Ὡς δ ̓ ὅτ ̓ ἀπὸ πλατέος πτυόφιν μεγάλην κατ ̓ ἀλωὴν
θρώσκωσι κύαμοι μελανόχροες ἢ ἐρέβινθοι,

πνοιῇ ὑπὸ λιγυρῇ καὶ λικμητῆρος ἐρωῇ.—Il. xiii. 588.

VERVACTUM, fallowed land, land that was occasionally allowed to rest. Varr. i. 44. Quod vere semel aratum est a temporis argumento vervactum vocatur, Plin. xviii. 19.

VILLICUS, a bailiff or steward. The villicus was usually a slave, in whom his master had great confidence, and whom prudent masters always took care to have well-instructed in all branches of agriculture. He was the locum-tenens and representative of the master in the villa, whence his name. The whole management of the farm was committed to him, as all the domestic economy was to the villica, his contubernalis. See Cato, 5, 142; Colum. i. 8; xi. 1; xii. 1.

VINDEMIA, TρUNTOS (v. VINDEMIO, Tρvyάw), the vintage. The ancients had different modes of ascertaining when the grapes were fit to gather. They sometimes plucked a single grape out of a bunch, and if, after a day or two, its place remained unaltered, it was a proof that the grapes had attained their full size and were fit to be gathered. Or they squeezed a grape, and if the stones sprang out of it clean, without any of the flesh adhering to them, the grapes were ripe. But the best mode of judging was by the colour of the stones, for if they were black the grapes were fit to gather. The vintagers were then set to work, who pulled the grapes and carried them in baskets to the wine-press :

παρθενικαὶ δὲ καὶ ἠἴθεοι, ἀταλὰ φρονέοντες,

πλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισι φέρον μελιηδέα καρπόν.-Il. xviii. 567.

At the press the grapes were examined, and all the leaves and the withered and the unripe bunches were carefully picked out. They were then thrown into the press, into which the treaders went and trod them till every grape was broken. The feet and legs of these men were bare but clean; and in addition to their ordinary clothing they wore drawers, that their perspiration might not mix with the juice of the grapes. This juice (mustum, yλeûkos) was then put into jars (dolia, ribo) to ferment. These jars were made of potter's clay, and they seem to have been of nearly the form of the Spanish grapejars; they were pitched inside, i. e. rubbed with a mixture of pitch, wax, vetch- or wheat-meal, thus, and other substances. When placed in the wine-cellar, they were sunk to half their height in the earth. The skins and stones (vinacea, oréμþvλa) were put into

jars with water and pressed and squeezed, and the liquor that ran from them (lora, Oáμva) was given to the slaves in lieu of wine; they were then thrown to the cattle, or put about the roots of the vines.

VINBA, ȧμπeλov, the vineyard. The word is also used of the single vine. Vines were planted either in a vinea or an arbustum : of the former there were three kinds; those in which the vines were let to run along the ground, the branches when laden with fruit being supported by little forked sticks; those in which the vines stood like trees without any support; and those in which they were supported and trained on espaliers. In these the upright pieces (pedamenta) were from four to seven feet in height; they were either poles (pali), or clefts (ridicae), these last of oak or juniper; the cross-pieces (juga) were either other poles (perticae), or reeds, or ropes (restes). The branches and shoots of the yine were fastened to these with rushes, broom, willows, etc.

When a vineyard was to be made, the ground was either all well dug (pastinatum), or a deep trench (sulcus) was made in which the rows were to be set. The cuttings (malleoli) were reared in a nursery (seminarium), and when they had struck well, i. e. were viviradices, they were planted out in the vineyard in rows from five to seven feet asunder. These rows and intervals were crossed at rightangles by alleys, so that the whole vineyard was divided into plots (horti, or hortuli, Virgil's antes), of each one hundred vines. The ground immediately about the vines was cultivated with the bidens. While the plants were young it was dug once a month from March till October, care being taken to remove the weeds and grass. After it had begun to bear, three diggings were thought sufficient; one before the vines budded, another before they blossomed, and a third while the fruit was ripening. The intervals between the rows were sometimes tilled with the plough.

VOMER, OF VOMIS, vvs, vvs, the ploughshare. This was made of iron, and was fixed on the dentale. Pliny (xviii. 18) describes four kinds of shares. The first, he says, was called culter, or knife; it was used in breaking strong land. His words are, "Culter vocatur praedensam, prius quam proscindatur, terram secans, futurisque sulcis vestigia praescribens incisuris, quas resupinus in arando mordeat vomer." Dickson (i. 385) thinks that this is a coulter similar to our own, but Pliny expressly says it is a kind of share; and as no mention whatever of a coulter occurs in the ancient writers, and there is none in the plough now in use (see Aratrum), we think that the culter was a share with an upright knife rising from its point,

which cut the sod which then the flat part of the share turned over. This kind of share may be seen in some of our draining-ploughs. A second kind, he says, was the “ vulgare rostrati vectis,"—that is, was long and beaked, or pointed. The third, used in a light soil, he says, did not stretch along the whole of the dentale, but "exigua cuspide in rostro," sc. dentalis. He then describes a fourth kind, somewhat like the first, lately invented, he says, in Raetia, and to which the Gauls added two little wheels.

URVUM, i. q. BURIS. It was so named, says Varro (L. L. v. 135) from its curvature, à curvo.

374

FLORA VIRGILIANA.

**L. Linnæus; N. O. Natural Order, in the system of Jussieu and other botanists; I. Italian; F. French; G. German.

ABIES. (Abies L.; Coniferae N. O.) 'Eλárŋ; Abete I.; Sapin F.; Tanne G. Fir. This tree, with its dark-green leaves, like those of the yew, though not one of our indigenous trees, is common in our plantations. Virgil (Ec. ii. 66) describes it as growing on the mountains.

ACANTHUS.-I. (1. A. spinosus, 2. A. mollis L.; Acanthaceae N. 0.) "Akavos; Brancorsina I.; Acanthe branc-ursine F.; Baerenklau G. Brank-ursine or Bear's-foot.—II. (Acacia Nilotica L.; Leguminosae N. O.). Acacia, in all modern languages.

The first, or brank-ursine, is spoken of by Virgil more than once. He calls it mollis, Ec. iii. 45; ridens, iv. 20; flexus, Geor. iv. 123; and croceus, Aen. i. 649. The word acanthus signifies thorn-bearing or thorny (akỳ, point, and äveos, flower), and hence we find it used of plants which otherwise have not the slightest affinity. The brank-ursine (so named by the Italians from the resemblance of its leaves to a bear's foot) is thus correctly described by Dioscorides : "It grows in pleasure-grounds (Tapadeiσois) and in stony and moist places. Its leaves are much longer and broader than those of the lettuce, and cleft like those of the rocket, blackish, smooth, and soft. Its stem is two cubits long, smooth, and of the thickness of one's finger, surrounded at intervals near the top with small, longish, prickly leaves, from which rises the flower, which is white." This is generally supposed to be the plant in its wild state (A. spinosus L.), from which that of the gardens, without prickles (A. mollis L.), has been derived by cultivation. This last was cultivated by the Romans in their pleasure-grounds (Plin. xxii. 22), and Pliny

the younger, when speaking of it as it grew in those of his Tuscan villa (Ep. v. 6) terms it lubricus et flexuosus, and mollis et pene liquidus, epithets according with those of Virgil. Flexus and flexuosus, we may here observe, are not flexible; they mean bent, and such is the form of the acanthus-leaf, which hangs with a graceful bend. In the same manner we are to understand the vimen acanthi of our poet, Geor. iv. 123.

The second acanthus is thus mentioned by Virgil (Geor. ii. 119) in conjunction with trees that are all natives of the East: baccas semper frondentis acanthi. Theophrastus (Hist. Pl. iv. 3) thus describes this acanthus: "It is so named because the whole tree, with the exception of the trunk, is prickly; for it has thorns on its shoots and its leaves. It is of good size, for roofing-timber of twelve cubits in length is cut out of it. There are two kinds of it, one white and another black: the former is weak and liable to rot, the latter is stronger and less inclined to decay; hence they use it in the dock-yards for the ships' timbers. The tree does not grow very straight: its seeds are in a pod, like pulse, and the natives use them for tanning leather, instead of galls: its flower is both beautiful in appearance, so that they make garlands of it, and medicinal, on which account the physicians gather it. The gum also comes from this tree, and it flows both when it is wounded and also spontaneously without any cutting." Dioscorides (i. 133) speaks of the same tree, but terms it Acacia (Akakía, from ȧký). He says that its flower is white, and its seeds in pods like those of the lupine. In this tree then may be recognized at once the Acacia or Mimosa Nilotica, the Sunt of the Arabs, the Shittim of the Bible, the tree that yields the Gum Arabic. By the baccas we think Virgil must have meant the pods, and not the globules of gum; for we know how careless he was in the use of terms, and in all probability he had never seen the tree. Mr. Yates, in a valuable essay on the subject, in the Philological Museum, No. VII., is of opinion that Virgil speaks of a third kind of Acanthus (of the genus Spartium), the domáλabos of the Greeks, a kind of prickly broom or furze. He thinks that it is only thus that the term vimen is applicable, and in Geor. iv. 123, he adopts the reading acanthi instead of hyacinthi, and interprets tondebat as clipping or shearing a hedge; but see the note on that place. He also thinks that croceus in Aen. i. 649. could not be properly used of the brank-ursine. It is however the form only, and that of the leaf, not the flower, that the poet means when he uses the term acanthus; the colouring depended on the taste of the embroiderer.