LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY
Cover: On Agriculture, from Harvard University PressCover: On Agriculture in HARDCOVER

Loeb Classical Library 283
Cato Volume III

On Agriculture

Product Details

HARDCOVER

$29.00 • £22.95 • €23.95

ISBN 9780674993136

Publication Date: 01/01/1934

Loeb

576 pages

4-1/4 x 6-3/8 inches

Indexes

Loeb Classical Library > Cato

World

Add to Cart

Media Requests:

Related Subjects

The digital Loeb Classical Library extends the founding mission of James Loeb with an interconnected, fully searchable, perpetually growing virtual library of all that is important in Greek and Latin literature. Now with enhanced navigation »

Cato (M. Porcius Cato) the elder (234–149 BCE) of Tusculum, statesman and soldier, was the first important writer in Latin prose. His speeches, works on jurisprudence and the art of war, his precepts to his son on various subjects, and his great historical work on Rome and Italy are lost. But we have his De Agricultura; terse, severely wise, grimly humorous, it gives rules in various aspects of a farmer’s economy, including even medical and cooking recipes, and reveals interesting details of domestic life.

Varro (M. Terentius), 116–27 BCE, of Reate, renowned for his vast learning, was an antiquarian, historian, philologist, student of science, agriculturist, and poet. He was a republican who was reconciled to Julius Caesar and was marked out by him to supervise an intended national library. Of Varro’s more than seventy works involving hundreds of volumes we have only one on agriculture and country affairs (Rerum Rusticarum) and part of his work on the Latin language (De Lingua Latina; Loeb nos. 333, 334), though we know much about his Satires. Each of the three books on country affairs begins with an effective mise en scène and uses dialogue. The first book deals with agriculture and farm management, the second with sheep and oxen, the third with poultry and the keeping of other animals large and small, including bees and fish ponds. There are lively interludes and a graphic background of political events.

Recent News

Black lives matter. Black voices matter. A statement from HUP »

From Our Blog

Jacket: Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500, by Peter Wilson, from Harvard University Press

A Lesson in German Military History with Peter Wilson

In his landmark book Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-Speaking Peoples since 1500, acclaimed historian Peter H. Wilson offers a masterful reappraisal of German militarism and warfighting over the last five centuries, leading to the rise of Prussia and the world wars. Below, Wilson answers our questions about this complex history,