Delphi Complete Works of Varro

by Marcus Terentius Varro

  [29] “The time when the bees are ready to swarm, which generally occurs when the well hatched new brood is over large and they wish to send out their young as it were a colony (just as the Sabines used to do frequently on account of the number of their children), you may know from two signs which usually precede it: first, that on preceding days, and especially in the evenings, numbers of them hang to one another in front of the entrance, [30] massed like a bunch of grapes; and secondly, that when they are getting ready to fly out or even have begun the flight, they make a loud humming sound exactly as soldiers do when they are breaking camp. Those which have gone out first fly around in sight, looking back for the others, which have not yet gathered, to swarm. When the keeper observes that they have acted so, he frightens them by throwing dust on them and by beating brass around them; [31] and the place to which he wishes to carry them, and which is not far away, is smeared with bee-bread and balm and other things by which they are attracted. When they have settled, a hive, smeared on the inside with the same enticing substances, is brought up and placed near by; and then by means of a light smoke blown around them they are induced to enter. When they have moved into the new colony, they remain so willingly that even if you place near by the hive from which they came, still they are content rather with their new home.

  [32] “As I have given my views on the subject of feeding, I shall now speak of the thing on account of which all this care is exercised — the profit. The signal for removing the comb is given by the following occurrences . . . if the bees make a humming noise inside, if they flutter when going in and out, and if, when you remove the covers of the hives, the openings of the combs are seen to be covered with a membrane, the combs being filled with honey. [33] Some authorities hold that in taking off honey nine-tenths should be removed and one-tenth left; for if you take all, the bees will quit the hive. Others leave more than the amount stated. Just as in tilling, those who let the ground lie fallow reap more grain from interrupted harvests, so in the matter of hives if you do not take off honey every year, or not the same amount, you will by this method have bees which are busier and more profitable. [34] It is thought that the first season for removing the comb is at the time of the rising of the Pleiades, the second at the end of summer, before Arcturus is wholly above the horizon, and the third after the setting of the Pleiades. But in this case, if the hive is well filled no more than one-third of the honey should be removed, the remainder being left for the wintering; but if the hive is not well filled no honey should be taken out. When the amount removed is large, it should not all be taken at one time or openly, for fear the bees may lose heart. If some of the comb removed contains no honey or honey that is dirty, it should be cut off with a knife. [35] Care should be taken that the weaker bees be not imposed upon by the stronger, for in this case their output is lessened; and so the weaker are separated and placed under another king. Those which often fight one another should be sprinkled with honey-water. When this is done they not only stop fighting, but swarm over one another, licking the water; and even more so if they are sprinkled with mead, in which case the odour causes them to attach themselves more greedily, and they drink until they are stupefied. [36] If they leave the hive in smaller numbers and a part of the swarm remains idle, light smoke should be applied, and there should be placed near by some sweet-smelling herbs, especially balm and thyme. [37] The greatest possible care should be taken to prevent them from dying from heat or from cold. If at any time they are knocked down by a sudden rain while harvesting, or overtaken by a sudden chill before they have foreseen that this would happen (though it is rarely that they are caught napping), and if, struck by the heavy rain-drops, they lie prostrate as if dead, they should be collected into a vessel and placed under cover in a warm spot; the next day, when the weather is at its best, they should be dusted with ashes made of fig wood, and heated a little more than warm. Then they should be shaken together gently in the vessel, without being touched with the hand, and placed in the sun. [38] Bees which have be warmed in this way recover and revive, just as happens when flies which have been killed by water are treated in the same way. This should be carried out near the hives, so that those which have been revived may return each to his own work and home.”

  XVII.

  Interea redit ad nos Pavo et, Si vultis, inquit, ancoras tollere, latis tabulis sortitio fit tribuum, ac coepti sunt a praecone recini, quem quaeque tribus fecerit aedilem. Appius confestim surgit, ut ibidem candidato suo gratularetur ac discederet in hortos. Merula, Tertium actum de pastionibus villaticis postea, inquit, tibi reddam, Axi. Consurgentibus illis, Axius mihi respectantibus nobis, quod et candidatum nostrum venturum sciebamus, Non laboro, inquit, hoc loco discessisse Merulam. Reliqua enim fere mihi sunt nota, quod, cum piscinarum genera sint duo, dulcium et salsarum, alterum apud plebem et non sine fructu, ubi Lymphae aquam piscibus nostris villaticis ministrant; illae autem maritimae piscinae nobilium, quibus Neptunus ut aquam et piscis ministrat, magis ad oculos pertinent, quam ad vesicam, et potius marsippium domini exinaniunt, quam implent. Primum enim aedificantur magno, secundo implentur magno, tertio aluntur magno. Hirrus circum piscinas suas ex aedificiis duodena milia sestertia capiebat. Eam omnem mercedem escis, quas dabat piscibus, consumebat. Non mirum; uno tempore enim memini hunc Caesari duo milia murenarum mutua dedisse in pondus et propter piscium multitudinem quadragies sestertio villam venisse. Quae nostra piscina mediterranea ac plebeia recte dicitur dulcis et illa amara; quis enim nostrum non una contentus est hac piscina? Quis contra maritumas non ex piscinis singulis coniunctas habet pluris? Nam ut Pausias et ceteri pictores eiusdem generis loculatas magnas habent arculas, ubi discolores sint cerae, sic hi loculatas habent piscinas, ubi dispares disclusos habeant pisces, quos, proinde ut sacri sint ac sanctiores quam illi in Lydia, quos sacrificanti tibi, Varro, ad tibicinem gregatim venisse dicebas ad extremum litus atque aram, quod eos capere auderet nemo, cum eodem tempore insulas Lydorum ibi choreuousas vidisses, sic hos piscis nemo cocus in ius vocare audet. Quintus Hortensius, familiaris noster, cum piscinas haberet magna pecunia aedificatas ad Baulos, ita saepe cum eo ad villam fui, ut illum sciam semper in cenam pisces Puteolos mittere emptum solitum. Neque satis erat eum non pasci e piscinis, nisi etiam ipse eos pasceret ultro ac maiorem curam sibi haberet, ne eius esurirent mulli, quam ego habeo, ne mei in Rosea esuriant asini, et quidem utraque re, et cibo et potione, cum non paulo sumptuosius, quam ego, ministraret victum. Ego enim uno servulo, hordeo non multo, aqua domestica meos multinummos alo asinos; Hortensius primum qui ministrarent piscatores habebat complures, et ei pisciculos minutos aggerebant frequenter, qui a maioribus absumerentur. Praeterea salsamentorum in eas piscinas emptum coiciebat, cum mare turbaret ac per tempestatem macellum piscinarum obsonium praeberet neque everriculo in litus educere possent vivam saginam, plebeiae cenae piscis. Celerius voluntate Hortensi ex equili educeres redarias, ut tibi haberes, mulas, quam e piscina barbatum mullum. Atque, ille inquit, non minor cura erat eius de aegrotis piscibus, quam de minus valentibus servis. Itaque minus laborabat ne servos aeger aquam frigidam, quam ut recentem biberent sui pisces. Etenim hac incuria laborare aiebat M. Lucullum ac piscinas eius despiciebat, quod aestuaria idonea non haberet, ac reside aqua in locis pestilentibus habitarent pisces eius; contra ad Neapolim L. Lucullum, posteaquam perfodisset montem ac maritumum flumen immisisset in piscinas, qui reciproce fluerent ipsae, Neptuno non cedere de piscatu. Factum esse enim ut amicos pisces suos videatur propter aestus eduxisse in loca frigidiora, ut Apuli solent pecuarii facere, qui per calles in montes Sabinos pecus ducunt. In Baiano autem aedificans tanta ardebat cura, ut architecto permiserit vel ut suam pecuniam consumeret, dummodo perduceret specus e piscinis in mare obiecta mole, qua aestus bis cotidie ab exorta luna ad proximam novam introire ac redire rursus in mare posset ac refrigerare piscinas.

  Nos haec. At strepitus ab dextra et cum lata candidatus noster designatus aedilis in villam. Cui nos occedimus et gratulati in Capitolium persequimur. Illi inde endo suam domum, nos nostram, o Pinni nost
er, sermone de pastione villatica summatim hoc, quem exposui, habito.

  [17.1] Meantime Pavo returns to us and says: “If you wish to weigh anchor, the ballots have been cast and the casting of lots for the tribes is going on; and the herald has begun to announce who has been elected aedile by each tribe.” Appius arose hurriedly, so as to congratulate his candidate at once and then go on to his home. And Merula remarked: “I’ll give you the third act of the husbandry of the steading later, Axius.” As they were rising, and we were looking back, because we knew that our candidate was coming also, Axius remarked to me: “I am not sorry that Merula left at this point, [2] for the rest is pretty well known to me. There are two kinds of fish-ponds, the fresh and the salt. The one is open to common folk, and not unprofitable, where the Nymphs furnish the water for our domestic fish; the ponds of the nobility, however, filled with sea-water, for which only Neptune can furnish the fish as well as the water, appeal to the eye more than to the purse, and exhaust the pouch of the owner rather than fill it. For in the first place they are built at great cost, and in the second place they are stocked at great cost, and in the third place they are kept up at great cost. [3] Hirrus used to take in 12,000 sesterces from the buildings around his fish-ponds; but he spent all that income for the food which he gave his fish. No wonder; for I remember that he lent to Caesar on one occasion 2,000 lampreys by weight; and that on account of the great number of fish his villa sold for 4,000,000 sesterces. Our inland pond, which is for the common folk, is properly called ‘sweet,’ and the other ‘bitter’; for who of us is not content with one such pond? Who, on the other hand, who starts with one of the sea-water ponds doesn’t go on to a row of them? [4] For just as Pausias and the other painters of the same school have large boxes with compartments for keeping their pigments of different colours, so these people have ponds with compartments for keeping the varieties of fish separate, as if they were holy and more inviolate than those in Lydia about which, Varro, you used to say that while you were sacrificing, they would come up in schools, at the sound of a flute, to the edge of the shore and the altar, because no one dared catch them (the same time as that at which you saw the dancing islands of the Lydians); just so no cook dares ‘haul these fish over the coals.’ [5] Though our friend Quintus Hortensius had ponds built at great expense near Bauli, I was at his villa often enough to know that it was his custom always to send to Puteoli to buy fish for dinner. [6] And it was not enough for him not to feed from his ponds — nay, he must feed his fish with his own hands; and he actually took more pains to keep his mullets from getting hungry than I do to keep my mules at Rosea from getting hungry, and indeed he furnished them nourishment in the way of both food and drink much more generously than I do in caring for my donkeys. For I keep my very valuable asses with the help of a single stable-boy, a bit of barley, and water from the place; while Hortensius in the first place kept an army of fishermen to supply food, and they were continually heaping up minnows for the larger fish to eat. [7] Besides, he used to buy salted fish and throw them into ponds when the sea was disturbed and on account of bad weather this source of supply of the ponds failed to furnish food, and the live food — the fish which supplies the people with supper — could not be brought ashore with the net.” “You could more easily get Hortensius’s consent to take the carriage mules (mulas) from his travelling-carriage and keep them for your own,” said I, “than take a barbed mullet (mullum) from his pond.” [8] “And,” he continued, “he was no less disturbed over his sick fish than he was over his ailing slaves. And so he was less careful to see that a sick slave did not drink cold water than that his fish should have fresh water to drink. In fact he used to say that Marcus Lucullus suffered from carelessness in this respect, and he looked down on his ponds because they did not have suitable tidal-basins, and so, as the water became stagnant, his fish lived in unwholesome quarters; [9] while, on the other hand, after Lucius Lucullus had cut through a mountain near Naples and let a stream of sea-water into his ponds, so that they ebbed and flowed, he had no need to yield to Neptune himself in matter of fishing — for he seemed, because of the hot weather, to have led his beloved fish into cooler places, just as the Apulian shepherds are wont to do when they lead their flocks along the cattle-trails into the Sabine hills. But while he was building near Baiae he became so enthusiastic that he allowed the architect to spend money as if it were his own, provided he would run a tunnel from his ponds into the sea and throw up a mole, so that the tide might run into the pond and back to the sea twice a day from the beginning of the moon until the next new moon, and cool off the ponds.”

  [10] So far we. Then a noise on the right, and our candidate, as aedile-elect, came into the villa wearing the broad stripe. We approach and congratulate him and escort him to the Capitoline. Thence, he to his home, we to ours, my dear Pinnius, after having had the conversation on the husbandry of the villa, the substance of which I have given you.

  The Biographies

  The Acropolis at Athens — Varro later studied at Athens under the Academic philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon. Varro proved to be a highly productive writer and turned out more than 74 works on a variety of topics.

  INTRODUCTION TO MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO by Roland G. Kent

  VARRO’S LIFE AND WORKS

  MARCUS TEREXTIUS VARRO was born in 116 B.C., probably at Reate in the Sabine country, where his family, which was of equestrian rank, possessed large estates. He was a student under L. Aelius Stilo Praeconinus, a scholar of the equestrian order, widely versed in Greek and Latin literature and especially interested in the history and antiquities of the Roman people. He studied philosophy at Athens, with Antiochus of Ascalon. With his tastes thus formed for scholarship, he none the less took part in public life, and was in the campaign against the rebel Sertorius in Spain, in 76. He was an officer with Pompey in the war with the Cilician pirates in 67, and presumably also in Pompey’s campaign against Mithradates. In the Civil War he was on Pompey’s side, first in Spain and then in Epirus and Thessaly.