“As to number:  it is considered that ten boars to an hundred sows is enough; some even reduce this proportion.

“The practice varies as to the number to a herd, but my judgment is that a hundred is a moderate number:  some make it more, say 150:  some feed two herds together, and some do even more than that.  A small herd is less expensive than a large one because the swineherd requires less assistance.  A swinefeeder should fix the number to be fed as a herd on a principle of utility, not by the number of boars he may happen to have, for that is determined by nature.”

So far Scrofa.

Of neat cattle

V. At this point we were joined by the Senator Q. Lucienus, a man as learned as he is agreeable and intimate with us all.  “Hail, my fellow citizens of Epirus,” he exclaimed in Greek,[135] “and you, my dear Varro, ‘shepherd of men,’ for I have already greeted Scrofa this morning.”

While one saluted him, another reproached him for having come so late to our club.

“I will see to that, my merry men, for I am about to offer you my back and a scourge:  or else, Murrius, you who are my friend:  come with me while I pay a forfeit to the goddess Pales, so that you may bear me witness if our friends here seek to make me do it again.”

“Tell him,” said Atticus, turning to Murrius, “what we have been talking about and what is still on the programme, so that when his turn comes he may be prepared.  In the meantime we will take up the second order of domestic live stock and proceed to a discussion of the larger cattle.”

“In this,” said Vaccius, “my name would seem to assign me a part, since cows (vaccae) are included in that category.  Wherefore I will tell what I know about neat cattle, so that he who knows less may learn, while he who knows more may correct me when I fall down.”

“Be careful what you do, Vaccius,” said I, “for the genus Bos is of the first importance among cattle, certainly in Italy, which is thought to have taken its very name from that family, for, as Timaeus records, in ancient Greece a bull was called [Greek:  italos], whence is derived our word vitula, and from this Italy is supposed to have taken its name because of the number and beauty of its breed, of cattle (vituli).  Others claim that the name comes from that of the famous bull Italus which Hercules drove out of Sicily into this country.

“The ox is indeed the companion and fellow labourer of man and the minister of Ceres:  wherefore the ancients, holding him inviolable, made it a capital offence to kill an ox.[136] Both Attica and Peloponnesus bear witness of the regard in which the ox was held:  for he who first yoked oxen to the plough is celebrated at Athens under the name Buzyges and at Argos under that of Homogyros.”