[876] Mr T R Glover, Virgil p 14, reminds us that the poet’s father is said to have done some business in timber at one time.
[877] When Cicero de orat III § 46 credits messores with a rustic brogue he can hardly be thinking of foreign slaves.
[878] As in Lucan VII 402 vincto fossore.
[879] Varro RR II 10.
[880] See Varro RR II 2 § 20, 5 § 18, 7 § 16, even for treatment of homines 10 § 10. Written books of prescriptions were provided.
[881] Georg III 515-30.
[882] tristis suggests the owner. A slave was not likely to care.
[883] In Sellar’s Virgil chapter VI § 5 there is an excellent treatment of this episode, with a discussion of V’s relation to Lucretius and a most apposite quotation from G Sand.
[884] Varro II 5 § 4, Columella VI praef § 7, Plin NH VIII § 180.
[885] The molle atque facetum attributed to V by Horace is I think rightly explained by Quintilian VI 3 § 20, and amounts to easy and fastidious taste, of course the result of careful revision, his practice of which is attested in the Suetonian biography.