Of thine ancient laud and honour, opening founts that slumbered long,
Rolling through our Roman towns the echoes of old Hesiod's song."[1]
The Third Georgic treats of the herd and the stud. The poet's knowledge on these points must be strongly suspected of being but second-hand—rather the result of having studied some of the Roman "Books of the Farm," than the experience of a practical stock-breeder. Such a work was Varro's 'On Rural Affairs,' which Virgil evidently followed as an authority. From that source he drew, amongst other precepts, the points of a good cow, which he lays down in this formula:—
"An ugly head, a well-fleshed neck,
Deep dewlaps falling from the chin,
Long in the flank, broad in the foot,
Rough hairy ears, and horns bent in."
Such an animal would hardly win a prize from our modern judges of stock. But Virgil, be it remembered, is giving instructions for selection with an eye to breeding purposes exclusively; and an Italian cow of the present day would not be considered by us a handsome animal. Besides, the object of the Roman breeder was to obtain animals which would be "strong to labour,"—good beasts under the yoke; not such as would lay on the greatest weight of flesh at the least
- ↑ This fine passage—much of the beauty of which is necessarily lost in this attempt at a translation—has been often imitated, not least successfully by Thomson, in the eulogy upon his native island with which he begins the fifth book of his poem on "Liberty."
