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Beast and Man in the Third Book of Virgil's Georgics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
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When we compare Virgil's Georgics with Varro's textbook of farming, we find that what is cast in the form of a book of instruction in the prose work is transformed into a series of pictures in the Georgics. Virgil is not content with teaching his readers how to farm, he also sets before their eyes a panorama of country life. An example of this procedure is provided by the lines on animal husbandry found in Book iii. Following the framework of Varro, by leaving out certain of Varro's categories, Virgil transforms a schematic textbook arrangement into a life story, and tells this life story with the sympathy of a poet.
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page 64 note 1 See now Richter, , Vergil; Georgica (München, 1957)Google Scholar; a text and commentary and bibliography. Klingner, F., ‘Über das Lob des Landlebens in Vergils Georgica’, Hermes, Ixvi (1931), 159–89.Google Scholar
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page 64 note 4 Varro's 9 points: R.R. ii. i, 11–24.Google Scholar
page 64 note 5 Roughly speaking, those that are of interest from the point of view of the practical farmer, but not to the mere observer of animal life—choice of breed, law of purchase, most profitable size of herd.
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page 65 note 10 Geor. iii. 51 ff.Google Scholar
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page 65 note 12 Ibid. 179–81.
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page 65 note 14 Geor. iii. 79.Google Scholar
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page 70 note 7 Ibid. 43–44; 54–63.
page 71 note 1 Ibid. 64–70.
page 71 note 2 Ibid. 82, ‘gaudetque tuens ante ora frementis’.
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page 72 note 1 Cf. P.-W. viii a, col. 1046–50Google Scholar; certainly farmers lost land all round him, cf. Ecl. iGoogle Scholar; Ecl. ixGoogle Scholar; Geor. i. 507.Google Scholar
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page 72 note 5 Geor. ii. 459; 474; 496; 510–12; 539–40Google Scholar; brief hints at the horrors of civil strife interrupt the description of the blessings of country life.
page 72 note 6 I am thinking not only of passages like the civil war in the beehive, Geor. iv. 67–90Google Scholar, but of passages suggesting, quite generally, how easily order is replaced by chaos, e.g. Geor. ii. 275–87Google Scholar interrupted by 282–3; or the description of the fire, ibid. 303–14, which logically follows from the advice of 302 but is also a warning of general import against the destruction that follows if rules are not observed, just as the oak simile 290–7 illustrates the security to be achieved by observing them. Also, the heightened description of the chaos produced by the sting fly, Geor. iii. 146–57Google Scholar, following the restful description of the grazing of pregnant cows.
page 72 note 7 Cf. the study of the various emotions that made war inevitable in Aen. vii. 341–623Google Scholar and brought about the breaking of the truce: ibid. xii. 216–87. The power of the undisciplined passions is of course brought out in the contrast between Turnus and Aeneas. On the former cf. p. 70, note 4. Julius Caesar had recently demonstrated the destructive potentialities of an undoubtedly very great man; cf. Cicero, 2 Phil. 45Google Scholar or, seen across an interval of nearly a hundred years, Lucan, Pharsalia, 143 ff.Google Scholar
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page 73 note 5 Ibid. 322–38 based on Varro, , ii. 2, 10–11.Google Scholar
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page 74 note 1 Cf. Geor. ii. 115–76.Google ScholarVarro, , i. 2, 3 ff.Google ScholarSeneca, , De Ira, 2, 15, 5.Google Scholar Vitruvius, vi. 10.
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page 74 note 3 Geor. iii. 414–39Google Scholar (snakes); ibid. 441–69 (disease of sheep).
page 74 note 5 Lucretius, vi. 1139ad fin.Google Scholar
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page 75 note 1 Cf. Seneca, , De Ira, 2, 15, i.Google Scholar
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page 76 note 1 Geor. iii. 65–68.Google Scholar The point is repeated and elaborated in the section on horse-breeding; ibid. 74–94 splendour of youth; 95–100 uselessness of old age; 100–2 the moral: youth of first importance to breeder; 103–12 splendour of youth shown by simile; 113–19 moral for breeder; 120–2, uselessness of old age out weighs birth and past achievements.
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page 76 note 4 Cf. p. 72, n. 6, also Geor. i. 313–34Google Scholar (storm), followed by advice on how such a catastrophe can be avoided.
page 77 note 1 For undeserved death see p. 74, n. 6. Victim dies at altar, Geor. iii. 486–93.Google Scholar
page 77 note 2 Ibid. 531–3. Cf. Richter's note.
page 77 note 3 Cf. also ibid. 455–6. Richter refers to Sallust, , Cat. 52, 29.Google Scholar The line by itself is not a criticism of prayer, as such, but only of prayer as a substitute for work, but in the context it strengthens the impression that man is on his own.
page 77 note 4 N.D. iii, c. 26ad fin.Google Scholar
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