ἀγρονόμοι παίζουσι·...
As when o’er Erymanth Diana roves
Or wide Taygetus’s resounding groves;
A sylvan train the huntress queen surrounds,
Her rattling quiver from her shoulder sounds;
Fierce in the sport along the mountain brow,
They bay the boar or chase the bounding roe.
High o’er the lawn with more majestic pace,
Above the nymphs she treads with stately grace.—Pope.
Pliny, therefore, can hardly have written “sacrificantium,” rather “venantium” (hunting), or something like it; perhaps “sylvis vagantium” (roaming the woods), which corresponds more nearly in number of letters to the altered word. “Saltantium” (bounding), approaches most nearly to the παίζουσι of Homer. Virgil, also, in his imitation of this passage, represents the nymphs as dancing. (Æneid, i. 497, 498.)