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emero matri tuae ancillam viraginem aliquam, Plaut. Merc. ii. 3, 77. Juturna virago, Aen. xii. 468 (Heyne in loc.). Ades en comiti diva virago (Diana), Sen. Hip. 54.

Riguus and irriguus are everywhere, one place excepted, passive, and so may be the past part. of an obsolete verb riguo, i. q. rigo. In that one place (Geor. ii. 485) there may possibly be a hypallage, or the poet may have written riguis.

EXCURSUS X.

Nam qua Pellaei gens fortunata Canopi, etc.-Geor. iv. 287.

There is no passage in Virgil which has given critics more trouble than this, on account of vv. 291–293, which, though they occur in all the MSS., are arranged in three different manners. The reading of most MSS. is

"Et viridem Aegyptum nigra fecundat arena

Et diversa ruens septem discurrit in ora
Usque coloratis amnis devexus ab Indis.”

The Med. and five others have these verses in this order: Et diversa ruens. -Et viridem Aegyptum-Usque coloratis. The Rom. and one other read, Et diversa ruens— -Usque coloratis —Et viridem Aegyptum. This, which gives the best sense, is the reading followed by Voss, Jahn, and Forbiger.

Let us now examine the whole passage. Virgil, having (vv. 287289) given an accurate description of the country about the Canobic branch of the Nile, on the west side of Egypt, adds (v. 290) Quaque pharetratae vicinia Persidis urguet, where, from the repetition of the qua from v. 287, one might be led to expect the mention of another country in which the same practice was to be found. Then follow the three perplexing verses, in which the poet seems to speak of the Nile again, and to restrict the whole description to Egypt. The critics who maintain the genuineness of these lines say, that by Persis is meant all that part of Asia which was beyond the bounds of the Roman empire to the east or to the south. In this, says Jahn (referring to Geor. ii. 120 seq. and 171), Arabia was certainly included; and, as the Roman Syria was not at that time contermihous to Egypt, the poet could hardly say that eastern Egypt was conterminous to any other country than Persis.

This, to our apprehension, is very inconclusive reasoning. There is not the shadow of a proof that the Romans ever gave such exten

sion to the term Persis; for surely the places of our poet referred to are no proof of it. Further, when it is said that the river flows down coloratis ab Indis, we are required to believe on the mere word of the critics that these Indians are the Aethiopians; for most assuredly Geor. ii. 116, which is the only place referred to, does not prove it. Jacob Bryant was of opinion that it was the Ganges that the poet meant, as he elsewhere (Aen. ix. 30) notices the seven mouths of that river; but India was not sufficiently known to the Romans at that time perhaps to allow of this interpretation, though we know of no river but it or the Indus that by Virgil or any one else could be said to flow from the country of the Indians.

Heyne was of opinion that vv. 291, 292 were written by Virgil himself in the margin of his copy, when he had not made up his mind as to which he would insert in the text; or one or other of them might have been put there from some good poet by a grammarian. Wagner extends this to vv. 291–293, and thinks they might have been written in the margin by Virgil himself, or copied there by some critic from some lost poem of Virgil's. He holds that it is Syria that is meant in v. 290; Persis being the Parthian empire, which was divided from the Roman by the Euphrates. To this interpretation, which alone makes sense of the passage, we make no objection. We will only observe, that the want of an object or governed case to the verb urguet might lead us to doubt of the genuineness of v. 290 also; and to suspect that the whole four lines indicate an attempt on the part of the poet, or of some one else, to enlarge or to add to the beautiful and picturesque description contained in vv. 287-289. For a hypothesis on this subject see Life of Virgil.

348

TERMS OF HUSBANDRY.

ABLAQUEATIO, yupwσis (v. ABLAQUEO, yupów). An operation performed on the vines and olives. It consisted in digging round the tree and exposing all its roots, of which those that grew in the depth of a foot and a half from the surface were to be cut away, in order that the remainder might acquire greater vigour. This was to be done in the beginning of October, and the hole thus made was to be left open till some time in December, according to the weather, when it was to be filled up, dung being sometimes put about the roots. Colum. iv. 8.

AMURCA, aμópyn, morchia It. A fluid contained in the olive along with the oil, which must be carefully separated from it. The amurca is a watery fluid of a dark colour and of greater specific gravity than the oil. The uses made of it were, to mix with the clay for forming the area, and with the plaister for the walls and floors of granaries, as it was held to banish insects and vermin, for which reason chests containing clothes were rubbed with it. It served also to oil leather and iron, and it was used in some diseases of trees and cattle. Plin. xv. 18.

ANTES, pl. This word seems to signify properly a square or parallelogram. Columella (x. 376) uses it of the beds in a garden, and Cato (ap. Serv.) of the troops of horse on the wings of infantry on their march. In Virgil it seems to signify the horti of the vineyards: see on Geor. ii. 278.

ARATIO, apOTOS (v. Aro, ȧpów), ploughing, tilling land in general. The following was the Roman mode of tillage. As they almost always fallowed, the land, after the corn had been cut and carried, which took place in the summer, was let to lie idle in general till the following February, but in some cases only till about the middle of January. They then broke it, or gave it a first ploughing (proscissio), and so it was let to lie till midsummer, when they gave it a crossploughing (iteratio), i. e. one at right angles to the former. The verb expressing this process is offringo. In the beginning of September it got a third ploughing (tertiatio), of course at right angles with the cross-ploughing. After this ploughing, if it required it, it got a harrowing (occatio) with rakes or hurdles. Plin. xviii. 20. The seed was then sown under the plough, or the ground was ploughed into ridges (liras), and the seed sown on it and then harrowed in: see Sementis. Sometimes the land got only the two first

ploughings, and was sown with the third. Varr. i. 29; Plin. ut sup. When the corn was growing, it was hoed and weeded: see Sarritio, Runcatio.

The Roman plough having neither coulter nor mouldboard, the mode of ploughing differed materially from ours. Instead of making a furrow and then another at some feet distant, and ploughing the intermediate space alternately to one side and the other, the ancient ploughman went and returned in the same track. The length of this was not to exceed 120 feet (that of the actus or half-juger); and as he went up it he inclined his plough to the right, so that the share formed an angle with the soil, and cutting it obliquely turned up the sod. As he returned he came down the same furrow, but this time he held the plough straight, so that the share took up the earth which in going up it had left in the left-hand side of the furrow. Colum. ii. 4. Lazy ploughmen sometimes neglected to do this, thus leaving what was called a scamnum or balk, that is a ridge or strip of untilled land. In order to detect this, the farmer was directed to run a pole into the ploughed land in various places, as the scamnum would be detected by its resistance. A consequence of this mode of ploughing was that the furrows did not appear; hence Pliny (xviii. 19) gives it as the test of land being well-tilled, that one should not be able to tell which way the plough had gone.

The number of ploughings which land got in general was, as we have seen, three or four; but Pliny (ut sup.) says that strong rich land was the better for getting five, and adds that in Tuscany the strong land required nine,- -a thing quite contrary to the practice in that country at the present day. On the other hand, the light poor soils got only one tilling some time between midsummer and the autumnal equinox (Geor. i. 67; Plin. ib. 19), and the seed-ploughing at the usual time.

The usual mode of ploughing was with a pair of oxen yoked abreast by means of the jugum, by which they drew see Jugum. Pliny (ib. 18) speaks of eight oxen being yoked to one plough as a thing not uncommon in Italy. In that case they must have drawn by means of whipple-trees, traces and collars, things of which we find no mention in the rural writers. It does not appear whether the ploughman had reins or not. Columella (ii. 2) says he should urge on his cattle with the voice rather than by blows; he strongly condemns the use of the goad (stimulus), as it tended to make the oxen vicious, but says that the whip (flagellum) might be used occasionally. It is to be here observed that the ancient ploughman was not far from his cattle; for the stiva was upright in the buris,

of which there could hardly be more than two or three feet before it; while of the eight-foot pole, five feet must have been between the oxen, so that the distance between them and the ploughman could not have been more than five or six feet. At the end of the furrow the ploughman was to stop his oxen and let them rest awhile, raising the yoke from off their necks, to let them cool, and to prevent their being chafed. Mules and asses were sometimes used for ploughing, but never horses. The ploughman carried a paddle (ralla) for cleaning the lower part of his plough, and when working in vineyards or olive-grounds a small axe (securicula, Plin.) or mattock (dolabra, Colum.), to cut away the upper roots of the trees from before his plough.

ARATOR, ȧporηp, ó ápoûv, i. q. bubulcus, which see. This term was also used in opposition to pastor, and equivalent to agricola, for the tillage-farmer. Colum. vi. praef.

ARATRUM, apoтpov, the plough. It is remarkable that the rural writers have left us no description of this most important implement. Varro, in another work (De L. L. v. 135), has given us the names of the different parts of which it was composed, as also has Virgil (Geor. i. 169 seq), and Hesiod ("Epy. 427) has left us a slight sketch of the ancient Grecian plough. The parts of the plough which they mention are the buris, temo, stiva, manicula, dentale, and vomis, which belonged to all ploughs, and the aures, which were put on in sowing-time see each of these terms.

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In the absence of descriptions, we must have recourse to ancient medals and to the ploughs still in use in the south of Europe. Voss has given us figures of no less than fourteen Italian and Sicilian and one Provençal plough, Martyn of one used in Lombardy, and Loudon of one from the south of France and another from Valencia in Spain. On viewing these ploughs, we may observe, that, excepting in Martyn's Lombard plough, there is no coulter, and, with two exceptions, there is only one handle. Their general structure is the buris or beam, which is usually curved, with its convex side uppermost; to the upper end of it is fastened by means of a pin or cord the temo or pole which goes between the oxen, having at its end the jugum or yoke to which they are attached; the temo forms an angle with the ground, instead of running horizontally. The other end of the buris turns down to the ground, and has fastened to it horizontally the dentale, a part of the dentale going on each side of it. The dentale runs to a point; in the ruder ploughs it is without any covering, in others it is plated with iron, in others it is fitted with a moveable share. The stiva or handle is generally mor

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