supplies with sweetest scent and fairest show all
things wherewith to adorn the altars and statues of the gods, or deck
man's person. It is to her we owe our many delicacies of flesh or fowl
or vegetable growth; [4] since with the tillage of the soil is closely
linked the art of breeding sheep and cattle, whereby we mortals may
offer sacrifices well pleasing to the gods, and satisfy our personal
needs withal.

[1] Lit. "Not even the most blessed of mankind can abstain from." See
Plat. "Rep." 344 B, "The superlatively best and well-to-do."

[2] Lit. "Devotion to it would seem to be at once a kind of luxury, an
increase of estate, a training of the bodily parts, so that a man
is able to perform all that a free man should."

[3] Al. "and further, to the maintenance of life she adds the sources
of pleasure in life."

[4] Lit. "she bears these and rears those."

And albeit she, good cateress, pours out her blessings upon us in
abundance, yet she suffers not her gifts to be received effeminately,
but inures her pensioners to suffer glady summer's heat and winter's
cold. Those that labour with their hands, the actual delvers of the
soil, she trains in a wrestling school of her own, adding strength
to strength; whilst those others whose devotion is confined to the
overseeing eye and to studious thought, she makes more manly, rousing
them with cock-crow, and compelling them to be up and doing in many
a long day's march. [5] Since, whether in city or afield, with the
shifting seasons each necessary labour has its hour of performance. [6]

[5] See "Hellenica Essays," p. 341.

[6] Lit. "each most necessary operation must ever be in season."

Or to turn to another side. Suppose it to be a man's ambition to aid his
city as a trooper mounted on a charger of his own: why not combine the
rearing of horses with other stock? it is the farmer's chance. [7] Or
would your citizen serve on foot? It is husbandry that shall give him
robustness of body. Or if we turn to the toil-loving fascination of the
chase, [8] here once more earth adds incitement, as well as furnishing
facility of sustenance for the dogs as by nurturing a foster brood of
wild animals. And if horses and dogs derive benefit from this art of
husbandry, they in turn requite the boon through service rendered to the
farm. The horse carries his best of friends, the careful master, betimes
to the scene of labour and devotion, and enables him to leave