecause par­tic­u­lar material is assigned for the generation of t­hings? From this material is determined what can come to be. It must be admitted, then, that nothing can arise from nothing, since every­thing requires seed—­the



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aeris in teneras possint proferrier auras. Postremo quoniam incultis praestare videmus culta loca et manibus melioris reddere fetus, 210 esse videlicet in terris primordia rerum quae nos, fecundas vertentes vomere glebas terraique solum subigentes, cimus ad ortus. quod si nulla forent, nostro sine quaeque labore sponte sua multo fieri meliora videres.

215 Huc accedit uti quidque in sua corpora rursum

dissoluat natura neque ad nilum interemat res. nam si quid mortale e cunctis partibus esset, ex oculis res quaeque repente erepta periret; nulla vi foret usus enim quae partibus eius 220 discidium parere et nexus exsolvere posset. quod nunc, aeterno quia constant semine quaeque, donec vis obiit quae res diverberet ictu aut intus penetret per inania dissoluatque, nullius exitium patitur natura videri. Praeterea quaecumque vetustate amovet aetas, 226 si penitus peremit consumens materiem omnem, unde animale genus generatim in lumina vitae

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source wherefrom each created ­thing can be ushered into the air’s gentle breezes. Fi­nally, since we see that lands that are farmed are superior to lands untended, and that they produce a better yield by the l­ abor of h ­ uman hands, it’s quite clear that t­ here are primordial ele­ments of t­hings in the ground that we activate to fruition by turning over the fertile clods with the plow and by hoeing the ground-­ soil. If none of t­ hese t­ hings w ­ ere so, you’d see crops grow much better of their own accord without our ­labor. ­Here’s another point: Nature breaks every­thing down into its own constituent parts and does not render m ­ atter into nothing. For if anything w ­ ere subject to death in all its parts, a t­ hing would perish instantaneously, snatched from sight. For no force would be needed so as to cause the disjunction of it parts and loosen their connections. But, the way it is, b ­ ecause every­thing persists, owing to the fact that its seed is everlasting, ­ until sufficient force strikes a t­ hing so as to shatter it with a blow, or to penetrate inside and dissolve it in the Void,3 Nature permits no observable destruction of anything. Moreover, what­ever t­ hings time removes b ­ ecause of its ancientness, if it did consume all ­matter and annihilate it utterly, how then does Venus return



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redducit Venus, aut redductum daedala tellus unde alit atque auget generatim pabula praebens? 230 unde mare ingenuei fontes externaque longe flumina suppeditant? unde aether sidera pascit? omnia enim debet, mortali corpore quae sunt, infinita aetas consumpse anteacta diesque.

quod si in eo spatio atque anteacta aetate fuere 235 e quibus haec rerum consistit summa refecta,

inmortali sunt natura praedita certe. haud igitur possunt ad nilum quaeque reverti. Denique res omnis eadem vis causaque volgo conficeret, nisi materies aeterna teneret, 240 inter se nexus minus aut magis indupedita; tactus enim leti satis esset causa profecto, quippe ubi nulla forent aeterno corpore, quorum contextum vis deberet dissolvere quaeque. at nunc, inter se quia nexus principiorum 245 dissimiles constant aeternaque materies est, incolumi remanent res corpore, dum satis acris vis obeat pro textura cuiusque reperta. haud igitur redit ad nilum res ulla, sed omnes discidio redeunt in corpora materiai.

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animal species back to the light of life,4 each ­after their kind, or the intricate Earth, once they have been thus reproduced, nourish and grow them by offering food to each according to their kind? How do maritime springs and far-­flung rivers resupply the sea? How does aether feed the stars? For if that ­were the case, infinite time and days long gone by would have destroyed every­thing that is subject to death. But if in that stretch of time gone by ­there have existed ­things from which the ­whole has been formed again and subsists, t­ hose ­things must certainly be endowed with an immortal nature. Therefore, it is by no means pos­si­ble that each individual ­thing returns to nothing. Again, that same causal force would obliterate ­things, ­u nless everlasting ­matter held them together more or less entangled, interlaced. For indeed, just a touch would be cause enough of death, since t­ hings would have no eternal body, whose interwoven fabric some other force would have to untangle. But as t­ hings are, since the bonds that bind the primal ele­ments together are dissimilar and their ­matter everlasting, ­things remain with their bodies intact u ­ ntil a sufficiently sharp force hits them to affect their structure. Therefore, not a single t­ hing returns to nothing; all



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Postremo pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater aether 251 in gremium matris terrai praecipitavit;

at nitidae surgunt fruges ramique virescunt arboribus, crescunt ipsae fetuque gravantur; hinc alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum; 255 hinc laetas urbes pueris florere videmus frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas; hinc fessae pecudes pingui per pabula laeta corpora deponunt, et candens lacteus umor uberibus manat distentis; hinc nova proles 260 artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas ludit lacte mero mentes perculsa novellas. haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur, quando alid ex alio reficit natura, nec ullam rem gigni patitur nisi morte adiuta aliena.

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t­ hings, rather, return by separation into the elemental bodies of ­matter. ­Here’s a final example: Rain showers “pass away” when ­Father Aether has flung their drops into the lap of M ­ other Earth. Yet splendid crops spring up, and branches burgeon on trees, which become heavy themselves with fruit. From this source, our h ­ uman race and the animal kingdom are nourished in turn. From this source, we see blessed cities abloom with c­ hildren, and leafy forests resound everywhere with the songs of new birds. From this source, the herds, too, fat and weary, lay their bodies down in joyous pastures and the milky stream flows white from their swollen udders. From this source, new lambs with feeble limbs play exuberantly on fresh pastures, their young brains drunk on straight milk. So, therefore, what­ever you see does not wholly pass away, since Nature re-­creates one t­ hing from another and does not allow anything to be born except that fostered by the death of something ­else.



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8  Dedication to Mrs. Farmer. Invocation of Rustic Muses (Varro, Res Rusticae 1.1–7) Varro, a native of Reate (modern Rieti), had a farm in Casinum (Cassino). In addition to farming, serving in the military, and holding public offices, Varro was an aficionado of Roman Antiquities with a peculiar passion for etymology. H ­ ere he dedicates the three books of his dialogic farm manual, Res Rusticae (“Country M ­ atters”), to his wife, whose name, Fundania, means “Mrs. Farmer.” On the occasion of Fundania having purchased a farm of her own (to buy a farm in ancient Rome was not unlike buying a second home in Vermont), Varro, in his eightieth year at the time of writing, offers some seasoned advice. To help him in this undertaking, he invokes not the traditional Muses, nor the canonical gods of State religion, but agricultural divinities of the Roman countryside.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Otium si essem consecutus, Fundania, commodius tibi haec scriberem, quae nunc, ut potero, exponam cogi­ tans esse properandum, quod, ut dicitur, si est homo bulla, eo magis senex. Annus enim octogesimus ad­ monet me ut sarcinas conligam, antequam proficiscar e vita. Quare, quoniam emisti fundum, quem bene colendo fructuosum cum facere velis, meque ut id mihi habeam curare roges, experiar; et non solum, ut ipse quoad vivam, quid fieri oporteat ut te moneam, sed etiam post mortem.

Neque patiar Sibyllam non solum cecinisse quae, dum viveret, prodessent hominibus, sed etiam quae cum perisset ipsa, et id etiam ignotissimis quoque hominibus; ad cuius libros tot annis post publice sol­ emus redire, cum desideramus, quid faciendum sit nobis ex aliquo portento; me, ne dum vivo quidem, necessariis meis quod prosit facere. Quocirca scribam tibi tres libros indices, ad quos revertare, siqua in re quaeres, quem ad modum quidque te in colendo oporteat facere. Et quoniam, ut aiunt, dei facientes adiuvant, prius invocabo eos, nec, ut Homerus et ­Ennius, Musas, sed duodecim deos Consentis; neque tamen eos urbanos, quorum imagines ad forum auratae

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Had I attained the f­ ree time, Fundania, I would have written more suitably what I’m expounding for you now, insofar as I can, considering I must be quick, since, if ­people are ­bubbles, as the saying goes, an old man is a ­bubble all the more. Indeed, my eightieth year is pressing me to pack up my kit before I march forth from this life. So, since y ­ ou’ve purchased a farm and wish to make it fruitful1 by good cultivation and are asking me to make it my concern as well, I ­will try to give you some advice about best practices—­advice you’ll have not only while I’m alive, but also ­after I’m dead. 2 For I w ­ on’t permit the Sibyl to be the only one to help p ­ eople by virtue of her prophetic song—­ even t­hose totally unknown to her—­both while she lived and a­ fter ­she’d died. Indeed, it is our custom to consult her books officially even ­after many years have gone by whenever we desire to know what to do ­a fter receiving some portentous sign. No, I, too, w ­ ill do something to benefit ­those near and dear to me while I still have life. And so I ­shall write for you three how-to books that you can consult if you have questions about methods and procedures in farming. And since, too, as they say, the gods help t­hose who do so, I w ­ ill invoke them



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stant, sex mares et feminae totidem, sed illos XII deos, qui maxime agricolarum duces sunt.

Primum, qui omnis fructos agri culturae caelo et terra continent, Iovem et Tellurem; itaque, quod ii parentes magni dicuntur, Iuppiter pater appellatur, Tellus terra mater. Secundo Solem et Lunam, quo­ rum tempora observantur, cum quaedam seruntur et conduntur. Tertio Cererem et Liberum, quod horum fructus maxime necessari ad victum; ab his enim cibus et potio venit e fundo. Quarto Robigum ac Floram, quibus propitiis neque robigo frumenta atque arbores corrumpit, neque non tempestive florent. Itaque publice Robigo feriae Robigalia, Florae ludi Floralia instituti. Item adveneror Minervam et Venerem, quarum unius procuratio oliveti, alterius hortorum; quo nomine rustica Vinalia instituta. Nec non etiam precor Lympham ac Bonum Eventum, quoniam sine aqua omnis arida ac misera agri cultura, sine successu ac bono eventu frustratio est, non cultura.

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first—­not the Muses of Homer and Ennius, but the twelve Councilor-­gods, and I d ­ on’t mean the City Councilors whose golden statues stand in the Forum, the six males and as many females,3 but t­ hose twelve gods who are the special patrons of farmers. First, ­those who comprise all the fruits of farming by means of heaven and earth: Jupiter and Tellus. Accordingly, ­because they are said to be the ­Great Progenitors, Jupiter is called “­Father” and Tellus “­ Mother Earth.” And second, Sun and Moon, whose regions are observed for the times to sow and store. Third, Ceres and Liber, since their fruits are essential for life. For by t­ hese gods comes food and drink from the farm.4 Fourth: Robigus and Flora. When ­these two are favorable, rust ­will not ruin the grain or the trees, and plantings w ­ ill not fail to crop in season. For Robigus, the public festival of the Robigalia has been established; and for Flora, the Floralia Games. I venerate likewise Minerva and Venus: the one protects the olive grove; the other gardens, in whose name also the Rural Vinalia festival has been established. And I ­shall not fail to pray to Lympha, too, and Bonus Eventus, since without ­water, all cultivation of the land is sad and dry; and without issue or “good outcome,” it’s not cultivation at all, but futility.



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Iis igitur deis ad venerationem advocatis ego r­ eferam sermones eos quos de agri cultura habuimus nuper, ex quibus quid te facere oporteat animadvertere poteris. In quis quae non inerunt et quaeres, indicabo a quibus scriptoribus repetas et Graecis et nostris.

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And so, having summoned ­these gods for worship, I ­shall relate our recent conversations about agriculture, based on which you’ll be able to center in on what you must do. And if something ­you’re looking for is not in ­these pages, I ­will list the authors, both Greek writers and our own, where you can find it.



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9  The Prestige and Antiquity of Rearing Livestock (Varro, Res Rusticae 2.1.6–10) Varro’s antiquarianism is on full display in this delightful passage. One won­ders what he would have thought if he had seen the Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux in France, at Altamira in Spain, or at Harappa in the Indus Valley. H ­ umans have been interacting with animals for so long that it is not wide of the mark to agree with ­Temple Grandin, whose book about animal welfare is aptly titled ­A nimals Make Us ­Human (2010). For his part, Varro mines Greek and Roman myth, topography, and language to underscore the intimate relationship our species has had with livestock over the millennia.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

De antiquis illustrissimus quisque pastor erat, ut os­ tendit et Graeca et Latina lingua et veteres poetae, qui alios vocant polyarnas, alios polymelos, alios polybutas; qui ipsas pecudes propter caritatem aureas habuisse pelles tradiderunt, ut Argis, Atreus quam sibi Thyesten subduxe queritur; ut in Colchide ad Aeetam, ad cuius arietis pellem profecti regio genere dicuntur Argo­ nautae; ut in Libya ad Hesperidas, unde aurea mala, id est secundum antiquam consuetudinem capras et oves, Hercules ex Africa in Graeciam exportavit. Ea enim a sua voce Graeci appellarunt mela. Nec multo secus nostri ab eadem voce, sed ab alia littera (vox earum non me, sed be sonare videtur), oves baelare vocem efferentes, e quo post balare dicunt extrita littera, ut in multis.

Quod si apud antiquos non magnae dignitatis pecus esset, in caelo describendo astrologi non appel­ lassent eorum vocabulis signa, quae non modo non dubitarunt ponere, sed etiam ab iis principibus duo­ decim signa multi numerant, ab ariete et tauro, cum

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The shepherd was a most prominent individual in antiquity. The Greek and Latin language and the old poets prove it. “Rich in flocks,” “rich in sheep,” and “rich in herds” are terms they use to describe ­people. The poets also have passed down the story that some sheep, ­because they ­were considered so valuable, had fleeces of gold, as at Argos, for instance—­the one that Atreus complains Thyestes stole from him;1 or in Colchis, at the court of Aeetes, for whose ram’s fleece Argonauts of royal stock set out on their voyage; or in Libya, among the Hesperides, wherefrom Hercules brought golden mala—­that is, sheep and goats, according to the old vocabulary—­from Africa to Greece. The Greeks called them “mela” ­a fter the sound they made. Our ­people give them a similar name from the same sound, but use a dif­fer­ent letter, for their bleating seems to sound to us like the syllable “be” and not “me,” and so we use the verb baelare and, ­later on, balare—­dropping a letter, as happens in many words. If livestock w ­ ere not held in high regard among the ancients, the astrologers, in laying out the heavens, would not have named the star signs ­after them. Not only did they not hesitate to do so, but many astrologers start from the Ram and the Bull



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ea praeponerent Apollini et Herculi. Ii enim dei ea secuntur, sed appellantur Gemini. Nec satis putarunt de duodecim signis sextam partem obtinere pecudum nomina, nisi adiecissent, ut quartam tenerent, capri­ cornum. Praeterea a pecuariis addiderunt capram, haedos, canes.

An non etiam item in mari terraque ab his regionibus notae, in mari, quod nominaverunt a capris Aegaeum pelagus, ad Syriam montem Taurum, in Sabinis ­Cantherium montem, Bosporum unum Thracium, al­ terum Cimmerium? Nonne in terris multa, ut oppi­ dum in Graecia Hippion Argos? Denique non Italia a vitulis, ut scribit Piso?

Romanorum vero populum a pastoribus esse ortum quis non dicit? quis Faustulum nescit pastorem fuisse nutricium, qui Romulum et Remum educavit? Non ipsos quoque fuisse pastores obtinebit, quod Pari­libus potissimum condidere urbem? Non idem, (1) quod multa etiam nunc ex vetere instituto bubus et ovibus dicitur,

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in tallying the twelve signs of the zodiac, placing them before Apollo and Hercules. ­ Those gods ­follow and are merely called “The Twins.”2 Nor did the astrologers think it enough to derive only one-­sixth of the twelve signs from the names of livestock, but added Capricorn, so that a quarter of the total had them. What is more, they added a she-­ goat, a goat-­k id, and a dog. And are not locales on land and sea known by animal names, too? The Aegean Sea is named ­after the word for “goats” [Greek aiges]. A mountain near Syria is called Taurus [Latin for “bull”]. Another in the Sabine country is called Cantherius [“gelding”]. And thus, too, Bosporus [“ox-­ford”]—­ the one that’s in Thrace, and the Cimmerian one, as well. And did the ancients not also call many places on land a­ fter animals, like the town Hippion [“horsey”] Argos in Greece? Last but not least, is not “Italy” derived from vituli [“bullocks”], as Piso writes?3 Actually, who would deny that the Roman ­People themselves are descended from shepherds? Who does not know that Faustulus, the foster-­ father who raised Romulus and Remus, was a shepherd? That they thought it most propitious to found the City on the day of the feast of the Parilia



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et (2) quod aes antiquissimum quod est flatum pecore est notatum, et (3) quod, urbs cum con­d ita est, tauro et vacca qua essent muri et portae definitum, et (4) quod, populus Romanus cum lustratur suovitau­ rilibus, circumaguntur verres aries taurus, et (5) quod nomina multa habemus ab utroque pecore, a maiore et a minore—­a minore Porcius, Ovinius, Caprilius; sic a maiore Equitius, Taurius, Asinius—et idem cognomina adsignificare quod dicuntur, ut Anni Caprae, Statili Tauri, Pomponi Vituli, sic a pecudibus alia multa?

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proves that they themselves ­were shepherds, does it not?4 Does not the following reveal the same ­thing? (1) Even ­today, fines are levied a­ fter the ancient custom in sheep and c­ attle. (2) The oldest copper coinage is stamped with ­cattle. (3) When the City was founded, the location of its walls and gates w ­ ere determined by a bull and a cow. 5 (4) When the Roman ­People are cleansed by the suovetaurilia ritual, a boar, a ram, and a cow are paraded about.6 (5) Many of our f­ amily names are derived from livestock, both in the upper and lower classes: Porcius, Ovinius, Caprilius from the lower echelons; Equitius, Taurius, Asinius from the upper. And, likewise, our surnames, as they are called: the Annii Caprae, the Statilii Tauri, the Pomponii Vituli, and many ­others are similarly derived from the names of livestock.



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10  Praise for the Countryside (Vergil, Georgics 2.458–540) Of the many purple passages in Vergil’s Georgics, an agronomic poem in Latin modeled on Hesiod’s Works & Days, this one is so famous that readers have conferred on it its own title: “Praise for the Countryside.” And yet it could just as well be called “In Praise of Farmers,” for the Italian environs that Vergil celebrates throughout the Georgics is a cultivated, working landscape ­shaped by ­human hands. The paean translated ­here pre­sents an idealized picture that contradicts ­things Vergil says about farming elsewhere in the poem (namely, how hard and frustrating it is). Be that, however, as it may, the poet nonetheless extols this landscape’s creator and steward, the ­humble farmer, who, for his ­simple, quietistic mode of living, still basks in quasi-­ Golden Age.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, agricolas! quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis, 460 fundit humo facilem victum iustissima tellus.

si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbis mane salutantum totis vomit aedibus undam, nec varios inhiant pulchra testudine postis inlusasque auro vestes Ephyreiaque aera, 465 alba neque Assyrio fucatur lana veneno, nec casia liquidi corrumpitur usus olivi: at secura quies et nescia fallere vita, dives opum variarum, at latis otia fundis, speluncae vivique lacus et frigida Tempe 470 mugitusque boum mollesque sub arbore somni non absunt; illic saltus ac lustra ferarum, et patiens operum exiguoque adsueta iuventus, sacra deum sanctique patres: extrema per illos Iustitia excedens terris vestigia fecit.

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Ah, farmers! How lucky they are—­too lucky! If only they knew how good they have it: Far from the cacophony of swords, the most righ­teous Earth, of her own accord, produces a ready source of life from the ground. Even if no ­grand ­house with haughty gates spews forth from all its chambers a tidal wave of well-­ wishers at dawn;1 even if farmers do not luxuriate in the sight of doors detailed with pretty tortoiseshell inlay—or carpets playfully interwoven with gold—or bronzes from Corinth; even if their white wool is not dyed with concoctions from Assyria, 2 or the pure olive oil they use is not tinged3 with the scent of cinnamon—­nonetheless, farmers’ sleep is ­free from care, and their life innocent of deceit. Rather, it is rich with resources of all kinds: leisure-­ time spent on expansive farms, by caves and natu­ ral lakes; ­there are cool valleys, the lowing of ­cattle, and soft slumbers u ­ nder a tree. Farmers lack not ­these! Where farmers live, t­here is undergrowth and woods for wild game. Their youth endure hard work and have been habituated to making do with ­little. ­There are shrines to the gods, and elders are revered. It was among farmers that Righ­teousness left her final traces when she quit this earth.4



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R 475 Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae,

quarum sacra fero ingenti percussus amore, accipiant caelique vias et sidera monstrent, defectus solis varios lunaeque labores; unde tremor terris, qua vi maria alta tumescent 480 obicibus ruptis rursusque in se ipsa residant, quid tantum Oceano properent se tinguere s­ oles hiberni, vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet.

sin, has ne possim naturae accedere partis frigidus obstiterit circum praecordia sanguis, 485 rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes, flumina amem silvasque inglorius. o ubi campi Spercheosque et virginibus bacchata Lacaenis Taygeta! o qui me gelidis convallibus Haemi sistat et ingenti ramorum protegat umbra!

490 Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,

atque metus omnis et inexorabile fatum subiecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari. fortunatus et ille, deos qui novit agrestis, Panaque Silvanumque senem Nymphasque sorores.

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As for me? First, may the Muses, sweet beyond compare, whose sacred gifts I bear since I am inspired by g­ reat love for them, receive me on the paths of heaven and instruct me in its stars, the variety of the sun’s eclipses, and the phases of the moon; show me the source of Earth’s quaking—by what force the deep seas swell and burst their bounds and of their own accord subside; why suns in winter hasten to douse themselves in Ocean, or what delay impedes nights that come on late.5 But if the blood circulating in my heart should run cold and prevent me from approaching ­t hese aspects of Nature, let the countryside be my delight, and the rushing valley streams. May I cherish rivers and woodlands—­even if I achieve no fame.6 O if only someone would transport me to open spaces—to Spercheus and Taygetus, where Spartan girls ply their Bacchic rites, or the cool foothills of Mount Haemus—­a nd cover me with boughs of ample shade!7 Whoever has the ability to understand Nature’s laws and has trampled underfoot all Fear and implacable Fate, along with the river-­roar of insatiable Death, is blessed.8 Though anyone acquainted with the rural gods—­Pan and old Silvanus and the ­sister Nymphs—is lucky, too. The ­People’s



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R 495 illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum

flexit et infidos agitans discordia fratres, aut coniurato descendens Dacus ab Histro, non res Romanae perituraque regna; neque ille aut doluit miserans inopem aut invidit habenti.

500 quos rami fructus, quos ipsa volentia rura

sponte tulere sua, carpsit, nec ferrea iura insanumque forum aut populi tabularia vidit. sollicitant alii remis freta caeca, ruuntque in ferrum, penetrant aulas et limina regum; 505 hic petit excidiis urbem miserosque penates, ut gemma bibat et Sarrano dormiat ostro; condit opes alius defossoque incubat auro; hic stupet attonitus rostris; hunc plausus hiantem per cuneos geminatus enim plebisque patrumque 510 corripuit; gaudent perfusi sanguine fratrum, exsilioque domos et dulcia limina mutant atque alio patriam quaerunt sub sole iacentem.

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emblems of office9 do not divert him from his course. Nor do the purple cloaks of kings and the strife that incites a ­brother to betray his ­brother; nor the Dacians invading from the Danube region, which is bound to us by treaty; nor Roman politics, or kingdoms that are destined to perish. The farmer is not pained with pity for the poor, but neither has he envied the rich. Instead, he picks his branches’ fruit, which his farmland, a willing partner, yields of its own accord. He’s never laid eyes on the mad Forum, its iron laws, or the public archives. ­Others churn unseen w ­ aters with their oars, or rush onto swords, or insinuate themselves into the courts and thresholds of kings. One man plunders a city and its ­houses’ shrines so that he can drink from a jewel-­ encrusted cup and sleep on Tyrian purple; another hoards trea­sure and gloats over the gold he’s dug up. Another gawks, thunderstruck, at the speaker’s podium. For yet another, mouth agape, the applause of statesmen and commoners alike redoubles through the theater-­seats and carries him away. They rejoice, soaked in their ­brothers’ blood. They exchange their sweet homes and hearths for exile to seek a homeland that lies ­under a foreign sun.



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Agricola incurvo terram dimovit aratro: hinc anni l­ abor, hinc patriam parvosque nepotes 515 sustinet, hinc armenta boum meritosque iuvencos. nec requies, quin aut pomis exuberet annus aut fetu pecorum aut Cerealis mergite culmi, proventuque oneret sulcos atque horrea vincat. venit hiems: teritur Sicyonia baca trapetis, 520 glande sues laeti redeunt, dant arbuta silvae; et varios ponit fetus autumnus, et alte mitis in apricis coquitur vindemia saxis.

interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati, casta pudicitiam servat domus, ubera vaccae 525 lactea demittunt, pinguesque in gramine laeto inter se adversis luctantur cornibus haedi. ipse dies agitat festos fususque per herbam, ignis ubi in medio et socii cratera coronant, te libans, Lenaee, vocat pecorisque magistris 530 velocis iaculi certamina ponit in ulmo, corporaque agresti nudant praedura palaestrae.

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Whereas the farmer has been furrowing the ground with his curved plow—­the source of a year’s work and whereby he sustains the nation and his small grandchildren. The same work feeds his herd of cows and proven bulls. T ­ here’s no reprieve—­ except a year’s bumper crop of fruit, or of calves, or sheaves of Ceres’s grain—­and so he loads his furrows with f­ uture yield and overwhelms his barns. Winter has arrived: olives are crushed at the mill; pigs come back to their pens glad for acorns; the forest gives the gift of arbutus; autumn drops fruits of all kind; and, high up, among sunny rocks, the vintage steeps till it’s mellow. Meanwhile, his sweet ­children hang upon his neck for kisses. His h ­ ouse­hold is w ­ holesome and guards its integrity. His cows come into milk with udders full, and the goat-­k ids grapple with one another, horns opposed, on the cheerful lea. The farmer himself observes a holiday, sprawled out on the grass. ­T here’s a fire in the ­m iddle where his ­fellow farmers crown the cup with ivy, invoking you, Bacchus, while the farmer puts a target on an elm tree and calls the shepherds to a competition of fast-­flung javelins, and they strip their strong bodies naked for some country wrestling.



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Hanc olim veteres vitam coluere Sabini, hanc Remus et frater, sic fortis Etruria crevit scilicet et rerum facta est pulcherrima Roma, septemque una sibi muro circumdedit arces. 536 ante etiam sceptrum Dictaei regis et ante impia quam caesis gens est epulata iuvencis, aureus hanc vitam in terris Saturnus agebat; necdum etiam audierant inflari classica, necdum 540 impositos duris crepitare incudibus ensis.

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That was the life the ancient Sabines led, as did Remus and his b ­ rother. That’s how Etruria grew strong, no doubt, and how Rome became the most beautiful nation on earth—­a single city’s wall enclosing its seven hills. Even before Jupiter, the ­Cretan king, wielded his scepter, and before an impious race feasted on slaughtered oxen, golden Saturn lived this kind of life on earth.10 ­People had not yet heard ­battle signals blare, nor yet the clang of swords thrown upon the unyielding anvil.



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11  Reverie of a Would-­Be Farmer (Horace, Epodes 1.2) Horace, Rome’s greatest lyric poet, a man capable of the deepest emotion and highest sublimity, was also a devious satirist. Both sensibilities are honed to perfection in this poem about a banker who daydreams of becoming a farmer only to return to his money-­making.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Beatus ille, qui procul negotiis, ut prisca gens mortalium, paterna rura bobus exercet suis, solutus omni faenore, 5

neque excitatur classico miles truci, neque horret iratum mare, forumque vitat et superba civium potentiorum limina.

ergo aut adulta vitium propagine altas maritat populos, aut in reducta valle mugientium prospectat errantis greges, inutilisque falce ramos amputans feliciores inserit, 15 aut pressa puris mella condit amphoris, aut tondet infirmas ovis; 10

vel cum decorum mitibus pomis caput Autumnus agris extulit, ut gaudet insitiva decerpens pira 20 certantem et uvam purpurae, qua muneretur te, Priape, et te, pater Silvane, tutor finium!

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“Happy is he who, far away from financial affairs, works his ancestral lands, using oxen he owns, as did p ­ eople of old, wholly debt-­free.

That man is no soldier awakened to attention by the harsh blare of the war horn; nor does he dread sailing as such upon a raging sea. He avoids the Forum, too, and the haughty homes of the State’s power­ful men. Instead, and therefore, he fastens to tall poplars his vines’ mature offshoots,1 or surveys his herds of c­ attle mooing as they wander about in the receding valley, and, pruning useless boughs with a sickle, he grafts more productive ones on—or he stores the honey he’s extracted in clean pots—or he shears his listless ewes.

When Autumn raises his head in the fields, bedecked with ripe fruit, how he rejoices to pick grafted pears and grapes, whose color contends with the purple of dye. He intends to offer t­ hese as gifts to you, Priapus, 2 and ­Father Silvanus, protector of his farm’s bound­aries!



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libet iacere modo sub antiqua ilice, modo in tenaci gramine: 25 labuntur altis interim ripis aquae, queruntur in silvis aves, fontesque lymphis obstrepunt manantibus, somnos quod invitet levis. at cum tonantis annus hibernus Iovis 30 imbris nivisque comparat, aut trudit acris hinc et hinc multa cane apros in obstantis plagas, aut amite levi rara tendit retia, turdis edacibus dolos, 35 pavidumque leporem et advenam laqueo gruem iucunda captat praemia. quis non malarum, quas amor curas habet, haec inter obliviscitur? quodsi pudica mulier in partem iuvet domum atque dulcis liberos, Sabina qualis aut perusta solibus pernicis uxor Apuli, sacrum vetustis exstruat lignis focum lassi sub adventum viri, 45 claudensque textis cratibus laetum pecus distenta siccet ubera, 40

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It’s delightful to lie u ­ nder an old holm oak or on grass that cradles you, as w ­ aters lap down between steep riverbanks, birds chirp in the woods, and springs gurgle with their flowing streams—­it’s a setting that calls for a nap!

But when the winter season of thundering Jove produces rain and snow, the farmer drives wild boar this way and that with many a dog into traps laid on the path, or he stretches thin nets with a lightweight pole as a ruse to catch hungry thrushes, and a quivering hare or migrating crane he snags with a noose—­pleasing rewards! Who does not forget the maladies of love and its concerns when engaged in this way?3

And yet—if a chaste wife ­were to help out in the home and with delightful c­ hildren—­a Sabine sort of w ­ oman, or one like the sun-­tanned wife of a nimble chap from Apulia; if she ­were to pile aged firewood onto the sacred hearth for her tired ­husband’s return, corral the happy stock in their wickerwork pens and milk their bulging udders dry; if she w ­ ere to draw new wine from a fragrant



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et horna dulci vina promens dolio dapes inemptas apparet; non me Lucrina iuverint conchylia 50 magisve rhombus aut scari, si quos Eois intonata fluctibus hiems ad hoc vertat mare, non Afra avis descendat in ventrem meum, non attagen Ionicus 55 iucundior, quam lecta de pinguissimis oliva ramis arborum aut herba lapathi prata amantis et gravi malvae salubres corpori, vel agna festis caesa Terminalibus 60 vel haedus ereptus lupo. has inter epulas ut iuvat pastas ovis videre properantis domum, videre fessos vomerem inversum boves collo trahentis languido, 65 positosque vernas, di­t is examen domus, circum renidentis Lares! haec ubi locutus faenerator Alfius, iam iam futurus rusticus, omnem redegit Idibus pecuniam, 70 quaerit Kalendis ponere.

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jar and fix a home-­cooked supper, well then, oysters from Lake Lucrino could not please me more, nor turbot, nor wrasse (if a stormy winter in eastern tides should force any to this sea). No guinea hen from Africa or Ionian partridge would alight in my stomach more pleasingly than olives plucked from the fattest branches of the tree; so, too, sorrel-­greens that love growing in meadows, and mallows, which are healthy for your body when it’s sick; or a lamb slaughtered on the feast day of Terminus;4 or a goat-­k id snatched from a wolf.

In the midst of such a feast as this, how delightful to see the sheep hastening home, their grazing done; to see the weary oxen pulling home the plow, inverted, with their sagging necks; and to behold the home-­bred slaves—­the beehive of a rich household— taking their positions around the shiny images of one’s ­house­hold gods.” When he had finished his speech, Alfius the money-­lender—­a man just on the cusp of becoming a farmer—­called in all the money he was owed on the Ides, planning to loan out again on the Kalends.5



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12 ­Simple Tastes (Horace, Odes 3.1) Horace owned a farm in the Sabine Hills near Rome. A gift from his patron, Maecenas, this country estate was the poet’s cherished retreat. Against the vagaries and uncertainties of life, including, ironically, the outcomes of farming (Horace calls the farm mendax in this poem—­that is, sometimes farming deceives you when crops fail), material luxuries offer no solace compared to the joys of ­simple living. In a surprisingly modern touch, the penultimate stanza of this ode criticizes an all-­too-­familiar practice of h ­ uman overreach: the development of coastlines for luxury real estate.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo; favete linguis: carmina non prius audita Musarum sacerdos virginibus puerisque canto. 5

10

regum timendorum in proprios greges, reges in ipsos imperium est Iovis, clari Giganteo triumpho, cuncta supercilio moventis. est ut viro vir latius ordinet arbusta sulcis, hic generosior descendat in Campum petitor, moribus hic meliorque fama

contendat, illi turba clientium sit maior: aequa lege Necessitas 15 sortitur insignis et imos; omne capax movet urna nomen. destrictus ensis cui super impia cervice pendet, non Siculae dapes dulcem elaborabunt saporem, 20 non avium citharaeque cantus

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S imple Tastes

I loathe the uninitiated mob and keep it at bay. Observe a holy silence! I, the Muses’ priest, am singing songs to the girls and boys not heard till now.1

The power over kings who are fearsome to their own flocks belongs to Jove, renowned for his triumph over the ­Giants. He sets every­thing in motion by a mere gesture from his brow. 2 It’s true that one man plants trees in his vineyard’s furrows3 that cover a broader swath than another man. One candidate goes down to the Campus Martius to canvass votes in possession of a nobler birth; another competes on character and his better reputation; yet another has a larger crowd of supporters. But Necessity assigns their lot to high and low alike according to a law that’s fair: In her roomy urn, every­one’s name is shaken. The man over whose impious neck a drawn sword dangles4 ­will enjoy no delicious taste from an elaborate Sicilian feast. No m ­ usic of birds or the lyre ­will bring one back his sleep. The soft sleep of farmers is not fussy about ­humble homes, or a



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somnum reducent: somnus agrestium lenis virorum non humilis domos fastidit umbrosamque ripam, non Zephyris agitata Tempe. 25

30

desiderantem quod satis est neque tumultuosum sollicitat mare nec saevus Arcturi cadentis impetus aut orientis Haedi, non verberatae grandine vineae fundusque mendax, arbore nunc aquas culpante, nunc torrentia agros sidera, nunc hiemes iniquas.

contracta pisces aequora sentient iactis in altum molibus; huc frequens 35 caementa demittit redemptor cum famulis dominusque terrae fastidiosus: sed Timor et Minae scandunt eodem quo dominus, neque decedit aerata triremi et 40 post equitem sedet atra Cura.

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shady riverbank, or an idyllic valley disturbed only by western breezes.

The person who wants what is enough is not made anxious by the roiling sea or by the fierce rush of Arcturus setting, or of the Kid as he rises, nor when his vineyard is pummeled by hail, or when his farm deceives him—­his orchards blaming now the rain, now stars that parch the fields, now winter’s unfairness.

The fish are aware that their w ­ aters have been diminished as foundation piers for h ­ ouses are thrust into the depths of the sea. The engineer and his slaves shovel in rubble upon rubble, for the owner is bored with life on land. But Terror and Dread climb as high as the homeowner climbs. Dark Anxiety does not disembark from a bronze-­ beaked yacht, and she sits on the ­horse b ­ ehind its rider.



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quodsi dolentem nec Phrygius lapis nec purpurarum Sidone clarior delenit usus nec Falerna vitis Achaemeniumque costum, 45

110

cur invidendis postibus et novo sublime ritu moliar atrium? cur valle permutem Sabina divitias operosiores?

S imple Tastes

But since Phrygian marblework does not relieve a suffering soul, nor does the wearing of clothes brighter that Sidon’s purple, nor the fruit of the Falernian vine, nor perfume from Persia, why should I build a lofty atrium in the new style, with doors to inspire envy? Why take riches in exchange for my valley in Sabina when they only increase one’s hassles?



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13  Avoiding the Rat Race (Horace, Satires 2.6) Horace’s Satires, or, in Latin, Sermones (“chit-­ chat”), are the inspiration of what the poet calls his “pedestrian Muse.” Each piece in the collection pre­ sents a farrago of bustling detail about the pitfalls of daily life at Rome and the foibles of its varied cast of characters, from ­every rank and station. The poem excerpted and translated h ­ ere riffs on a common theme in Horace—­the tension between civic/ social engagement and s­imple, contemplative ­d etachment, illustrated by a tale of two mice, a dainty one from town, the other from the country.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Hoc erat in votis: modus agri non ita magnus, hortus ubi et tecto vicinus iugis aquae fons et paulum silvae super his foret. auctius atque di melius fecere. bene est. nil amplius oro, 5 Maia nate, nisi ut propria haec mihi munera faxis.

si neque maiorem feci ratione mala rem nec sum facturus vitio culpave minorem, si veneror stultus nihil horum: “o si angulus ille proximus accedat, qui nunc denormat agellum! 10 o si urnam argenti fors quae mihi monstret, ut illi, thesauro invento qui mercennarius agrum illum ipsum mercatus aravit, dives amico Hercule!” si quod adest gratum iuvat, hac prece te oro: pingue pecus domino facias et cetera praeter 15 ingenium, utque s­ oles, custos mihi maximus adsis!

Ergo ubi me in montes et in arcem ex urbe removi, quid prius illustrem saturis Musaque pedestri? nec mala me ambitio perdit nec plumbeus Auster autumnusque gravis, Libitinae quaestus acerbae.

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This is the place that I was praying for1—­a piece of land not too large, where ­there’d be a garden and a source of fresh ­water near the ­house and above ­these a stretch of woodland. Bigger and better have the gods done for me. Life is good! I’m not asking for more, son of Maia, 2 except that you ensure ­these gifts stay mine. If I have not made my net worth greater by false accounting or am not on the verge of making it smaller by vice or by neglect, if I d ­ on’t pray stupidly for t­ hings like t­ hese—­“O if that corner parcel nearby could be added to my ­little farm since now it ruins its contours! O if I could have the kind of luck that’d point me to a pot of money, as did that guy who, finding a trea­sure chest on land he used to plow as a hired man, bought it and was made rich ­because Hercules was favorable.” Since what I have pleases me and I am grateful for it, ­here’s my prayer to you: Make my flocks and all ­else fat—­except my wit—­and, as usual, continue to be my most excellent keeper. Now, then, that I’ve left the city for the mountains and my citadel up ­here, what better place for someone famous for satires and a pedestrian Muse? Crass ambition does not ruin me h ­ ere, nor the



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[Lines 20–58 excluded]

Perditur haec inter misero lux non sine votis: 60 o rus, quando ego te aspiciam! quandoque licebit nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis, ducere sollicitae iucunda oblivia vitae! o quando faba Pythagorae cognata simulque uncta satis pingui ponentur holuscula lardo! 65 o noctes cenaeque deum! quibus ipse meique ante Larem proprium vescor vernasque procaces pasco libatis dapibus. prout cuique libido est, siccat inaequalis calices conviva, solutus legibus insanis, seu quis capit acria fortis 70 pocula, seu modicis uvescit laetius. ergo sermo oritur, non de villis domibusve alienis, nec male necne Lepos saltet; sed quod magis ad nos pertinet et nescire malum est, agitamus: utrumne divitiis homines an sint virtute beati;

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leaden scirocco, nor an autumnal sickness, that booming business for ­bitter Libitina.3 In lines 20–58, excluded h ­ ere, Horace continues his mock prayers and indulges his pedestrian Muse by recounting instances of being overwhelmed with tedious work and social calls at Rome. The daylight is spent amid such hassles. It makes me miserable, but I am not without prayers: O rural landscape, when ­shall I set eyes on you? When ­will I be allowed, now with books by the ancients, now with sleep and idle hours, to take in sweet oblivion of life’s pressures? O when ­shall beans, kinsmen of Pythagoras,4 be served to me alongside greens sautéed with fat bacon? O t­ hose are nights and meals for the gods! During such times, my friends and I dine in the presence of my ­house­hold Lar5 and feed the sassy slaves with the dishes ­we’ve tasted. Each guest, according to his desire, drains a cup of what­ever size he wants, ­free from crazy laws.6 One brave soul takes his cups stiff, while another is happier to sip freely from a mid-­size glass. And thereupon begins a conversation—­not about other ­people’s ­houses and villas or ­whether Lepos is a good dancer or not. Rather, we discuss what’s more relevant to us and about which it’s bad to be ignorant: We debate



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HOW T O BE A FAR M E R 75

quidve ad amicitias, usus rectumne, trahat nos; et quae sit natura boni summumque quid eius.

Cervius haec inter vicinus garrit anilis ex re fabellas. si quis nam laudat Arelli sollicitas ignarus opes, sic incipit: “olim 80 rusticus urbanum murem mus paupere fertur accepisse cavo, veterem vetus hospes amicum, asper et attentus quaesitis, ut tamen artum solveret hospitiis animum. quid multa? neque ille sepositi ciceris nec longae invidit avenae, 85 aridum et ore ferens acinum semesaque lardi frusta dedit, cupiens varia fastidia cena vincere tangentis male singula dente superbo;

cum pater ipse domus palea porrectus in horna esset ador loliumque, dapis meliora relinquens. 90 tandem urbanus ad hunc, “quid te iuvat,” inquit, “amice, praerupti nemoris patientem vivere dorso?

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­ hether it is wealth or virtue that makes ­people w happy, and what draws us t­ oward friendship, expediency or right be­hav­ior? What is the nature of the Good and what is its chief manifestation? In the course of t­ hese conversations, my neighbor Cervius prattles on with old wives’ tales germane to the topic. Thus, if someone praises the wealth of Arellius, ignoring the hassles that come along with it, he launches into a story like this: “Once upon a time, they say, a country mouse hosted a city mouse in his pauper’s hole. Both guest and host ­were long-­standing friends. The country mouse lived rough yet was careful with what he had acquired so that he could nonetheless relax his frugal mindset and show hospitality. How much so? He did not begrudge a stashed chickpea or a kernel of long oats, but, carry­ing in his mouth a dried berry or half-­eaten tidbit of bacon, he served them up, ­eager to overcome his friend’s squeamishness since he was a mouse of haughty tooth and was barely touching each morsel. Meanwhile, the country mouse, paterfamilias of his h ­ ouse, reclining on fresh straw, himself ate spelt and darnel, leaving the better parts of the feast to his friend. Fi­nally, the city mouse said to him, “What pleases you, friend, about enduring a life of



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vis tu homines urbemque feris praeponere silvis? carpe viam, mihi crede, comes, terrestria quando mortalis animas vivunt sortita, neque ulla est 95 aut magno aut parvo leti fuga, quo, bone, circa, dum licet, in rebus iucundis vive beatus; vive memor, quam sis aevi brevis.” haec ubi dicta agrestem pepulere, domo levis exsilit; inde ambo propositum peragunt iter, urbis aventes 100 moenia nocturni subrepere.

Iamque tenebat nox medium caeli spatium, cum ponit uterque in locuplete domo vestigia, rubro ubi cocco tincta super lectos canderet vestis eburnos, multaque de magna superessent fercula cena, 105 quae procul exstructis inerant hesterna canistris. ergo ubi purpurea porrectum in veste locavit agrestem, veluti succinctus cursitat hospes continuatque dapes, nec non verniliter ipsis fungitur officiis, praelambens omne quod adfert.

110 ille cubans gaudet mutata sorte bonisque

rebus agit laetum convivam, cum subito ingens

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hardship on the ridge of a steep wood? ­Wouldn’t you prefer the city and its ­people to the forest? Trust me, be my companion and let’s hit the road. Since ­t hings that live on earth have been allotted mortal souls—­and t­ here is no escape from death for creatures both g­ reat and small—to the degree that you can, good fellow, live a happy life amid pleasant t­ hings. Live mindful of how short your time is.” ­These words impressed the farm mouse, who sprang forth—­lightly—­from his ­house. And so, the two undertook thence their proposed journey, hoping to scurry ­under the city walls at night. By now, night was holding the mid-­space in heaven, when the pair set foot inside a wealthy home. Coverlets dyed in scarlet w ­ ere draped over ivory couches and looked dazzling. Many dishes ­were left over from a ­great feast the day before. ­T hese lay piled high in baskets a short distance away. Accordingly, the city mouse plopped the country mouse on the purple coverlets, cinches up his apron like a good host, and bustles about serving course a­ fter course, performing, too, the duties of a home-­bred slave, sampling every­t hing he served. The country mouse, in repose, enjoys his changed lot and the good ­t hings to hand. As he



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valvarum strepitus lectis excussit utrumque. currere per totum pavidi conclave, magisque exanimes trepidare, simul domus alta Molossis 115 personuit canibus. tum rusticus, “haud mihi vita est opus hac,” ait “et valeas: me silva cavusque tutus ab insidiis tenui solabitur ervo.”

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plays the role of a happy dinner guest, suddenly a loud creaking of doors knocked both of them off their couches. They run trembling to the other end of the dining room, dead scared, and grew more afraid as the spacious h ­ ouse echoed with the barking of Molossian hounds. “I ­don’t need this kind of life!” said the country mouse. “And so, goodbye! My hole in the forest, safe from ambushes, ­w ill keep me comfortable with a meager serving of ­bitter vetch.”



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14  Culture from Agriculture (Pliny the Elder, Natu­ral History 18.1.5–3.14) The entire eigh­teenth book of Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedia, the voluminous Natu­ral History, is devoted to Roman agronomy. ­Here, Pliny takes a page out of Varro’s playbook to showcase agriculture’s definitive, formative role in all aspects of Roman society.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

quippe sermo circa rura est agrestesque usus, sed quibus vita constet honosque apud priscos maximus fuerit. Arvorum sacerdotes Romulus in primis instituit seque duodecimum fratrem appellavit inter illos Acca Laren­ tia nutrice sua genitos, spicea corona quae vitta alba colligaretur sacerdotio ei pro religiosissimo insigni data, quae prima apud Romanos fuit corona; honosque is non nisi vita finitur et exules etiam captosque comitatur.

bina tunc iugera p. R. satis erant, nullique maio­ rem modum adtribuit, quo servorum paulo ante prin­ cipis Neronis contento huius spatii viridiariis? pisci­ nas iuvat maiores habere, gratumque si non aliquem culinas.

Numa instituit deos fruge colere et mola salsa sup­ plicare atque, ut auctor est Hemina, far torrere, quon­ iam tostum cibo salubrius esset, id uno modo consec­ utus, statuendo non esse purum ad rem divinam ni tostum. is et Fornacalia instituit farris torrendi ferias et aeque religiosas Terminis agrorum; hos enim deos

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Indeed, our topic concerns the countryside and farm practices, but as life depends on such pursuits, ­these topics ­were held in the highest regard among the ancients. In Rome’s beginnings, Romulus instituted the Arval Brethren,1 naming himself the twelfth among t­hose born to his foster-­mother Acca Larentia. The very first crown ever conferred at Rome was granted to this priesthood as a mark of the utmost sacrality—­a crown consisting of ears of wheat tied together with a white ribbon—­a nd this honor stays with them for life and accompanies whoever wears it even into exile or captivity. In t­ hose days, the Roman P ­ eople w ­ ere content with two iugera (acres) of land each and to no one was a greater portion allotted. Who among the Emperor Nero’s slaves would have been satisfied ­these recent days past with a plea­sure garden of that size? ­People thrill to own fishponds bigger than that and we can be grateful if someone d ­ oesn’t own so large a kitchen! Numa laid down the law that the gods be worshipped with a grain-­offering and to supplicate them with a salted cake, and, according to Hemina, 2 to roast emmer-­wheat ( far) in order to make it more nutritious as food. He secured this aim by laying down a statute that the emmer was not



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tum maxime noverant, Seiamque a serendo, Segestam a segetibus appellabant, quarum simulacra in circo videmus—­tertiam ex his nominare sub tecto religio est—ac ne degustabant quidem novas fruges aut vina antequam sacerdotes primitias libassent.

Iugerum vocabatur quod uno iugo boum in die ex­ arari posset, actus in quo boves agerentur cum aratro uno impetu iusto; hic erat cxx pedum, duplicatusque in longitudinem iugerum faciebat. dona amplissima im­ peratorum ac fortium civium quantum quis uno die plurimum circumaravisset, item quartarii farris aut heminae, conferente populo.

cognomina etiam prima inde: Pilumni qui pilum pis­ trinis invenerat, Pisonis a pisendo, iam Fabiorum, Len­ tulorum, Ciceronum, ut quisque aliquod optime genus

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pure for religious rites ­u nless it had been roasted. Numa also established the Fornacalia, a holiday for roasting emmer, and the equally solemn day of Terminus, the god of bound­aries, placed between fields. P ­ eople viewed t­ hese boundary stones back then very much as gods, and so the goddess Seia is named for sowing (serendo) and Segesta from reaping the harvest (segetibus). We see their statues in the Circus. The third of ­these deities3 it is profane to mention indoors; and ­people would not so much as taste the new harvest or vintage ­until the priests had made an offering of first fruits. A iugerum was so called b ­ ecause that was the area that could be plowed in a day with one yoke (iugum) of oxen. A furlong (actus) was the space within which the oxen could be driven (agerentur) with the plow in one solid go. That was 120 feet and, doubled in length, it totaled one iugerum. The most lavish gifts conferred on generals and brave citizens back then consisted of the largest area someone could plow around in a day plus the ­public donation of a quartern, or half-­measure, of emmer-­wheat. The first surnames, too, grew from agriculture. “Pilumnus” in­ven­ted the pestle (pilum) for grain mills, “Piso” comes from “pounding” (pisendo),



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sereret. Iuniorum e familia Bubulcum nominarunt quia bubus optime utebatur. quin et in sacris nihil religiosius confarreationis vinculo erat, novaeque nuptae farreum praeferebant. agrum male colere censorium probrum iudicabatur, atque, ut refert Cato, cum virum laudantes bonum agricolam bonumque colonum dixissent, am­ plissime laudasse existimabantur.

hinc et locupletes dicebant loci, hoc est agri, ple­ nos. pecunia ipsa a pecore appellabatur et etiam nunc in tabulis censoris pascua dicuntur, omnia ex quibus populus reditus habet, quia diu hoc solum vectigal fuerat. multatio quoque non nisi ovium boumque ­inpendio dicebatur; nec omittenda priscarum legum benivolentia: cautum quippe est ne bovem prius quam ovem nominaret qui indiceret multam. ludos boum causa celebrantes Bubetios vocabant.

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and families w ­ ere called Fabius, Lentulus, or Cicero depending on which crop each sowed particularly well.4 One of the Junius clan received the name Bubulcus b ­ ecause he handled c­ attle well. As far as religious rites are concerned, nothing was holier than the confarreationis vinculum, where newly wedded brides would carry offerings of emmer-­wheat ( farreum). Bad cultivation of the soil received censure from the Censors, and, as Cato ­relates, when p ­ eople used to praise a man saying “good farmer; good tiller,”5 they thought they had given him the highest compliment. From agriculture, too, comes the word locuples (“wealthy”), by which p ­ eople meant “full of place” (loci plenos)—­that is, of full of land (agri). The word for “money” (pecunia) is itself called a­ fter “livestock” (pecus), and even t­oday all public income listed in the Censor’s accounts are called “pastures” (pascua), since for a long time that was the State’s only source of revenue. What is more, fines w ­ ere levied only in the price of sheep and oxen. But we must not fail to mention the ancient laws’ good ­will, too: a judge was prevented from declaring a cow as a fine before he fined someone a sheep. Games used to be held in honor of cows; t­hose ­celebrating them ­were called Bubetii.



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Servius rex ovium boumque effigie primum aes signavit. frugem quidem aratro quaesitam furtim noctu pavisse ac secuisse puberi xii tabulis capital erat, sus­ pensumque Cereri necari iubebant gravius quam in homicidio convictum . . . ​iam distinctio honosque ­civitatis ipsius non aliunde erat.

rusticae tribus laudatissimae eorum qui rura ha­ berent, urbanae vero in quas transferri ignominia esset, desidiae probro. itaque quattuor solae erant a partibus urbis in quibus habitabant, Suburana, Palatina, Collina, Esquilina. nundinis urbem revisitabant et ideo comitia nundinis habere non licebat, ne plebes rustica avocaretur. quies somnusque in stramentis erat. gloriam denique ipsam a farris honore adoriam appellabant.

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Servius the King stamped the first bronze coins with the image of sheep and oxen. Indeed, the Twelve ­Tables made it a capital offense for an adult to graze or cut grain missed by the plow by stealth at night. They ordered the offender to be executed by hanging, for Ceres’s sake, a penalty more serious than for hom­i­cide. . . . ​In fact, our class structure and the offices of State arose from no other source than agriculture. The rural tribes ­were the most respected ­because their members owned farms. To be enrolled into the city tribes brought disgrace, since they w ­ ere shamefully idle. Thus, t­ here w ­ ere only four city tribes, named a­ fter the parts of the city they inhabited—­ Suburan, Pallatine, Colline, and Esquiline. ­People used regularly to visit the city on market-­d ay 6—​ a holiday—­a nd so elections ­were disallowed on those days to prevent the rustic Plebs from being called away from their activities. They had their naps and their sleep on straw mats. And fi­nally, “glory” itself used to be called “adory” in honor of emmer-­wheat.7



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15  The Ideal of Smallholding (Pliny the Elder, Natu­ral History 18.4.17–23 and 18.7.35 and 18.8.41–43) Cicero sums up how many (perhaps most) Romans felt about farming (De Officiis 1.151): Nihil est agri cultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius (“Nothing is better than agriculture, nothing richer, nothing sweeter, nothing more fitting for a ­free person”). However, the Roman ideal was not farming of any sort whatsoever, but small-­scale diversified agriculture conducted on f­ amily farms. As Rome grew territorially during the l­ater Republic and early Empire, large “ factory” farms ( latifundia) worked by slaves became increasingly the norm, in Italy and the provinces. Pliny decries that situation in power­ful terms ­here and reminisces about better days gone by.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

M. Varro auctor est, cum L. Metellus in triumpho plurimos duxit elephantos, assibus singulis farris ­modios fuisse, item vini congios ficique siccae pondo xxx, olei pondo x, carnis pondo xii. nec e latifundiis singulorum contingebat arcentium vicinos, quippe etiam lege Stolonis Licinii incluso modo quingentorum iugerum, et ipso sua lege damnato cum substituta filii persona amplius possideret.

luxuriantis iam rei p. fuit ista mensura. Manii quidem Curii post triumphos inmensumque terrarum adiectum imperio nota dictio est perniciosum intellegi civem cui septem iugera non essent satis; haec enim men­ sura plebei post exactos reges adsignata est.

quaenam ergo tantae ubertatis causa erat? ipsorum tunc manibus imperatorum colebantur agri, ut fas est credere, gaudente terra vomere laureato et triumph­ ali aratore, sive illi eadem cura semina tractabant qua bella eademque diligentia arva disponebant qua castra,

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Marcus Varro writes that when Lucius Metellus paraded a large number of elephants in his triumph,1 a peck (modius) of emmer-­wheat cost one penny (an as). That was also the price of a gallon of wine, 30 pounds of dried figs, 10 pounds of olive oil, and 12 pounds of meat. And ­t hose good prices and that abundance w ­ ere not due to latifundia owned by individuals who had shut out their neighbors, since the law of Licinius Stolo l­ imited land owner­ship to 500 acres (even if Stolo himself was convicted by his own law b ­ ecause he owned a larger amount of land u ­ nder his son’s name). That’s how the Republic mea­sured up when it was enjoying some luxury. ­T here’s also the well-­ known saying of Manius Curius, who ­after celebrating triumphs and adding huge swaths of territory to Roman rule, 2 declared that whoever is not satisfied with seven iugera must be considered a dangerous citizen, for that was the mea­sure of land meted out to the P ­ eople when the kings had been ousted. What then was the source of such g­ reat abundance? The fields ­were tilled in e­ arlier times by the hands of generals themselves, and we are justified to think that the Earth rejoiced in a laurel-­crowned plowshare and a plowman who had celebrated a



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sive honestis manibus omnia laetius proveniunt quo­ niam et curiosius fiunt. serentem invenerunt dati honores Serranum, unde ei et cognomen. aranti quat­ tuor sua iugera in Vaticano, quae Prata Quintia appel­ lantur, Cincinnato viator attulit dictaturam et qui­ dem, ut traditur, nudo, plenoque nuntius morarum, ‘Vela corpus’, inquit, ‘ut perferam senatus populique Romani mandata’. tales tum etiam viatores erant, quod ipsum nomen inditum est subinde ex agris senatum ducesque arcessentibus.

at nunc eadem illa vincti pedes, damnatae ma­nus inscriptique vultus exercent, non tam surda tellure quae parens appellatur colique dicitur ut ipso opere ab his adsumpto non invita ea et indignante credatur id

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triumph. Perhaps it was ­because ­those men treated the seed with the same care that they waged wars and laid out their fields with the same attention that they applied to setting up camps. Or perhaps all tasks turn out better when performed by honorable hands, since they are done with greater diligence. When Serranus received his commission,3 he was sowing seed, whence his surname. When a messenger arrived to proclaim Cincinnatus Dictator, he found him plowing his four iugera on the Vatican, an area now called the Quintian Fields. Indeed, it is reported that Cincinnatus had stripped for work and the messenger, a­ fter considerable delay, said “Put on your clothes, so that I might carry out the mandates of the Senate and P ­ eople of Rome.” Official messengers w ­ ere like that even in t­ hose days, as their given title (viatores) suggests, since they ­were sent to fetch a man and “set him on his way” straight from his farm to appear before the leaders and Senate. But nowadays, farming is performed by men with fettered ankles and by the hands of criminals with branded ­faces, although the Earth, who is addressed as our M ­ other and whose cultivation is spoken of as worship, is not so deaf that when



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fieri. et nos miramur ergastulorum non eadem emol­ umenta esse quae fuerint imperatorum! . . . .

Modum agri in primis servandum antiqui puta­ vere, quippe ita censebant, satius esse minus serere et melius arare, qua in sententia et Vergilium fuisse video. verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam, iam vero et provincias—­s ex domini semis­ sem Africae possidebant, cum interfecit eos Nero princeps—­non fraudando magnitudine hac quoque sua Cn. Pompeio qui numquam agrum mercatus est conterminum. . . . .

nequeo mihi temperare quominus unum exem­ plum antiquitatis adferam ex quo intellegi possit apud populum etiam de culturis agendi morem fuisse, qualiterque defendi soliti sint illi viri. C. Furius Chresimus e servitute liberatus, cum in parvo admo­ dum agello largiores multo fructus perciperet quam ex amplissimis vicinitas, in invidia erat magna, ceu fruges alienas perliceret veneficiis. quamobrem ab

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we obtain even our farm-­work from ­these persons can one believe that this is not done against her ­will and to her indignation. Yet we are surprised that we do not get the same profits from the ­labor of slave-­gangs as used to be obtained from that of generals! The ancients thought that to observe moderation in the size of a farm was of first importance inasmuch as they determined that it was more satisfactory to sow less land and plow it better, an opinion I note Vergil held as well.4 Indeed, to tell the truth, large estates (latifundia) have ruined Italy, and are now ruining the provinces, too: Half of Africa was owned by six landlords when the Emperor Nero put them to death. Thus, let us not defraud Pompey of this additional mark of his Greatness5—­namely, that he at least never bought land belonging to a contiguous estate. I cannot resist sharing one story from antiquity to show that it was customary to bring even questions concerning agriculture before the P ­ eople and so that you can see the manner in which ­those men of old used to defend themselves in court. Gaius Furius Chresimus, a freed slave, was an object of ill-­will ­because he obtained far greater profits from his smallholding than the neighboring area did



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Spurio Albino curuli aedile die dicta metuens dam­ nationem, cum in suffragium tribus oporteret ire, in­ strumentum rusticum omne in forum attulit et ad­ duxit familiam suam validam atque, ut ait Piso, bene curatam ac vestitam, ferramenta egregie facta, graves ligones, vomeres ponderosos, boves saturos. postea dixit: ‘Veneficia mea, Quirites, haec sunt, nec possum vobis ostendere aut in forum adducere lucubrationes meas vigiliasque et sudores.’ omnium sententiis abso­ lutus itaque est. profecto opera inpensa cultura constat et ideo maiores fertilissimum in agro oculum domini esse dixerunt.

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from its gigantic estates. They deduced that he was spiriting away other p ­ eople’s crops by performing sorcery. Accordingly, he was indicted by Spurius Albinus, the curule aedile, and when the time came for the tribes to vote, Chresimus, fearing a guilty verdict, hauled all his farming equipment into the Forum and produced as witnesses his farm slaves, who w ­ ere in good health, and, as Piso says, well cared for and well clad. He also produced his iron tools, which looked very well made, stout mattocks, heavy plowshares, and his well-­fed cows. “This is my sorcery,” he said. “I am, however, unable to show you or produce in court my night ­labors, my early risings, or the sweat of my brow.” For this defense, he was unanimously acquitted. This just goes to show that farming involves hard work, and thus our ancestors coined the saying that the most fertile ele­ ment on a farm is the proprietor’s eye.6



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16  On Barley and Bread-­Making (Pliny the Elder, Natu­ral History 18.14–15 and 18.27–28.108) Who would have known ­there ­were no bakeries at Rome u ­ ntil the Third Macedonian War (171–168 BCE)? Or that t­here was no word in Latin for “baker” in the time of the comedian Plautus (ca. 254–184 BCE)? Such curiosities, often of dubious factual value but always intriguing and entertaining, are typical of the Natu­ral History. This excerpt, from a much longer disquisition on the Staff of Life, is representative of Pliny’s informed, almost obsessive interest in Roman staple foods.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Antiquissimum in cibis hordeum, sicut Atheniensium ritu Menandro auctore apparet et gladiatorum cogno­ mine qui hordearii vocabantur. polentam quoque Graeci non aliunde praeferunt. pluribus fit haec modis: Graeci perfusum aqua hordeum siccant nocte una ac postero die frigunt, dein molis frangunt. sunt qui vehementius tostum rursus exigua aqua adspergant et siccent prius quam molant.

alii vero virentibus spicis decussum hordeum re­ cens purgant madidumque in pila tundunt atque in corbibus eluunt ac siccatum sole rursus tundunt et purgatum molunt. quocumque autem genere praepa­ rato vicenis hordei libris ternas seminis lini et corian­ dri selibram salisque acetabulum, torrentes ante omnia, miscent in mola. qui diutius volunt servare cum polline ac furfuribus suis condunt novis fictilibus. Italia sine perfusione tostum in subtilem farinam molit, isdem additis atque etiam milio.

Panem ex hordeo antiquis usitatum vita damnavit, quadripedumque fere cibus est, cum ptisanae inde usus

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On B arley and Bread - making

Among foods the oldest is barley, as Menander’s reference to an Athenian rite makes clear,1 as does the nickname for gladiators, who used to be called “barley-­men.” The Greeks prefer barley for making polenta-­porridge. T ­ here are several ways to prepare it. The Greeks soak barley in w ­ ater overnight till it absorbs the w ­ ater, roast it on the following day, then grind it in the mill. Some ­people, once it’s good and toasted, sprinkle it again with a bit of w ­ ater and let it dry before milling it. Still ­others strip the barleycorn from the ears while the plant is still green, clean it, and, while the kernels are still moist, pound it in a mortar. Then they wash it in baskets, dry it in the sun, pound it again, clean it, then mill it. No ­matter what preparation ­people use, for ­every 20 pounds of barley, they mix into it at the mill three pounds of flax seed, a half-­pound of coriander seed, and a cup of salt—­all of which is also roasted. ­Those who wish to preserve barleycorn store it in new earthenware jars mixed with fine flour and the barley’s own bran. Italians grind toasted barley into a fine meal without soaking, adding the same ingredients above, plus millet. Our way of life has passed a negative judgment on bread made from barley, though it was much



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validissimus saluberrimusque tanto opere probetur . . . ​ Panis ipsius varia genera persequi supervacuum videtur, alias ab opsoniis appellati, ut ostrearii, alias a deliciis, ut artolagani, alias a festinatione, ut speustici, nec non a coquendi ratione, ut furnacei vel artopticii aut in clibanis cocti, non pridem etiam e Parthis invecto quem aquaticum vocant quoniam aqua trahitur ad tenuem et spongiosam inanitatem, alii Parthicum.

summa laus siliginis bonitate et cribri tenuitate constat. quidam ex ovis aut lacte subigunt, butyro vero gentes etiam pacatae, ad operis pistorii genera tran­ seunte cura. durat sua Piceno in panis inventione gratia ex alicae materia; eum novem diebus maceratum de­ cumo ad speciem tractae subigunt uvae passae suco, postea in furnis ollis inditum, quae rumpantur ibi, torrent. neque est ex eo cibus nisi madefacto, quod fit lacte maxime vel mulso.

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used in antiquity. T ­ hese days, it is mostly food for livestock. However, consuming barley w ­ ater is widely thought to be very good for your health and strength. 2 . . . ​As for bread in general, it seems beside the point to go through its vari­ous kinds. Sometimes it’s called ­after the dishes it’s eaten with, like oyster-­bread, sometimes from its own delightful qualities, such as cake-­bread, sometimes for the speed of preparation, as in hasty-­bread; but also from the way it’s baked, like oven-­bread, or pan-­ baked bread, or loaf-­baked bread. Not long ago, imported from Parthia, t­ here was a bread they call water-­bread, since it is stretched out thin using ­water u ­ ntil spongy and riddled with holes. O ­ thers just call it Parthian bread. The chief source of praise for bread depends on how good the wheat flour is and on how finely it is sifted. Some p ­ eople knead it with eggs or milk—­ indeed with butter even among nations at peace, when attention can pass to vari­ous kinds of pastry-­ making. Gratitude to Picenum persists for its invention of bread made from groats. This is steeped for nine days; on the tenth, they knead it with raisin-­juice into the shape of a log-­roll and bake it in earthenware pots, which break in the oven. But



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Pistores Romae non fuere ad Persicum usque bel­ lum annis ab urbe condita super dlxxx. ipsi panem faciebant Quirites, mulierumque id opus maxime erat, sicut etiam nunc in plurimis gentium. artoptas iam Plautus appellat in fa­ bula quam Aululariam ­inscripsit, magna ob id concertatione eruditorum an is versus poetae sit illius, certumque fit Ateii Capito­ nis sententia cocos tum panem lautioribus coquere solitos, pistoresque tantum eos qui far pisebant nomi­ natos; nec cocos vero habebant in servitiis, eosque ex macello conducebant.

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it is not eaten as food this way ­until it is soaked in milk, usually, or mead. ­There ­were no bakers at Rome up ­until the time of the Persian War,3 over 580 years ­after the foundation of the city. Roman citizens used to make bread themselves. This was especially the work of ­women, as it is even now in most countries. Plautus already uses the Greek word for baker, artoptas, in his comedy the Aulularia [line 400], though it has been a source of ­great consternation among the learned ­whether that verse r­ eally belongs to that poet. Yet it is confirmed by a passage in Ateius Capito4 that back then it was cooks that usually baked bread for wealthier p ­ eople. Whereas the Latin word for baker, pistor (“grinder”), was used only for ­those who pounded the emmer-­wheat, and p ­ eople d ­ idn’t keep cooks on their staff of domestic servants but would hire them from the provisions market.



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17  Getting and Naming a Dog (Columella, De Re Rustica 7.12) Plato thought that the dog was “the most philosophic” animal (Republic 375e–376b) ­ because it knows instinctively what belongs in its proper sphere of interest (its master, for example, and his property) and what does not (strangers and intruders). Diogenes of Sinope wore the derisive moniker “dog-­ like” (Kunikos, hence “Cynic”) as a badge of honor, taking upon himself the ethical role of “watchdog” to errant ­human passersby. “I am called a dog,” Diogenes explained, “­because I wag my tail for ­those who give to me when I beg, I bark at ­those who ­don’t, and bare my teeth at rogues” (Diogenes Laertius 6.60). ­Here Columella, author of twelve books on agrarian ­matters,1 offers decidedly more practical advice about our proverbial best friend.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Nunc ut exordio priore sum pollicitus, de mutis custo­ dibus loquar; quamquam canis falso dicitur mutus cus­ tos. Nam quis hominum clarius aut tanta vocifera­ tione bestiam vel furem praedicat, quam iste latratu? quis famulus amantior domini? quis fidelior comes? quis custos incorruptior? quis excubitor inveniri potest vigilantior? quis denique ultor aut vindex constan­ tior? Quare vel in primis hoc animal mercari tuerique debet agricola, quod et villam et fructus familiamque et pecora custodit. . . . ​Nominibus autem non longissi­ mis appellandi sunt, quo celerius quisque vocatus ­exaudiat: nec tamen brevioribus quam quae duabus syllabis enuntientur, sicuti Graecum est σκύλαξ, Lati­ num ferox, Graecum λάκων, Latinum celer: vel fe­ mina, ut sunt Graeca σπουδή, ἀλκή, ῥώμη: Latina, lupa, cerva, tigris.

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As promised in my preamble, I ­w ill now discuss the flock’s dumb guardians. And yet it’s wrong for ­people to call the dog a “dumb guardian.” For what ­human person announces the presence of a thief or predator more clearly or with such clamor than does a dog with his barking? What h ­ ouse­hold slave is more loving of his master? What companion more trustworthy? What guard more impervious to bribes? What more vigilant night-­ watchman could one find? And fi­nally, what avenger or defender is more unflinching? One of the very first ­things a farmer o ­ ught to do, therefore, is to buy and keep a dog, since it guards the farm and its fruits, the ­house­hold and its livestock. . . . ​Columella gives other information about types of dogs and information about selecting, feeding, and breeding them ­here, and then concludes: Dogs should be called by name but not using very long names; that way, when called, each can respond more quickly. They should not, however, have names with fewer than two ­syllables. ­Here are some examples: the Greek name “Puppy” (Skulax), or Latin “Fearsome” (Ferox); Greek “Spartan” (Lakōn), Latin “Speedy” (Celer); or, for female dogs: Greek “­Eager” (Spoudē), “Forceful” (Alkē), “Power” (Rhōmē); or Latin “Wolfy” (Lupa), “Doe-­Deer” (Cerva), or “Tigress” (Tigris).



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18  On Asses (Columella, De Re Rustica 7.1) Versatility, ease of care, and hardiness are qualities worth their weight in gold on any farm. ­Here, Columella celebrates the unsung virtues of the ass, an animal that was especially valuable before the invention of mechanized transport. This noble creature—­which also attracted in antiquity all the unflattering ste­reo­types we associate with the ass ­today—­takes center stage in Apuleius’s raucous comic novel of redemption, The Golden Ass, where the protagonist, Lucius, mistakenly turns himself into one when a magic spell goes wrong. In the course of Lucius’s misadventures as an ass, he performs most of the typical tasks enumerated ­here (and more, and worse!) before being transformed back into ­human guise by the goddess Isis.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

De minore pecore dicturis, P. Silvine, principium tenebit minor in ora Arcadiae vilis hic vulgarisque asellus, cuius plerique rusticarum rerum auctores in emendis tuendisque iumentis praecipuam rationem volunt esse; nec iniuria. Nam etiam eo rure, quod pascuo caret, con­ tineri potest, exiguo et qualicunque pabulo contentus. Quippe vel foliis spinisque vepraticis alitur, vel obiecto fasce sarmentorum. Paleis vero, quae paene omnibus regionibus, abundant, etiam gliscit.

Tum imprudentis custodis negligentiam fortissime sustinet: plagarum et penuriae tolerantissimus: propter quae tardius deficit, quam ullum aliud armentum. Nam laboris et famis maxime patiens raro morbis afficitur. Huius animalis tam exiguae tutelae plurima et neces­ saria opera supra portionem respondent, cum et fac­ ilem terram qualis in Baetica totaque Libye sit levibus aratris proscindat, et non minima pondera vehiculo trahat. Saepe etiam, ut celeberrimus poeta memorat:

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My first topic, Publius Silvinus,1 since it’s now the place for us to discuss the farm’s lesser animals, is the ass—­the smaller kind that comes from Arcadia and is common and readily available. Most writers on agriculture urge that we give special consideration to this animal when we are buying and caring for beasts of burden. And ­they’re not wrong. It is content with scant fodder of any quality whatsoever. You can keep it even in a part of the country that lacks pasture, for it’ll feed on leaves, bramble-­ thorns, or even a bundle of sticks thrown its way. And it positively thrives on chaff, which is abundant in nearly e­ very region. What is more, it puts up very bravely with a careless own­er’s neglect, enduring blows and want with ­little complaint. ­These qualities make it slower to fail than any other plow-­a nimal. It is also exceedingly tolerant of hunger and hard work and so is seldom affected by disease. This animal performs so many essential tasks—­well beyond its portion, seeing what scant care it requires: It can cut loamy soil like that in Baetica and all of Libya with just a lightweight plow yet haul loads none-­too-­small with a cart. Often, too, as our most celebrated poet puts it [Vergil, Georgics 1.273],



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. . . ​tardi costas agitator aselli vilibus aut onerat pomis, lapidemque revertens incusum aut atrae massam picis urbe reportat.

Iam vero molarum et conficiendi frumenti paene solemnis est huius pecoris ­labor. Quare omne rus tan­ quam maxime necessarium instrumentum desiderat asellum, qui, ut dixi, pleraque utensilia et vehere in urbem et reportare collo vel dorso commode potest.

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The driver loads his unhurried ass’s sides with ample stores of fruit and brings back from town a chiseled millstone, or a lump of black pitch.

Indeed, the job this animal does almost religiously ­these days is to turn the millstone and grind grain. For t­ hese reasons, e­ very farm needs an ass as if it w ­ ere an indispensable tool. As I said, it can con­ve­niently carry to and from town the majority of t­ hings one needs for use, e­ ither on its back or by pulling with its neck.



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19  What to Look for in a Ram (Columella, De Re Rustica 7.3.3) Timeless advice ­here, which we can certify from experience at Works & Days Farm as sound overall, for ­those in need of a stud ram.

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Habitus autem maxime probatur, cum est altus atque procerus, ventre promisso atque lanato, cauda longis­ sima, densique velleris, fronte lata, testibus amplis, intortis cornibus: non quia magis hic sit utilis, (nam est melior mutilus aries) sed quia minime nocent intorta potius, quam surrecta et patula cornua. Quibusdam

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The features most prized in a ram are height and breadth; a paunch that bulges and is wooly; a very long tail; thick fleece; a broad face; big testicles; and spiraling horns. Not that a ram with horns is more useful (for a ram is better if polled), but b ­ ecause horns do less harm if ­they’re in-­curving than if ­they’re straight and spreading. In some places, however, where the climate is wet and windy, one should choose rams and billy-­goats with the largest horns pos­si­ble, since their height and protrusion protect the greater part of the head from bad weather. Thus, if the winter is generally rotten, we ­will choose this kind of ram; if milder, we ­shall prefer a polled one. ­There is, a­ fter all, the incon­ve­nience in a horned ram in that he’s aware that his head is armed, as if it w ­ ere a natu­ral weapon. He often rushes headlong into ­battle and gets too rough with the ewes. Furthermore, since a single ram is not enough to ser­vice a ­whole flock, one ram pursues his rival with tremendous vio­lence and does not allow the flock, even when it’s in heat, to be bred by another ram ­unless he’s knackered from lust. Whereas the polled ram, since he understands that he is, as it w ­ ere, unarmed, is not quick to quarrel and is gentler in his mating. Shepherds thus discourage the aggression of a ram



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tamen regionibus, ubi caeli status uvidus ventosusque est, capros et arietes optaverimus vel amplissimis corn­ ibus, quod ea porrecta altaque maximam partem capitis a tempestate defendant.

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or billy-­goat by this clever device: They nail spikes to a stout board about a foot long and fasten it to the horns facing the forehead. This keeps a fierce animal from fighting, since, pricked by his own blow, he wounds himself.1



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20  The Joint Venture Farm (Columella, De Re Rustica Book 12, Preface and §1) In this passage, Columella describes the farm man­ ag­er’s wife, not the farm own­er’s. His incisive remarks about how the decline of Rome’s agrarian ethos has turned property ­owners into absentee landlords and the rugged wives of ­earlier times into kept ladies are reminiscent of Pliny (see se­lection no. 15). Columella’s views on the division of farm ­labor by gender might be thought objectionable. But when he says that both men and ­women share equally by nature in memory and attentiveness, that owner­ship of the ­house­hold in old Rome was jointly held between husband and wife, and that both partners, brought together by need for one another, cooperate to their mutual advantage, we come nearer to a paradigm instructive for our own times, too.

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Xenophon Atheniensis eo libro, P. Silvine, qui Oeco­ nomicus inscribitur, prodidit maritale coniugium sic comparatum esse natura, ut non solum iucundissima, verum, etiam utilissima vitae societas iniretur:

nam primum, quod etiam Cicero ait, ne genus ­ umanum temporis longinquitate occideret, propter h hoc marem cum femina esse coniunctum: deinde ut ex hac eadem societate mortalibus adiutoria senec­ tutis, nec minus propugnacula, praeparentur. Tum etiam, cum victus et cultus humanus non uti feris in propatulo ac silvestribus locis, sed domi sub tecto accurandus erat, necessarium fuit alterutrum foris et sub dio esse, qui labore et industria compararet, quae tectis reconderentur. Siquidem vel rusticari, vel navi­ gare, vel etiam genere alio negotiari necesse erat, ut ali­ quas facultates acquireremus.

Cum vero paratae res sub tectum essent congestae, alium esse oportuit, qui et illatas custodiret, et ea conficeret opera, quae domi deberent administrari. Nam et fruges ceteraque alimenta terrestria indige­ bant tecto, et ovium ceterarumque pecudum fetus,

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Xenophon of Athens, Publius Silvinus, in his book titled House­hold Management1 ventured the opinion that marital ­union has been arranged by Nature in such a way as to be not only the most pleasant, but also the most useful partnership one can enter into. Cicero says, 2 too, that first, man and ­woman ­were conjoined to prevent the ­human race from ­dying out over the long term; and that second, from this same association mortals would be provided for with support and a bulwark against old age. Additionally, since h ­ uman food and clothing had to be prepared with care at home, u ­ nder a roof, unlike among wild animals who get what they need in open air and in forested places, it was necessary for one of the two partners to spend time outdoors and u ­ nder bright sky so that by hard work and industry that person could procure the goods to be stored inside. It was necessary, ­after all, that we be engaged in some kind of business, be it farming or sea-­faring, in order to secure a livelihood. Once, however, provisions had been gathered and stored, another person was needed to watch over what had been brought in and to perform ­those tasks that o ­ ught to be taken care of at home. For grain and other food harvested from the soil



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atque fructus clauso custodiendi erant, nec minus reliqua utensilia, quibus aut alitur hominum genus, aut etiam excolitur.

Quare cum et operam et diligentiam ea quae pro­ posuimus, desiderarent, nec exigua cura foris acquir­ erentur, quae domi custodiri oporteret: iure, ut dixi, natura comparata est mulieris ad domesticam dili­ gentiam, viri autem ad exercitationem forensem et extraneam. Itaque viro calores et frigora perpetienda, tum etiam itinera et labores pacis ac belli, id est rusticationis et militarium stipendiorum deus tribuit: mulieri deinceps, quod omnibus his rebus eam fecerat inhabilem, do­ mestica negotia curanda tradidit. Et quoniam hunc sexum custodiae et diligentiae assignaverat, idcirco timidiorem reddidit quam virilem. Nam metus pluri­ mum confert ad diligentiam custodiendi.

Quod autem necesse erat foris et in aperto victum quaerentibus nonnumquam iniuriam propulsare, id­ circo virum quam mulierem fecit audaciorem. Quia

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needed to have a roof over it, and the offspring of sheep and other farm animals and likewise produce had to be kept ­under guard, shut in; so, too, the rest of what we use for the nourishment and/or keeping of humankind. And so, since the scenario we have set out calls for attentiveness and hard work, and since what should be safeguarded at home takes no scant amount of care to acquire out-­of-­doors, it is right, as I have said, that a w ­ oman has been assigned by Nature to diligent care at home and a man’s nature to open-­air exertions outside. Therefore, to the man, God ordained that he endure cold and hot temperatures and the journeys and hardships of war and peace (that is, t­ hose that pertain to soldiering and farming). Whereas, to the ­woman, b ­ ecause he had made her unsuited to t­ hose activities, he handed over the task of caring for domestic affairs. And since he marked out her gender for guardianship and attentiveness, he therefore made w ­ oman more timid than man, since fear is conducive to the attentiveness that is required for guardianship. Conversely, since ­ t hose who ­ were pursuing the quest for food away from the home sometimes had to repel attacks, God made man fiercer than



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vero partis opibus aeque fuit opus memoria et diligentia, non minorem feminae quam viro earum rerum tri­ buit possessionem. Tum etiam quod simplex natura non omnes res commodas amplecti volebat, idcirco al­ terum alterius indigere voluit: quoniam quod alteri deest, praesto plerumque est alteri.

Haec in Oeconomico Xenophon, et deinde Cicero, qui eum Latinae consuetudini tradidit, non inutiliter disseruerunt. Nam et apud Graecos, et mox apud Romanos usque in patrum nostrorum memoriam fere domesticus l­ abor matronalis fuit, tamquam ad requiem forensium exercitationum omni cura deposita patri­ busfamilias intra domesticos penates se recipientibus.

Erat enim summa reverentia cum concordia et dil­ igentia mixta, flagrabatque mulier pulcherrima aemu­ latione, studens negotia viri cura sua maiora atque me­ liora reddere. Nihil conspiciebatur in domo dividuum, nihil quod aut maritus, aut femina proprium esse iuris sui diceret: sed in commune conspirabatur ab utroque, ut cum forensibus negotiis, matronalis industria rationem

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­ oman. But since (once some resources had been w procured) t­ here was an equal need in both persons for memory and attentiveness, God allotted no smaller amount of t­ hese characteristics to the w ­ oman than to the man. Then, too, b ­ ecause Nature is impartial and did not want ­either of them to possess ­every advantage, she willed it that the two should need one another, since what­ever quality one person lacks is usually had by the other. ­These are the views that Xenophon, followed by Cicero, who translated him into Latin, sets forth, usefully, in House­hold Management. For both among the Greeks and soon thereafter among the Romans up ­u ntil the times remembered by our ­fathers, domestic work, generally speaking, fell to the married w ­ oman’s domain, whereas the heads of ­house­holds withdrew indoors to hearth and home, all care cast aside, only for reprieve from the exertions of public duties. That said, re­spect reigned supreme between them—­re­spect, combined with like-­m indedness and attentiveness. A wife used to be inflamed with a most noble spirit of competition, e­ ager by her care to enlarge and improve her husband’s affairs. Nothing was considered divisible in the home: Neither husband nor wife declared anything by right as



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parem faceret. Itaque nec villici quidem aut villicae magna erat opera, cum ipsi domini quotidie negotia sua reviserent atque administrarent.

Nunc vero cum pleraeque sic luxu et inertia diffluant, ut ne lanificii quidem curam suscipere dignentur, sed domi confectae vestes fastidio sint, perversaque cupi­ dine maxime placeant, quae grandi pecunia et totis paene censibus redimuntur: nihil mirum est, easdem ruris et instrumentorum agrestium cura gravari, sor­ didissimumque negotium ducere paucorum dierum in villa moram.

Quam ob causam cum in totum non solum exole­ verit, sed etiam occiderit vetus ille matrumfamil­ iarum mos Sabinarum atque Romanarum, necessaria irrepsit villicae cura, quae tueretur officia matronae: quoniam et villici quoque successerunt in locum domi­ norum, qui quondam prisca consuetudine non solum coluerant, sed habitaverant rura. Verum, ne videar intempestive censorium opus obiurgandis moribus

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their own; rather, both worked harmoniously for their common advantage. The wife’s industriousness, therefore, counted as equal to her husband’s public activities. Thus, back then, t­here was no need for a farm-­manager, since the proprietors themselves oversaw and directed their own work each day. ­These days, however, most ­women are awash in luxury and idleness to such an extent that they ­don’t deem even the supervision of wool-­making a worthy endeavor and find home-­spun garments loathsome. Perversely, the clothes that please them most are t­ hose that cost a fortune, amounting almost to the value of a w ­ hole estate. It is no won­der that t­ hese same ­women find the countryside and the care of farm-­equipment annoying and consider but a few days’ stay at a country villa to be a most unsavory business. For t­hose reasons, since the ancient habits of ­Sabine and Roman ­house­hold matrons have not only become unfashionable but have died out, caretaking by the farm-­manager’s wife has of necessity crept onto the scene so that she now performs a matron’s duties. Likewise, farm-­managers have taken the place of proprietors, who, in days gone by, ­d idn’t just cultivate their farms a­ fter the ancient



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nostrorum temporum suscepisse. iam nunc officia villi­ cae persequar.

. . . ​iuvenis esse debet, id est non nimium puella, propter easdem causas, quas de aetate villici retulimus: integrae quoque valitudinis, nec foedi habitus, nec rur­ sus pulcherrima. Nam illibatum robur et vigiliis et aliis sufficiet laboribus: foeditas fastidiosum, nimia 2 spe­ cies desidiosum faciet eius contubernalem.

Itaque curandum est, ut nec vagum villicum et aversum a contubernio suo habeamus, nec rursus intra tecta desidem, et complexibus adiacentem femi­ nae. Sed nec haec tantum, quae diximus, in villica custodienda sunt. Nam in primis considerandum erit, an a vino, ab escis, a superstitionibus, a somno, a viris remotissima sit, et ut cura eam subeat, quid memi­ nisse, quid in posterum prospicere debeat, ut fere eum morem servet, quem villico praecepimus: quoniam pleraque similia esse debent in viro atque femina, et

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custom, they actually lived on them. However, as I ­don’t want to appear to have appropriated unseasonably the work of a Censor3 by upbraiding ­be­hav­ior in our own times, I w ­ ill now delineate the duties of the farm-­manager’s wife. . . . She ­ought to be young . . . ​and also in good health. Her appearance s­ houldn’t be off-­putting, but, then again, she ­shouldn’t be too beautiful ­either. (A stalwart sturdiness ­will suffice for staying alert at night and other toils.) Ugliness w ­ ill put her companion off, while excessive good looks ­will make him lazy. In this regard, one has to be careful that we do not have a farm-­manager who is a wanderer, averse to concubinage with his wife; nor again one who is a stay-­at-­home, lounging about in her embraces. What I have said already about the farm-­ manager’s wife, however, is not all that we must be  on the look-­out for. One must consider also ­whether she keeps as far as can be from wine, overeating, superstition, and other men, and w ­ hether she internalizes what she is supposed to keep in mind—­namely, what she should be thinking about for the f­ uture—so that she might more or less uphold the manner of life w ­ e’ve enjoined on the farm-­ manager. For in most re­spects, husband and wife



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tam malum vitare, quam praemium recte factorum sperare. Tum elaborare, ut quam minimam operam villicus intra tectum impendat, cui et primo mane cum fa­ milia prodeundum est, et crepusculo peractis operi­ bus fatigato redeundum. Nec tamen instituendo villi­ cam domesticarum rerum villico remittimus curam, sed laborem eius adiutrice data levamus. . . .

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should be similar. And they should avoid wrongdoing just as much as they hope for a reward for deeds well done. The wife also ­ought to make it her work that the farm-­manager has to do as few chores in the ­house as pos­si­ble, since it’s his job to head out early in the morning with the field-­slaves and return exhausted at dusk once the work is completed. Still, in commissioning h ­ ere the farm-­manager’s wife, we do not recuse the farm-­manager from h ­ ouse­hold duties, but simply lighten his load by giving him a helpmeet.



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21  Why Farming Is the Best Job for a Phi­los­o­pher (Musonius Rufus, Lecture No. 11) Musonius Rufus was a phi­los­o­pher of the Stoic school who taught at Rome during Nero’s reign and wrote in Greek. That he would find farming an ideal occupation for phi­los­o­phers is consistent with the Stoics’ belief that philosophy is no respecter of persons but is open to all, as Musonius’s con­temporary Seneca argues forcefully in his 44th Letter to Lucilius. Indeed, the Stoics could boast among their greatest sages not only a rich man of letters like Seneca, but  a Greek ditch-­digger who began his c­areer as a boxer (Cleanthes), an ex-­slave from Phrygia (Epictetus—­Musonius’s student), and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Musonius’s argument ­here that the manual ­labor required of farming poses no impediment to the deliberate pursuit and acquisition of virtue—­ the natu­ ral end ­ toward which, according to the Stoics, h ­ uman beings should strive—is a muted criticism of Aristotle, who felt that it did (compare Politics 1337a10–11).

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Ἔστι καὶ ἕτερος πόρος οὐδὲν τούτου κακίων, τάχα δὲ καὶ ἀμείνων νομισθεὶς ἂν οὐκ ἀλόγως ἀνδρί γ’ εὐρω­ στῳ τὸ σῶμα, ὁ ἀπὸ γῆς, ἄν τ’ οὖν ἰδίαν ἔχῃ τις ἄν τε καὶ μή. πολλοὶ γὰρ δὴ καὶ ἀλλοτρίαν γῆν γεωργοῦ­ ντοες, ἢ δημοσίαν ἢ ἰδιωτικήν, δύνανται τρέφειν οὐ μόνον αὑτούς, καὶ τέκνα δὲ καί γυναῖκας· ἔνιοί γε δὴ καὶ εἰς ἄγαν ἀπὸ τούτου εὐποροῦσιν, αὐτουργικοὶ καὶ φιλόπονοι ὄντες. ἀμείβεται γὰρ ἡ γῆ κάλλιστα καὶ δι­ καιότατα τοὺς ἐπιμελομένους αὐτῆς, πολλαπλάσια ὧν λαμβάνει διδοῦσα καὶ ἀφθονίαν παρέχουσα πάντων τῶν ἀναγκαίων πρὸς τὸν βίον τῷ βουλομένῳ πονεῖν, καὶ ταῦτα μὲν σὺν τῷ πρέποντι, σὺν αἰσχύνῃ δ’ οὐδὲν αὐτῶν. οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἀνθρώπων οὐδεὶς μὴ θρυπτικός γε μηδὲ μαλακὸς ὤν, ὃς ἂν φαίη τῶν γεωρκικῶν ἔργων οῦν αἰσχρὸν ἢ ἀνάρμοστον ἀνδρὶ ἀγαθῷ εἶναι. πῶς μὲν γὰρ οὐ καλὸν τὸ φυτεύειν; πῶς δὲ τὸ ἀροῦν; πῶς δὲ τὸ ἀμπελουργεῖν; τὸ δὲ σπείρειν, τὸ δὲ θερίζειν, τὸ δὲ ἀλοᾶν, οὐ πάντ’ ἐλευθέρια ταῦτα καὶ ἀνδράσιν ἀγαθοῖς πρέποντα; καὶ μὴν τὸ ποιμαίνειν ὥσπερ Ἡσίοδον οὐ κατῄσχυνεν οὐδ’ ἐκώλυεν εἶναι θεοφιλῆ τε καὶ μουσικόν, οὕτως οὐδ’ ἂν ἅλλον οὐδένα κωλύσειεν.

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­ here’s yet another way to earn a living not infeT rior to this one.1 In fact, it could be considered a better way, and not without reason, at least for a man who has some bodily strength—­namely, a livelihood gained from the land, ­whether one owns his own property or not. Indeed, many ­people who farm land that does not belong to them, be it public land or private, are able to provide not only for themselves, but for their wives and ­children, too. Some even prosper to the point of having a surplus from farming if they are industrious and amenable to hard work. For the land repays the most just and beautiful returns to ­t hose who care for it, giving back many times more than it receives and offering an abundance of life’s necessities to the person who is willing to work. ­T hese are respectable ­undertakings; t­ here’s no shame in them. It’s only someone delicate and soft who would say that farmwork is unsuited to an honest man. How could planting not be a noble endeavor? How not plowing, or pruning vines? Sowing, harvesting, threshing—­ are all t­ hese not tasks for the freeborn and appropriate for good men? Shepherding, too: Hesiod ­wasn’t ashamed of it; nor did it prevent him from being a poet, and dear to the gods. So neither would it hinder any other person.



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ἐμοὶ μὲν δὴ καὶ ἀρεστὸν τοῦτο πάντων τῶν ἐν γε­ ωργίαις ἔργων, ὅτι τῇ ψυχῇ παρέχει σχολὴν πλείονα διανοεῖσθαί τι καὶ ζητεῖν παιδείας ἐχόμενον. ὅσα μὲν γὰρ ἔργα πάνυ ἐντείνει τὸ σῶμα καὶ κάμπτει, ταῦτα καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ἀναγκάζει πρὸς αὐτοῖς εἶναι μόνοις ἢ μάλι­ στα συνεντεινομένην τῷ σώματι· ὅσα δὲ τῶν ἔργων ἐφίησι μὴ ἄγαν ἐντετάσθαι τὸ σῶμα, ταῦτ’ οὐκ ἀπείρ­ γει τὴν ψυχὴν ἐκλογίζεσθαί τι τῶν κρειττόνων κἀκ τῶν τοιούτων λογισμῶν αὐτὴν αὑτῆς γίνεσθαι σοφωτέραν, οὗ δὴ καί μάλιστα πᾶς φιλόσοφος ἐφίεται. διὰ ταῦτ’ ἐγὼ τὴν ποιμενικὴν ἀσπάζομαι μάλιστα. εἴ γε μὴν ἅμα φιλοσοφεῖ τις καὶ γεωργεῖ, οὐκ ἄλλον ἂν παραβάλοιμι τούτῳ βίον οὐδὲ πορισμὸν ἕτερον προτιμήσαιμι ἄν. πῶς μὲν γὰρ οὐ κατὰ φύσιν μᾶλλον ἀπὸ γῆς, ἣ τροφός τε καὶ μήτηρ ἐστὶν ἡμῶν, ἢ ἀπ’ ἄλλου του τρέφεσθαι; πῶς δ’ οὐκ ἀνδρικώτερον τοῦ καθῆσθαι ἐν πόλει, ὥσπερ οἱ σοφισταί, τὸ ζῆν ἐν χωρίῳ; πῶς δ’ οὐκ ὑγιει­ νότερον τοῦ σκιατροφεῖσθαι τὸ ἔξω διαιτᾶσθαι; τί δέ; ἐλευθεριώτερον αὐτὸν αὑτῷ μηχανᾶσθαι τὰ ἀνα­ γνκαῖα ἢ παρ’ ἑτέρων λαμβάνειν;

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The most pleasing aspect of all farmwork is that it affords the mind more ­free time to think and to investigate m ­ atters that have a bearing on one’s moral development. Of course, work that exerts the body and exhausts it compels the mind to be also closely engaged with that work to the exclusion of all ­else, and to experience an exertion of its own along with the body. However, work that does not exert the body to excess does not keep the mind from pondering more impor­tant t­ hings, and, upon such reflection, from becoming wiser than it was, which is the aim of ­every phi­los­o­pher. For ­t hese reasons, I am particularly keen on shepherding. But regardless, if someone pursues philosophy and farming together, I would not compare any other way of life to this, nor would I prefer any other means of obtaining a livelihood. For how is it not more in accordance with Nature to be nourished by the Earth, our nurse and ­mother, than by some other source? How is it not more manly to live in the countryside than to be sedentary in the city like the sophists?2 How is it not healthier to spend your time outdoors than to be cooped up inside? How is it not more conducive to freedom to acquire one’s own necessities oneself rather than receive them from ­others?



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ἀλλὰ φαίνεται τὸ μὴ δεῖσθαι ἄλλου πρὸς τὰς χρείας τὰς αὑτοῦ πολὺ σεμνότερον ἢ τὸ δεῖσθαι. οὕτως ἄρα καλὸν καὶ εὐδαιμονικὸν καὶ θεοφιλὲς τὸ ζῆν ἀπὸ γε­ ωργίας ἐστί, σύν γε τῷ καλοκἀγαθίας μὴ ὀλιγωρεῖν, ὥστε Μύσωνα τὸν Χηναῖον ὁ θεὸς ἀνεῖπε σοφὸν καὶ τὸν Ψωφίδιον Ἀγλαὸν εὐδαίμονα προσηγόρευσε, χω­ ριτικῶς ἑκάτερον αὐτῶν βιοῦντα καὶ αὐτουργίᾳ χρώ­ μενον καὶ τῆς ἐν ἄστει διατριβῆς ἀπεχόμενον. ἆρ’ οὖν οὐκ ἄξιον ζηλοῦν τε καὶ μιμεῖσθαι τούτους καὶ περιέ­ χεσθαι σπουδῇ τοῦ γεωργεῖν; τί οὖν; οὐ δεινὸν φαίη τις ἂν ἴσως ἅνδρα παιδευτικὸν καὶ δυνάμενον προβι­ βάζειν νέους εἰς φιλοσοφίαν ἐργάζεσθαι γῆν καὶ τῷ σώματι πονεῖν τοῖς χωρίταις παραπλησίως; ναί. δεινὸν ἂν τοῦτο τῷ ὄντι ἦν, εἴπερ ἐκώλυεν ἡ ἐργασία τῆς γῆς φιλοσοφεῖν ἢ ἄλλους πρὸς φιλοσοφίαν ὠφελεῖν. ωῦν δὲ καὶ μᾶλλον ἄν μοι δοκοῦσιν ὠφελεῖσθαι οἱ νέοι οὐκ ἐν πόλει τῷ διδασκάλῳ συνόντες οὐδ’ ἐν τῇ διατριβῇ ἀκούοντες αὐτοῦ λέγοντος, ἀλλ’ ἐργαζόμενον ἐπὶ τῆς ἀγροικίας ὁρῶντες καὶ ἔργῳ ἐνδεικνύμενον ἅπερ ὑψηγεῖται ὁ λόγος, ὅτι χρὴ πονεῖν καὶ κακοπαθεῖν τῷ σώματι μᾶλλον ἢ ἑτέρου δεῖσθαι τοῦ τρέφοντος. τί δὲ τὸ κωλύον ἐστὶ καὶ ἐργαζόμενον τοῦ διδασκάλου τὸν μαθητὴν ἀκούειν τι ἅμα περὶ σωφροσύνης ἢ δικαιοσύ­ νης ἢ καρτερίας λέγοντος; πολλῶν μὲν γὰρ λόγων οὐ δεῖ τοῖς φιλοσοφήσουσι καλῶς, οὐδὲ τὸν ὄχλον τοῦτον

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Clearly, as far as one’s own needs go, not to require t­ hings from someone ­else is much more dignified than to do so. Indeed, just how fine and happy and a mark of divine ­favor it is to live by farming—so long as good character is not neglected—is shown by Myson of Chenae, whom the god declared “wise,” and Aglaus of Psophis, whom he pronounced “happy.”3 Both lived by the work of their own hands in the countryside and kept away from city-­life. Is it not then worthwhile to emulate and imitate t­ hese men and embrace farming with enthusiasm? Someone might say, “Is it not unusual, for an educated person with the power to put young ­people on the path of philosophy to work the land with physical l­abor just like a peasant?” Yes, it would be unusual, if in fact working the land prevented someone from being a phi­los­o­pher or helping o ­ thers pursue philosophy. But the fact is, it seems to me, that young p ­ eople would be helped more, not by associating with their teacher in the city, nor hearing him lecture at school, but by seeing him engaged in agricultural tasks whereby he demonstrates in practice exactly what reason instructs—­namely, that one must toil and experience physical hardship rather than



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τῶν θεωρημάτων ἀναληπτέον πάντως τοῖς νέοις, ἐφ’ ᾧ φυσωμένους τοὺς σοφιστὰς ὁρῶμεν· ταῦτα γὰρ δὴ τῷ ὄντι ἱκανὰ κατατρῖψαι βίον ἀνθρώπου ἐστί. τὰ δ’ ἀναγκαιότατα καὶ χρησιμώτατα μαθεῖν οὐκ ἀδύνατον καὶ πρὸς ἐργασίᾳ γεωργικῇ ὄντας, ἄλλως τε καὶ οὐ  διὰ παντὸς ἐργασομένους, ἀλλὰ ἀναπαύλαις χρησομένους.

ὀλίγοι μὲν οὖν τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον ἐθελήσουσι μαν­ θάνειν, οἶδ’ ἀκριβῶς ἐγώ· ἔστι δὲ ἄμεινον μηδὲ προσι­ έναι τῷ φιλοσόφῳ τοὺς πλείονας τῶν φιλοσοφεῖν λεγόντων νέων, ὅσοι σαθροί τε καὶ μαλακοί, δι’ οὓς προσιόντας ἀναπίμπλαται κηλίδων φιλοσοφία. τῶν μὲν γὰρ ἀληθινῶν ἐραστῶν φιλοσοφίας οὐκ ἔστιν οὐ­ δείς, ὃς οὐκ ἂν ἐθελήσειε μετ’ ἀνδρὸς ἀγαθοῦ διάγειν ἐν χωρίῳ, καὶ εἰ χαλεπώτατον τύχοι ὂν τὸ χωρίον, μέλλων γε ἀπολαύειν μεγάλα ταύτης τῆς διατριβῆς τῷ συνεῖναι τῷ διδασκάλῳ νύκτωρ καὶ μεθ’ ἡμέραν, τῷ ἀπεῖναι τῶν ἀσκτικῶν κακῶν, ἅπερ ἐμπόδιον τῷ φιλοσοφεῖν, τῷ μὴ δύνασθαι λανθάνειν εὖ ἢ κακῶς τι ποιῶν, ὃ δὴ μέγιστον τοῖς παιδευομένοις ὄφελος. καὶ

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depend for sustenance on someone ­else. What’s to keep a student while he’s busy at work from listening to his teacher on the topics of, say, self-­control, justice, or endurance? You do not need a lot of speeches to teach effectively if you are a phi­los­o­ pher. Young p ­ eople certainly d ­ on’t need to master the throng of theorems we see the sophists puffing on about. ­There are enough of ­those to consume a person’s lifetime! It is pos­si­ble to learn what is most essential and useful in addition to performing farmwork, especially if one is not laboring nonstop, but can enjoy some breaks. Now I know full well that few ­will want to learn in this manner. Yet it is better for young ­people who declare their interest in philosophy not to go see a phi­los­o­pher. I refer to t­ hose would-be students who are unsound and soft, b ­ ecause of whom philosophy has become replete with defilements. But among the true lovers of philosophy, t­ here i­ sn’t anyone who would not want to bide his time with an honest man in the countryside, even if the locale proved quite challenging, since he would reap ­great benefits from this way of life, associating with his teacher day and night, far away from the pitfalls of the city, which are an obstacle to the pursuit of



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ἐσθίειν δὲ καὶ πίνειν καὶ καθεύδειν ἐφορώμενον ὑπ’ ἀνδρὸς ἀγαθοῦ μέγα ὄφελος. ἃ δὲ γένοιτ’ ἂν ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἐν τῇ συνουσίᾳ τῇ κατ’ ἀγρόν, ταῦτα ἐπαινεῖ καὶ Θέο­ γνις ἐν οἷς φησι

καὶ μετὰ τῶν σύ γε πῖνε, καὶ ἔσθιε, καὶ μετὰ τοῖσιν ἵζε, καὶ ἅνδανε τοῖς, ὧν μεγάλη δύναμις. ὅτι γε μὴν οὐκ ἄλλους τινὰς ἢ τοὺς ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας λέγει μεγάλην ἔχειν δύναμιν πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ὠφέ­ λειαν, εἰ συνεσθίοι καὶ συμπίνοι τις αὐτοῖς καὶ συγκα­ θέζοιτο, δεδήλωκεν· ἐσθλῶν μὲν γὰρ ἀπ’ ἐσθλὰ μαθήσεαι· ἢν δὲ κακοῖσι συμμιγῇς, ἀπολεῖς καὶ τὸν ἐόντα νόον.

μὴ δὴ λεγέτω τις ὅτι τῷ μανθάνειν ἢ τῷ διδάσκειν ἃ χρὴ τὸ γεωργεῖν ἐμπόδιον· οὐ γὰρ ἔοικεν οὕτως ἔχειν, εἰ δὴ μάλιστ’ ἂν οὕτω καὶ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ὁ μὲν μανθάνων

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philosophy. Moreover, that you c­ an’t escape notice when you do something, ­whether it be done properly or poorly, is a tremendous advantage to ­those receiving instruction. To eat, drink, and sleep ­u nder the supervision of an honest man is also a ­great boon. The results that inevitably arise from time spent together in the country are praised by Theognis4 in t­ hese lines, where he says: Drink and eat among men whose power is g­ reat; sit in their midst; impress them.

That Theognis means honest men specifically have ­great power for ­people’s benefit if someone joins them in eating, drinking, and sitting down ­together he has shown in the following lines: From noble men you ­will learn noble ­things; if you mingle with the base, you w ­ ill lose even what sense you had.

And so, let no one say that farming is an obstacle to learning or teaching what one must, for that’s just not the case, especially in a situation where the



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συνείη τῷ διδάσκοντι, ὁ δὲ διδάσκων διὰ χειρὸς ἔχοι τὸν μανθάνοντα. τούτου δὲ τοιούτου ὄντος, ὁ πόρος ἐκ γεωργίας φαίνεται ὢν τῷ φιλοσόφῳ πρεπωδέστατος.

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learner lives in the closest proximity to the teacher and the teacher in turn has the student close to hand. When this kind of arrangement is in place, a livelihood gained from farming is clearly the most suitable for a phi­los­o­pher.



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22  A Garden on Lesbos (Longus, Daphnis & Chloe 4.1–2) Daphnis & Chloe, a novel written in Greek from the third ­century CE, is an idyllic, idealized meditation on ­humans’ right relationship to Nature. The main characters are noble-­born foundlings, a boy and a girl, who are rescued from exposure by the rustic god Pan and his Nymphs and raised in peasant families. The two spend all their time together tending their flocks on the hills of the island of Lesbos. In the midst of their work, they play ­music, pick flowers, bathe in bubbling streams, and laze about in the shade of sprawling plane trees. They also fall in love. The development of the story follows the progression of the seasons as Daphnis and Chloe move, in Blakean terms, from Innocence to Experience ­under the superintending providence of Nature. This passage describes a plea­sure garden constructed by Daphnis’s foster-­father Lamon that utilizes an intensive technique called “mixed cultivation,” wherein diversified plantings are selected and located in the garden with a view not only to their beauty but also to their synergistic, complementary properties. It is a technique and princi­ple that many farmers and gardeners are only rediscovering ­today.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

ἤδη οὖν τοῦ θέρους ἀπιόντος καὶ τοῦ μετοπώρου προσιόντος παρεσκεύαζεν αὐτῷ τὴν καταγωγὴν ὁ Λάμων εἰς πᾶσαν θέας ἡδονήν· πηγὰς ἐξεκάθαιρεν ὡς τὸ ὕδωρ καθαρὸν ἔχοιεν, τὴν κόπρον ἐξεφόρει τῆς αὐλῆς ὡς ἀπόζουσα μὴ διοχλοίη, τὸν παράδεισον ἐθεράπευεν ὡς ὀφθείη καλός. Ἦν δὲ ὁ παράδεισος πάγκαλόν τι χρῆμα καὶ κατὰ τοὺς βασιλικούς. ἐκτέτατο μὲν εἰς σταδίου μῆκος, ἔκειτο δὲ ἐν χώρῳ μετεώρῳ, τὸ εὖρος ἔχων πλέθρων τεττάρων. εἴκασεν ἄν τις αὐτὸν πεδίῳ μακρῷ. εἶχε δὲ πάντα δένδρα, μηλέας, μυρρίνας, ὄχνας καὶ ῥοιὰς καὶ συκᾶς καὶ ἐλαίας· ἑτέρωθι ἄμπελον ὑψηλήν, καὶ ἐπέκειτο ταῖς μηλέαις καὶ ταῖς ὄχναις περκάζουσα, καθάπερ αὐταῖς περὶ τοῦ καρποῦ προσερίζουσα. το­ σαῦτα ἥμερα. ἦσαν δὲ καὶ κυπάριττοι καὶ δάφναι καὶ πλάτανοι καὶ πίτυς. ταύταις πάσαις ἀντὶ τῆς ἀμπέλου κιττὸς ἐπέκειτο, καὶ ὁ κόρυμβος αὐτοῦ μέγας ὢν καὶ μελαινόμενος βότρυν ἐμιμεῖτο. ἔνδον ἦν τὰ καρπο­ φόρα φυτὰ καθάπερ φρουρούμενα· ἔξωθεν περιει­ στήκει τὰ ἄκαρπα καθάπερ θριγγὸς χειροποίητος, καὶ ταῦτα μέντοι λεπτῆς αἱμασιᾶς περιέθει περίβολος. τέτμητο καὶ διακέκριτο πάντα, καὶ στέλεχος στελέ­ χους ἀφειστήκει· ἐν μετεώρῳ δὲ οἱ κλάδοι συνέπι­ πτον ἀλλήλοις καὶ ἐπήλλαττον τὰς κόμας. ἐδόκει ­μέντοι καὶ ἡ τούτων φύσις εἶναι τέχνης.

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With summer now waning and fall coming on, Lamon set to work to make his master’s country retreat a total plea­sure to behold. He cleaned out the springs so that their w ­ ater ran clear. He removed the manure pile from the barnyard so that its stink would not be off-­putting, and he tended the garden so that it would look beautiful. The garden, indeed, was a t­hing of perfect beauty, comparable even to royal gardens. It was situated on high ground and stretched out 600 feet in length and was 400 feet wide. One could have likened it to a small field. It contained all va­ri­e­ties of tree: apple, myrtle, pear, pomegranate, fig, and olive. On one side, a tall vine lay upon the apple and pear trees, its grapes darkening with ripeness as if it ­were vying with the trees over fruit. And ­those ­were just the cultivated va­ri­e­ties. T ­ here ­were also cypress trees, bay laurels, plane trees, and pines. Upon all t­ hese, ivy was laid to balance out the grape vine, its large berries darkening in imitation of the grapes. The fruiting trees w ­ ere on the inside, as if kept ­under guard. On the outside, the nonfruiting trees enclosed them as if they constituted a hand-­ made fence, and, around ­these, in turn, ran a fine stone wall. All the trees ­were pruned and spaced: trunk stood apart from trunk, while overhead the



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ἦσαν καὶ ἀνθῶν πρασιαί, ὧν τὰ μὲν ἔφερεν ἡ γῆ, τὰ δὲ ἐποίει τέχνη· ῥοδωνιαὶ καὶ ὑάκινθοι καὶ κρίνα χειρὸς ἔργα, ἰωνιὰς καὶ ναρκίσσους καὶ ἀναγαλλίδας ἔφερεν ἡ γῆ. σκιά τε ἦν θέρους καὶ ἦρος ἄνθη καὶ μετοπώρου τρύγη καὶ κατὰ πᾶσαν ὥραν ὀπώρα. ­ Ἐντεῦθεν εὔοπτον μὲν ἦν τὸ πεδίον καὶ ἦν ὁρᾶν τοὺς νέμοντας, εὔοπτος δὲ ἡ θάλασσα καὶ ἑωρῶντο οἱ πα­ ραπλέοντες· ὥστε καὶ ταῦτα μέρος ἐγίνετο τῆς ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ τρυφῆς.

ἵνα τοῦ παραδείσου τὸ μεσαίτατον ἐπὶ μῆκος καὶ εὖρος ἦν, νεὼς Διονύσου καὶ βωμὸς ἦν· περιεῖχε τὸν μὲν βωμὸν κιττός, τὸν νεὼν δὲ κλήματα. εἶχε δὲ καὶ ἔν­ δοθεν ὁ νεὼς Διονυσιακὰς γραφάς· Σεμέλην τίκτου­ σαν, Ἀριάδνην καθεύδουσαν, Λυκοῦργον δεδεμένον, Πενθέα διαιρούμενον· ἦσαν καὶ Ἰνδοὶ νικώμενοι καὶ Τυρρηνοὶ μεταμορφούμενοι· πανταχοῦ Σάτυροι , πανταχοῦ Βάκχαι χορεύουσαι. οὐδὲ ὁ Πὰν ἠμέλητο, ἐκαθέζετο δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς συρίζων ἐπὶ πέτρας

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branches met one another and plaited their fo­liage. It seemed as if even the Nature of t­ hese plantings was a work of Art. ­There ­were flowerbeds, too. The Earth brought forth some of the flowers, but o ­ thers w ­ ere produced by Art. Roses, hyacinths, and lilies ­were the work of h ­ uman hands, while the Earth brought forth the violets, daffodils, and primroses. ­T here was shade in summer, flowers in spring, a grape harvest in autumn, and fruit in ­every season. From this spot, t­ here was a good view of the plain, and you could see shepherds pasturing their flocks. ­T here was a good view of the sea as well, where ships sailing along the coast would come into view. ­T hese aspects, too, gave the garden a luxurious quality. ­There was a shrine and an altar to Dionysus in the m ­ iddle of the garden. Ivy clung to the altar, and vines covered the shrine. The shrine had paintings of Dionysus’s exploits inside: Semele giving birth;1 Ariadne sleeping; 2 Lycurgus bound in chains;3 Pentheus being torn apart.4 Indians ­were ­there as well, in a state of being vanquished,5 and Etruscans changing their form. 6 Satyrs treading grapes and Bacchant ­women dancing ­were everywhere, too.7



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ὅμοιο ἐνδιδόντι κοινὸν μέλος καὶ τοῖς πατοῦσι καὶ ταῖς χορευούσαις.

Τοιοῦτον ὄντα τὸν παράδεισον ὁ Λάμων ἐθερά­ πευε, τὰ ξηρὰ ἀποτέμνων, τὰ κλήματα ἀναλαμβάνων. τὸν Διόνυσον ἐστεφάνωσε, τοῖς ἄνθεσιν ὕδωρ ἐπω­ χέτευσεν ἐκ πηγῆς τινὸς ἣν εὗρεν ἐς τὰ ἄνθη Δάφνις· ἐσχόλαζε μὲν τοῖς ἄνθεσιν ὁ Λάμων, παρεκελεύετο δὲ καὶ τῷ Δάφνιδι πιαίνειν τὰς αἶγας ὡς δυνατὸν μάλιστα, πάντως που κἀκείνας λέγων ὄψεσθαι τὸν δεσπότην ἀφικόμενον διὰ μακροῦ.

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Pan was not neglected ­either: ­there he was, sitting upon the rocks puffing on his pan-­pipes like someone playing a tune suitable for both the satyrs treading and the ­women dancing. Such was the garden that Lamon tended—­ pruning the dead wood and tying up the vines. He put a garland on Dionysus and watered the flowers from a spring that Daphnis had found for that purpose. Lamon devoted himself to the flowers and instructed Daphnis to fatten the goats as much as pos­si­ble, saying that the master would no doubt have a look at them, too, since he had not visited for a long time.



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23  The Numinous Landscape (Homeric Hymns No. 30; Orphic Hymns No. 10; Cato, De Agricultura 134, 139–141) The Homeric Hymns are preludes in praise of attendant deities thought to have been performed at Panhellenic festivals from the earliest times. The Orphic Hymns are much ­later (third c­ entury CE), more philosophical and mystical. The Hymns to Earth and Nature translated ­here capture some of the reverence and numinous awe that the Greeks felt t­ oward the natu­ral world. Cato’s incantations, also included h ­ ere, might seem strange to us ­today, but they are not so far removed from the less-­than-­ scientific methods of so-­called biodynamic farming. Be that as it may, the ritual procedures Cato ­p rescribes to ensure a good crop remind us that, for the ancients, agriculture was embedded in a larger, intricate network of technical knowledge, religious belief, and spatiolinguistic artistry.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

ΕΙΣ ΓΗΝ ΜΗΤΕΡΑ ΠΑΝΤΩΝ Γαῖαν παμμήτειραν ἀείσομαι, ἠϋθέμεθλον, πρεσβίστην, ἣ φέρβει ἐπὶ χθονὶ πάνθ᾿ ὁπόσ᾿ ἐστίν, ἠμὲν ὅσα χθόνα δῖαν ἐπέρχεται ἠδ᾿ ὅσα πόντον ἠδ᾿ ὅσα πωτῶνται· τὰ δὲ φέρβεται ἐκ σέθεν ὄλβου. 5 ἐκ σέο δ᾿ εὔπαιδές τε καὶ εὔκαρποι τελέθουσιν, πότνια, σεῦ δ᾿ ἔχεται δοῦναι βίον ἠδ᾿ ἀφελέσθαι θνητοῖς ἀνθρώποισιν· ὃ δ᾿ ὄλβιος, ὅν κε σὺ θυμῶι πρόφρων τιμήσηις, τῶι τ᾿ ἄφθονα πάντα πάρεστιν· βρίθει μέν σφιν ἄρουρα φερέσβιος, ἠδὲ κατ᾿ἀγρούς 10 κτήνεσιν εὐθηνεῖ, οἶκος δ᾿ ἐμπίμπλαται ἐσθλῶν· αὐτοὶ δ᾿ εὐνομίηισι πόλιν κάτα καλλιγύναικα κοιρανέουσ᾿, ὄλβος δὲ πολὺς καὶ πλοῦτος ὀπηδεῖ· παῖδες δ᾿ εὐφροσύνηι νεοθηλέϊ κυδιόωσιν, παρθενικαί τε χοροῖς φερεσανθέσιν εὔφρονι θυμῶι 15 παίζουσι χαίρουσι κατ᾿ ἄνθεα μαλακὰ ποίης, οὕς κε σὺ τιμήσηις, σεμνὴ θεά, ἄφθονε δαῖμον.

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a. To Earth, M ­ other of All (Homeric Hymns No. 30) Of Earth, ­Mother of All, whose roots run deep, I ­will sing. She is the eldest;1 she feeds all that exists on land, what­ever moves on sacred land and at sea, and every­thing that flies. T ­ hese feed off your bounty. ­Because of you, ­people blossom with ­children and harvests, Mistress. To give life or to take it away rests with you, as touches us mortals. He is fortunate, whom you esteem, when your heart is kindly disposed; to that man, all t­ hings belong in abundance. His fields grow heavy with the staff of life. In his pastures, he prospers with livestock, and his h ­ ouse is filled with good ­things. Governed by laws, in a city where the w ­ omen are fair, such men are kings. Much fortune and wealth attend them. Their c­ hildren exult with gladness in the vigor of youth.



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χαῖρε, θεῶν μήτηρ, ἄλοχ᾿ Οὑρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος, πρόφρων δ᾿ ἀντ᾿ ὠιδῆς βίοτον θυμήρε᾿ ὄπαζε· αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ καὶ σεῖο καὶ ἄλλης μνήσομ᾿ ἀοιδῆς.

Φύσεως, θυμίαμα, ἀρώματα. Ὦ Φύσι, παμμήτειρα θεά, πολυμήχανε μῆτερ, οὐρανίη, πρέσβειρα, πολύκτιτε δαῖμον, ἄνασσα·

πανδαμάτωρ, ἀδάμαστε, κυβερνήτειρα, παναυγής, παντοκράτειρα, τιτιμέν’ ἀεί, πανυπέρτατε δαῖμον·

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Girls, with happy hearts and flowery dances, play joyously among delicate flowers upon the mead. And so it is for ­those you esteem, awesome Goddess, generous deity. Hail, M ­ other of the Gods, consort of starry Sky: Kindly grant me a pleasant life in return for my song. For I ­will give you heed, with other hymn-­ singing, too. b. To Nature (Orphic Hymns No. 10) (Incense. Aromatics.)2 Nature! Goddess, m ­ other of all, resourceful ­mother, you are celestial, the eldest, a deity of many constructions, a queen. You are subduer of all, yet unsubdued; a steerswoman, supremely bright; the ruler of all, forever esteemed, a divinity most high.



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ἄφθιτε, πρωτογένεια, παλαίφατε, κυδιάνειρα· ἐννυχίη, πολύπειρε, σελασφόρε, δεινοκάθεκτε,

ἄψοφον ἀστραγάλοισι ποδῶν ἴχνος εἱλίσσουσα ἁγνή, κοσμήτειρα θεῶν, ἀτελής τε τελευτή,

κοινὴ μὲν πάντεσσιν, ἀκοινώνητε δὲ μούνη· αὐτοπάτωρ, ἀπάτωρ, ἄρσην, πολύμητι, μεγίστη·

εὐανθής, πλοκίη, φιλίη, πολύμικτε, δαῆμον· ἡγεμόνη, κράντειρα, φερέσβιε, παντρόφε κούρη,

αὐτάρκεια, Δίκη· Χαρίτων πολυώνυμε πειθώ· αἰθερίη, χθονίη τε, καὶ εἰναλίη μεδέουσα·

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Indestructible, the first-­born, spoken of old, a glorifier of men; night-­goddess, all-­expertise, bringer of light, you are hard to suppress. When, twirling, you dance, your footsteps are ­silent. You are pure; you order the gods; you are unending and complete. You are common to all, yet uncommon, solitary; self-­fathering, fatherless, male, cunning, the greatest. You are girt in flowers; loving, all mixed ­together, knowing; a guide, a ruler, a life-­bringer, an all-­nourishing maiden. You are self-­sufficiency, Justice; the Graces’ persuasion of many names; ethereal, yet chthonic, and also mindful of the sea.



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πικρὴ μέν φαύλοισι, γλυκεῖα δὲ πειθομένοισιν· πάνσοφε, πανδώτειρα, κομίστρια, παμβασίλεια· αὐξιτρόφος, πίειρα, πεπαινομένων τε λύτειρα·

πάντων μὲν σὺ πατήρ, μήτηρ, τροφὸς ἠδὲ τιθηνός· ὠκυλόχεια, μάκαιρα, πολύσπορος, ὡριάς, ὁρμή,

παντοτεχνές, πλάστειρα, πολύκτιτε, πότνιε δαῖμον, ἀϊδίη, κινησιφόρος, πολύπειρε, περίφρων·

ἀενάῳ στροφάλιγγι θοὸν ῥύμα δινεύουσα· πάνρυτε, κυκλοτερής, ἀλλοτριομορφοδίαιτε· εὔθρονε, τιμήεσσα, μόνη τὸ κριθὲν τελέουσα, σκηπτούχοῦς’ ἐφύπερθε, βαρυβρεμέτειρα, κρατίστη·

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You are tart to the careless, but sweet to ­those who obey you; All-­wise, giver of all gifts, caretaker, universal queen, you are nurse of increase, rich in fat, you release what is ripe. You are f­ ather of all—­and ­mother—­rearer and fosterer, grantor of quick births, blessed, fruitful, timely, a sudden onrush. You are all-­crafty, a molder of many constructions, mistress divine; invisible, bringer of movement, experienced, wise. You swirl a swift stream with ever-­flowing eddy, all-­flowing, cyclical, always changing your form. Firmly enthroned, esteemed, you alone ­accomplish what you decide, sceptered above, most power­f ul with loud roaring.



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ἄτρομε, πανδαμάτειρα, πεπρωμένη, αἶσα, πυρίπνους ἀΐδιος ζωή, ἠδ’ ἀθανάτη τε πρόνοια. πάντα σὺ ἔσσὶ· τα πάντα σὺ γὰρ μούνη τάδε τεύχεις. ἀλλά, θεά, λίτομαί σε, σὺν εὐόλβοισιν ἐν ὥραις εἰρήνην ὑγίειαν ἄγειν, αὔξησιν ἁπάντων.

Priusquam messim facies, porcam praecidaneam hoc modo fieri oportet. Cereri porca praecidanea porco femina, priusquam hasce fruges condas, far, triticum, hordeum, fabam, semen rapicium. Ture vino Iano Iovi Iunoni praefato, priusquam porcum feminam inmolabis. Iano struem ommoveto sic: “Iane pater, te hac strue ommovenda bonas preces precor, uti sies volens propitius mihi liberisque meis domo familiaeque meae.”

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You are fearless, subduing all: fixed fate, fire-­breathing, everlasting life, and immortal forethought. You are every­thing! You alone fashion all ­things ­here. So, Goddess, I beseech you: with prosperity in season Bring peace, health, increase for all. c. Sacrifices and Prayers for Harvesting, Thinning a Grove, and Purifying the Land (Cato, De Agricultura 134, 139–141)

Before you harvest crops, you should offer a presacrifice of a sow in this manner. To Ceres, offer a female pig as sacrifice before you put up t­hese crops: emmer-­wheat, wheat, barley, beans, and rape seed. To Janus, Jove, and Juno, recite a prayer with wine and incense before slaughtering the sow. For Janus, bring forth a heap of cakes, praying thus: “­Father Janus, with this heap that I’m offering, I pray good prayers that you might be willing to look favorably upon me, my c­ hildren, my ­house and ­house­hold.”



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Fertum Iovi ommoveto et mactato sic: “Iuppiter, te hoc ferto obmovendo bonas preces precor, uti sies volens propitius mihi liberisque meis domo familiaeque meae mactus hoc ferto.” Postea Iano vinum dato sic: “Iane pater, uti te strue ommovenda bonas preces bene precatus sum, eiusdem rei ergo macte vino inferio esto.” Postea Iovi sic: “Iuppiter macte isto ferto esto, macte vino inferio esto.” Postea porcam praecidaneam inmolato. Ubi exta prosecta erunt, Iano struem ommoveto mactatoque item, uti prius obmoveris. Iovi fertum obmoveto mactatoque item, uti prius feceris. Item Iano vinum dato et Iovi vinum dato, item uti prius datum ob struem obmovendam et fertum libandum. Postea Cereri exta et vinum dato.

Lucum conlucare Romano more sic oportet. Porco piaculo facito, sic verba concipito: “Si deus, si dea es, quoium illud sacrum est, uti tibi ius est porco piaculo

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Bring forth a cake of oblation for Jove and offer it, praying thus: “Jupiter, with this cake of oblation that I’m offering, I pray good prayers that you might be willing to look favorably upon me, my ­children, my ­house and ­house­hold.” ­A fter this, pre­sent the wine to Janus, praying thus: “­Father Janus, as I prayed good prayers when offering you the heap of cakes, be magnified for the same t­ hing by this wine set before you.” Next pray to Jove thus: “Jupiter, be magnified with this your oblation cake; be magnified by this wine set before you.” Then perform the presacrifice of the sow. When the entrails have been cut out, bring forth a heap of cakes for Janus and magnify him in the same way as before. For Jove, bring forth a cake of oblation and magnify him in the same way as you did before. Pre­sent, likewise, wine to Janus and Jove, in the same way you offered the heap of cakes and the cake of oblation. A ­ fter this, offer Ceres the entrails and wine. ­Here is how to thin out a grove according to Roman custom. Make an expiatory sacrifice of a pig and formulate words as follows: “­Whether you be a



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facere illiusce sacri coercendi ergo harumque rerum ergo, sive ego sive quis iussu meo fecerit, uti id recte factum siet, eius rei ergo te hoc porco piaculo inmolando bonas preces precor, uti sies volens propitius mihi domo familiaeque meae liberisque meis; harumce rerum ergo macte hoc porco piaculo inmolando esto.”

Si fodere voles, altero piaculo eodem modo facito, hoc amplius dicito: “operis faciundi causa.” Dum opus, cotidie per partes facito. Si intermiseris aut feriae publicae aut familiares intercesserint, altero piaculo facito.

Agrum lustrare sic oportet. Impera suovitaurilia circumagi: “Cum divis volentibus quodque bene eveniat, mando tibi, Mani, uti illace suovitaurilia fundum agrum terramque meam quota ex parte sive circumagi sive circumferenda censeas, uti cures lustrare.”

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god or a goddess whose sacred grove this is, as it is right to sacrifice this expiatory pig for you with a view to trimming this sacred space h ­ ere, and, with a view to ­these ­matters, ­whether I or someone at my bidding s­hall have performed this act, let it be rightly done; with a view to this m ­ atter I pray good prayers with the expiatory sacrifice of a pig so that you might be willing to look favorably upon me, my ­house and h ­ ouse­hold and my c­ hildren. With a view to t­ hese m ­ atters at hand be magnified by the sacrifice of this expiatory pig.” If you want to dig in the grove, offer a second sacrifice in the same manner, speaking this additional phrase: “for the sake of d ­ oing this work.” For as long as work continues, perform this ritual daily in sections of the grove. If you miss a day, or if a public or f­amily holiday interrupts the work, perform another sacrifice. ­Here is how to purify a field: Order the suovetaurilia3 to be led around the perimeter with ­these words: “With the gods’ good ­will that ­things ­will turn out well, I entrust you, Manius,4 with this suovetaurlia to ensure that my farm and land is



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Ianum Iovemque vino praefamino, sic dicito: “Mars pater, te precor quaesoque uti sies volens propitius mihi domo familiaeque nostrae, quoius re ergo agrum terram fundumque meum suovitaurilia circumagi iussi, uti tu morbos visos invisosque, viduertatem vastitudinemque, calamitates intemperiasque prohibessis defendas aver­ runcesque; utique tu fruges, frumenta, vineta virgultaque grandire beneque evenire siris, pastores pecuaque salva servassis duisque bonam salutem valetudinemque mihi domo familiaeque nostrae; harumce rerum ergo, fundi terrae agrique mei lustrandi lustrique faciendi ergo, sicuti dixi, macte hisce suovitaurilibus lactentibus inmolandis esto; Mars pater, eiusdem rei ergo macte hisce suovitaurilibus lactentibus esto.”

Item cultro facito struem et fertum uti adsiet, inde obmoveto. Ubi porcum inmolabis, agnum vitulumque, sic oportet: “Eiusque rei ergo macte suovitaurilibus inmolandis esto.”

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purified, that they be driven or led about in what­ ever direction you decide.” Invoke Janus and Jupiter with a wine offering and say this: “­Father Mars, I pray and beseech you that you might be willing to look favorably upon me, my ­children, my h ­ ouse and ­house­hold, with a view to which end I have ordered a suovetaurilia to be circumambulated around my field, my land, my farm, that you might prevent, ward off, avert sicknesses, seen and unseen, sterility, ruin, disaster and inclement weather, and that you allow my produce, my grain, my vines, my shrubs to increase and reach a good outcome; may you keep my shepherds and flocks safe and grant good health and strength to me, my h ­ ouse, and h ­ ouse­hold. With a view to this end—of performing the purification of my farm, land, field, and an expiation—be magnified by ­these suckling sacrificial animals of the suovetaurilia.” Likewise, heap up the cakes along with the knife and be sure the cake of oblation is pre­sent, then bring forth the victims. When you sacrifice the pig, the lamb, and the calf, you must say this: “To  this end be magnified by the sacrifice of a suovetaurilia. . . .”5



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Nominare vetat porcum neque agnum vitulumque. Si minus in omnis litabit, sic verba concipito: “Mars pater, siquid tibi in illisce suovitaurilibus lactentibus neque satisfactum est, te hisce suovitaurilibus piaculo.” Si in uno duobusve dubitabit, sic verba concipito: “Mars pater, quod tibi illoc porco neque satisfactum est, te hoc porco piaculo.”

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It is forbidden to call the pig, the lamb, or the calf by name.6 If you do not receive favorable omens for every­ thing, formulate ­these words: “­Father Mars, if you are not satisfied with anything in ­t hose suckling sacrificial animals of the suovetaurilia, I atone with this suovetaurilia. If t­ here is doubt about one or two of the victims, formulate t­ hese words: “­Father Mars, ­because you ­were not satisfied with that pig, I atone with this pig.”



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24  A Farmer’s Memorial (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 11.600) Most of what we hear about farming in the ancient world is filtered through the experience of highly educated elites. This stone epitaph, erected by a farmer in Tuscany in the early years of Augustus’s reign by a farmer in Tuscany, is a precious exception. The echoes of Hesiod’s advice (see se­lection nos. 1–5) across so many centuries are remarkable.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

C. CASTRICIUS T.  F. CALVUS TRIB(UNUS) [MIL(ITUM) LEG(IONIS) . . .] . . . ​[AGR]ICOLA BONORU[M LIBERTORUM] BENEVOLUS [PATRO­ NUS] MAXIMEQUE EORUM, QUI AGROS BENE [ET STRENUE COLANT, QUI] CORPORIS CUL­ TUS, QUOD MAXIME OPUS EST [AGRICOLIS, CURAM GERANT], QUI SE ALUNT, CETERA QUAEQUOMQUE HABE[NT TUEANTUR]. PRAE­ CEPTA VERA, QUI VOLT VER[E] BENE ET LIBERE V[IVERE, HAEC HABETO:] PRIMUM EST PIUM ESSE: [DOMINO BENE] CUPIAS, VER[ERE PAR­ ENTES, . . . ​F]IDEM BONAM [PRAESTES, . . . ​NOLI MALEDICERE NE MALE] AUDIAS. INN[OCENS ET FIDUS QUIT ERIT] SUAVEM VITAM [ET OF­ FENSE CARENTEM HON[ESTE L]AE[TEQUE] PERAGET. HAEC NON A D[OCTEIS VIREIS IN­ STITUTUS, SED N]ATURA SUA E[T US]U AGRIC­ OLA MEMINISSE DOCET VOS.

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Gaius Castricius Calvus, son of Titus, military ­tribune . . . ​a man of good ­will . . . ​a farmer; a patron to good ex-­slaves, and especially to t­ hose who cultivate their fields well and with energy; who keep themselves in good physical condition, which is particularly impor­tant for farmers; who feed themselves, and who keep watch over what­ever they have. . . . ​­Here are true maxims for the person who wants to live well and in freedom: The first ­thing is duty—­you should wish your master well, re­spect your parents, keep good faith; speak no evil, lest you hear bad ­things about yourself. The man who does no harm and is trustworthy ­will lead a pleasant and untroubled life in uprightness and happiness. ­These precepts that a farmer teaches you to remember he acquired not by instruction from the learned, but from his own nature and experience.



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Introduction 1. Caitlin Dewey, “A Growing Number of Young Americans Are Leaving Desk Jobs to Farm,” Washington Post (November 23, 2017). 2. AMO [= the think-­ tank of Koolhaas’s practice OMA, or Office for Metropolitan Architecture] and Rem Koolhaas, Countryside, A Report (Gug­ genheim/Taschen, 2020), p. 3. 3. Ibid. 4. Olivia Paschal, “­Women Who Farm Are Fi­nally Getting Counted,” Huffington Post (February  9, 2020). 5. “Musonius Rufus, the Roman Socrates,” Yale Classical Studies 10 (1947): 3–147.

1. Keeping Up with the Joneses. Livelihood Is Hard to Come By 1. Hesiod h ­ ere self-­corrects his e­arlier genealogy of Strife given at Theogony 225.

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2. Mallow and asphodel are marginally edible plants and represent coarse peasant fare. Better that, Hesiod suggests, than a royal dinner eaten by ill-­ gotten gain. 3. This theme is illustrated in what immediately follows by the story of Zeus’s punishment of humankind for Prometheus’s theft of fire (not included ­here). 4. Early Greek farmers traded by boat in the off-­ season; the allusion h ­ ere is to storing ship’s tackle over the fireplace when not in use. 5. Hesiod is sarcastically evoking mythical descriptions of a Golden Age in which Earth once spontaneously produced all of humankind’s needs without effort.

6. A Bucolic Utopia 1. Socrates is the speaker, joined in this part of the conversation by two of Plato’s b ­ rothers, Adeimantus and Glaucon. For further discussion of this passage—­namely, Plato as a systems modeler of a sustainable society—­see chapter  4 of Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations: Ancient Guides to Living with Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 2. It is hard adequately to capture in En­glish the extent of social reciprocity as expressed in the Greek. Plato uses a flourish of indefinite adjectives in

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polyptoton and grammar that is elliptical and compressed. The reciprocity is compounded in the next sentence by the participatory/distributive prefix meta-­ added to the verbs for “give” and “take” in the same grammatical construction. While Plato employs Greek’s default gender (masculine) for pronouns in what follows, it is clear to me that the kind of social cooperation he envisions h ­ ere is gender inclusive. His enlightened views on the relative parity of genders in Republic book 5 reinforce this supposition. 3. Plato emphasizes the self-­interestedness of this proposed scenario by piling up forms of the reflexive pronoun and intensive adjective autos. 4. “Right opportunity” ­ here and “right moment” ­later translates kairos, a word is drawn from the vocabulary of archery and weaving. In ancient archery, it referred to a vulnerable aperture in a target at which one aimed (like a “bullseye,” or a “chink” in armor). In weaving, it denoted the triangular opening where a weaver sent the woof-­thread (lodged on a shut­tle) through the warp (not unlike En­glish “loophole”). From t­hese original uses, the word came to mean ­doing something with precision at just the right moment. See R. B. Onians, The Origins of Eu­ro­pean Thought: About the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time and Fate, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951, pp. 343–348.



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5. Perhaps a reference to Hesiod (Works & Days 391– 396), who prescribes that the farmer sow, plow, and harvest naked. 6. The idea is that overpopulation c­ auses t­hese two social banes. 7. “Cuisine” translates the Greek word opson, which denotes any cooked dish. It is used primarily of meat or fish dishes prepared with sauce and seasoning. Glaucon had meant the word in the first sense—­a gourmet dish cooked with meat or fish—­ but Socrates replies with a description of a perfectly good opson—­a s­ imple vegetarian soup or casserole— to eat with one’s bread.

7. The Philosophy of Compost 1. “Seed” (semen, usually used in the plural, semina) is one of several words and phrases Lucretius employs to express the Epicurean concept of atoms. Other words and phrases referring to atoms in this passage include corpora (“bodies”) and primordia (“primordial ele­ments”). For Lucretius, atoms are indestructible bodies made of ­matter (materies) that combine in vari­ous ways to form living creatures and perceptible objects. And yet the meta­phor inherent in “seeds” and “bodies” is always close to the surface ­here, especially with the many examples drawn from agriculture and the animal kingdom.

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2. Lucretius engages cleverly throughout this passage in a poetic trope for a scientific end—­the use of adunata, or a list of preternatural scenarios (for example, “when pigs fly . . .”) to underscore the impossibility of the premise he argues against. 3. “The Void” (inane) is a receptacle of empty space through which atoms flow in constant motion and combine to form objects. 4. Lucretius opposes ­actual belief in the gods, but nonetheless invokes Venus, the divine m ­ other of Rome’s founder, Aeneas, ­here and at the poem’s ­beginning (1.1–40), as the nurturing cause of reproduction in Nature, and the patron goddess of peace.

8. Dedication to Mrs. Farmer. Invocation of Rustic Muses 1. The Latin word fructuosus, “fruitful,” also means “profitable.” 2. Varro means that by writing this book, his advice ­will outlive him. 3. Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jove (Jupiter), Neptune, Vulcan, and Apollo. 4. Ceres = grain; Liber (Bacchus/Dionysus) = wine.



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9. The Prestige and Antiquity of Rearing Livestock 1. A lesser-­k nown detail from myths connected to the House of Atreus saga, of which Aeschylus’s Oresteia is the prime specimen. 2. Greek astrologers modified the Egyptian version of this constellation (represented by two goat kids) by substituting two c­ hildren, usually Castor and Pollux, but also, as h ­ ere, Apollo and Hercules. 3. Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi, consul in 133 BCE, opponent of the Gracchi’s reforms and author of seven books of Annales, now lost. Cited also by Pliny in se­lection nos. 14 and 15. 4. Celebrated in the countryside on April  21st in honor of Pales, patron deity of shepherds. Sheepfolds ­were cleaned, decorated, and fumigated, and the shepherd himself purified by jumping through a flame. 5. Romulus, ­after he killed his ­brother Remus, plowed a furrow (called the pomerium) to demarcate what ­were to become the first walls of Rome, yoking ­together a bull and a cow. See Plutarch, Life of ­Romulus §11. 6. For this ritual, see the passage from Cato in se­lec­ tion no. 23.

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10. Praise for the Countryside 1. This is a reference to Roman clientes—­financial or social dependents of vari­ous sorts—­greeting the master of the h ­ ouse each morning to keep their relationship in good standing and/or to receive ­favors. 2. The Latin word h ­ ere for “concoctions” can also mean “poison.” 3. This word also implies spoilage and corruption. 4. An allusion to the Myth of the Ages, first told by Hesiod (Works & Days 109–201). The specific allusion ­here is to the Hellenistic astronomical poem by Aratus, the Phaenomena (96–136), where the star sign Virgo, also called Astraea and Dikē ­(“Justice”), is the last immortal to leave the Earth before the onset of the Age of Bronze. 5. In this paragraph, Vergil expresses his desire for knowledge about natu­ral history and science. 6. Vergil, with false modesty, means that if his poetry is not well received, he’d s­ ettle for an obscure life in the countryside any day. 7. The Spercheos is a river in Thessaly. Taygetus is a mountain in the Peloponnese, near Sparta. Haemus is a mountain range in Thrace. 8. This statement is an hommage to Vergil’s pre­de­ces­ sor Lucretius (see se­lection no. 7), whose naturalistic account of the origin and operation of the universe was intended to alleviate h ­ umans’ fear of death.



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9. That is, the fasces, a bundle of sticks bound up with an axe, which signified the magistrate’s authority to punish by beating (with the sticks) and/or beheading (with the axe). 10. A conflation of several myths about the rise of Zeus (Jupiter), who was hidden away as a baby from his ­father, Cronos, in a cave on Crete (Hesiod, Theogony 485–491) u ­ ntil he grew up to supplant him. Cronos was identified by the Romans with their god Saturn, who, before h ­ uman misdeeds (­here killing animals and eating meat), presided over a Golden Age of peace.

11. Reverie of a Would-­Be Farmer 1. That is, like fruit grown on an espalier. See se­lec­ tion no. 22. 2. A fertility deity represented by a phallus. 3. Hunting was a traditional remedy for lovesickness. 4. See Pliny’s remarks on this deity in se­lection no. 14. 5. The Ides mark the ­middle of the month (the 13th or 15th depending on which month) and the Kalends a month’s first day. Interest was calculated monthly from one Kalends, Nones (= ninth day before the Ides), or Ides to the next. The upshot is that Alfius reverts to his usual ways and intends to start lending again as soon as pos­si­ble using the payments he has collected.

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12. ­Simple Tastes 1. We are perhaps to imagine Horace, as priest, instructing a religious choir of boys and girls. 2. A j­umble of myths and attributes highlighting the superiority of Zeus/Jupiter. ­ Giants and Titans ­were often conflated in Hellenistic mythography. Zeus defeated the latter (Theogony 617–720) as well as monstrous insurrections by the fire-­breathing Typhon (Theogony 820–869) and the giant-­like figures Otus and Ephialtes (Odyssey 11.305–320). The image of Zeus merely nodding his head to effect cosmic change occurs in a celebrated passage from the Iliad (1.528–530). 3. To support vines. See se­lection no. 22. 4. A reference to the “Sword of Damocles.” Damocles, a courtier at the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse (ca. 397 BCE–343 BCE), received in return for obsequious flattery a chance to sit on Dionysius’s throne, but with a sword dangling over his head, tied only to a thread. The story underscores the dangers and caprice of po­liti­cal life.

13. Avoiding the Rat Race 1. Horace is inviting us to imagine that he is composing this poem at his Sabine villa, Maecenas’s gift of which represents an answer to Horace’s prayers. 2. Mercury, god of commercial transactions.



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3. The Roman goddess of funerals. 4. Prob­ably a joke, since Pythagoras forbade the eating of beans, though Aristoxenus, an Aristotelian well versed in Pythagoreanism, says the master actually prized beans as highly digestible and as a laxative (Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 4.11.5). 5. A Lar (often in the plural, Lares) was a property’s and f­ amily’s guardian spirit. 6. Roman banquets, like Greek symposia, had ­house rules for how much one must drink that ­were set by a magister bibendi.

14. Culture from Agriculture 1. This college of priests offered yearly sacrifice to the Lares of the fields to ensure good harvests. 2. Lucius Cassius Hemina, who wrote four books of Annales up to the year 146 BCE. 3. Unclear who this refers to—­prob­ably Terminus. 4. Faba: “bean”; lens: “lentil”; cicer: “chick-­pea.” 5. Cato, De Agricultura §2. 6. The nundinae, or “ninth of days,” was like a weekend day in modern times when farmers would come to town to buy and sell and attend to personal or ­family business. 7. Adoria (collateral form adorea; Cato and Varro speak of semen adoreum) was thought to be derived from ador, “grain of emmer wheat,” and was a by-­word for gloria.

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15. The Ideal of Smallholding 1. 150 BCE. 2. 290 BCE. 3. 257 BCE. 4. Georgics 2.412: laudato ingentia rura / exiguum colito (“Praise a large piece of land but plow a small one.”) 5. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106–48 BCE), who earned his nickname (in imitation of Alexander the ­Great of Macedon) for outstanding ser­v ice to Sulla during the civil war with Marius. He joined Caesar to form the First Triumvirate, fell out with him, was defeated at the B ­ attle of Pharsalus in 48 BCE, and was assassinated in Egypt soon thereafter. 6. Compare Xenophon, Oeconomicus 12.20.

16. On Barley and Bread-­Making 1. Barley was awarded as a prize at the Eleusinian Games. The passage from the playwright Menander is unknown, from a lost work. 2. Barley w ­ ater, leftover w ­ ater from boiling barley, chilled, and usually with citrus or other flavoring added, is still a popu­lar drink in many countries. Robinson’s is a well-­k nown UK brand, though you can easily make it yourself. 3. That is, the Third Macedonian War against King Perseus in 171–168 BCE.



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4. Gaius Ateius Capito (ca. 30 BCE—22 CE) was a Roman jurist in the time of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius.

17. Getting and Naming a Dog 1. Columella’s treatise was among ­those lost classical works discovered, like Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, by tome hunter Poggio Bracciolini in the early fifteenth ­century.

18. On Asses 1. Person unknown.

19. What to Look for in a Ram 1. Shepherds t­oday simply use a hood to restrict the ram’s line of sight.

20. The Joint Venture Farm 1. That is, the Oeconomicus. 2. In his youth, Cicero translated Xenophon’s Oeconomicus into Latin. That translation is now lost but was widely read in antiquity. Xenophon’s original work is dialogic in form and Columella’s summary of Cicero is not, but the subject m ­ atter ­here corresponds to Oeconomicus 7.17–31. In any event, the past tenses suggest that we are to understand this as an “anthropological” account of the origin of the division of l­ abor between the sexes.

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3. Roman Censors ­were official custodians of public mores.

21. Why Farming Is the Best Job for a Phi­los­o­pher 1. To what other profession Musonius refers is unknown. The reference suggests that this short essay formed part of a larger discussion. 2. “Sophist” ­here is a derogatory term for teachers-­ for-­h ire who are less concerned for the truth about something or good character than for clever arguments and intellectual games. 3. Myson of Chenae was, according to some ancient authors, one of the so-­called Seven Sages of archaic Greece—­statesmen renowned for their wisdom and/ or public benefactions. Aglaus of Psophis (in the Greek backwater of Arcadia) is associated with stories attached to the Lydian kings Gyges and/or Croesus, who are portrayed as interrogating Greek wise men (the story of Croesus and Solon in Herodotus, for example, at Histories 1.29–33) on the topic “Who is the happiest person in the world?” The god referred to h ­ ere is Apollo, resident deity of the Oracle at Delphi, who declared, when consulted by Gyges, that Aglaus was the happiest for having never left his farm. 4. Theognis was a sententious elegiac poet from Me­ gara who flourished in the sixth ­century BCE.



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22. A Garden on Lesbos 1. Semele was Dionysus’s h ­ uman m ­ other, impregnated with him by Zeus. In the more familiar version of the myth, she was obliterated by the act of intercourse, whereupon Zeus stitched the embryonic Dionysus into his thigh and gave birth to him himself (compare Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.251–313). 2. Ariadne, a Cretan princess, was abandoned, asleep, on the island of Naxos by the Athenian hero Theseus, whom she had helped escape from the Labyrinth and its monster, the Minotaur. She was rescued by Dionysus and married him (compare Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History 4.5). 3. Lycurgus was a Thracian king driven mad by Dionysus for denying his divinity. As punishment for committing vari­ous atrocities in this state of mind, Lycurgus was fettered by his subjects and fed to man-­ e ating h ­ orses (compare Apollodorus, The ­Library 3.5.1). 4. Pentheus, king of Thebes, also rejected Dionysus’s godhead and was punished by being torn apart by Maenads, female devotees of Dionysus, among whom was his m ­ other. This story is the subject of Euripides’s Bacchae. 5. Dionysus’s “conquest” of the Indian subcontinent (an etiology for the spread of viticulture) is

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recounted elaborately by Nonnus, Dionysiaca books 13–17. 6. Tyrrhenian (Etruscan) pirates mistook Dionysus for a h ­ uman youth, captured him for ransom, and ­were punished by being turned into dolphins. The story is recounted in Homeric Hymn no. 7. 7. Satyrs (humanoid creatures with goats’ legs and ­horses’ tails) and Bacchants (also called Maenads) are Dionysus’s typical companions.

23. The Numinous Landscape 1. In Hesiod’s poem the Theogony, Earth (Gaia) is the first ­thing to emerge from Chaos by parthenogenesis. She produces her own consort, Sky (Ouranos), and from them are born not only the mountains, river nymphs, and the sea, but the Titans, and from them the Olympians (Theogony 116–153). 2. The directive to offer incense and burnt offerings of aromatic herbs suggests that the Orphic Hymns ­were intended to be performed, most likely during Dionysiac rituals. In the original Greek, this hymn consists almost entirely of a list of epithets addressed to Nature in the vocative case. For readability in En­glish, I have taken a cue from the end of the hymn and freely adapted the second-­person vocative form of address as full declarative sentences (“You are . . .”).



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3. A sacrificial trio of a pig (sus), a sheep (ovis), and a bull (taurus). 4. It is unclear to whom this refers. Scholars have speculated that it might be one of the dis manibus (spirits of the dead), or a slave, or simply a placeholder for an ­actual name, like our “John Doe.” 5. ­T here is a lacuna in the Latin ­here. 6. ­T here is something wrong with the original text ­here a­ fter the lacuna. My translation follows the suggestion of Schneider that Martem, the reading preserved in the manuscripts, be replaced with porcum.

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PASSAGES TR ANSL ATED Se­lections 1–5 from M. L. West. Hesiod Works & Days. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978. Se­lection 6 from Plato. Republic, Volume I: Books 1–5. Edited and translated by Christopher Emlyn-­Jones and William Preddy. Loeb Classical Library 237. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Se­lection 7 from Lucretius. On the Nature of ­Things. Translated by W.H.D. Rouse. Revised by Martin  F. Smith. Loeb Classical Library 181. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924. Se­lections 8 and 9 from Cato and Varro. On Agriculture. Translated by W. D. Hooper and Harrison Boyd Ash. Loeb Classical Library 283. Cambridge, MA: ­Harvard University Press, 1934. Se­lection 10 from Virgil. Eclogues. Georgics. Aeneid: Books 1–6. Translated by H. Rushton Fairclough. Revised by G. P. Goold. Loeb Classical Library 63. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916. Se­lection 11 from Horace. Odes and Epodes. Edited and translated by Niall Rudd. Loeb Classical Library 33. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

HOW T O BE A FAR M E R

Se­lection 12 from Horace. Odes and Epodes. Edited and translated by Niall Rudd. Loeb Classical Library 33. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Se­lection 13 from Horace. Satires. Epistles. The Art of Poetry. Translated by H. Rushton Fairclough. Loeb Classical Library 194. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926. Se­lections 14–16 from Natu­ral History, Volume V: Books 17–19. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 371. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950. Se­lections 17–19 from Columella. On Agriculture, Volume II: Books 5–9. Translated by E. S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner. Loeb Classical Library 407. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954. Se­lection 20 from Columella. On Agriculture, Volume III: Books 10–12. On Trees. Translated by E.  S. Forster and Edward H. Heffner. Loeb Classical Library 408. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955. Se­lection 21 from Cora E. Lutz. “Musonius Rufus, the Roman Socrates.” Yale Classical Studies 10 (1947): 3–147. Se­lection 22 from Longus and Xenophon of Ephesus. Daphnis and Chloe. Anthia and Habrocomes. Edited and translated by Jeffrey Henderson. Loeb Classical

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­ ibrary 69. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, L 2009. Se­lection 23a from Homeric Hymns. Homeric Apocrypha. Lives of Homer. Edited and translated by Martin L. West. Loeb Classical Library 496. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Se­lection 23b from Gottfried Hermann. Orphica. Leipzig: Fritsch, 1805. Se­lection 23c from Cato and Varro. On Agriculture. Translated by W. D. Hooper and Harrison Boyd Ash. Loeb Classical Library 283. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934. Se­lection 24 from Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 11.600 = Vol. XI:  Inscriptiones Aemiliae, Etruriae, ­Umbriae Latinae (1888) ol. XI Inscriptiones Aemiliae, Etruriae, Umbriae Latinae. Edited by E. Bormann. Berlin: G. Reimerum, 1888.



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