ense. [16] One day, perchance, these pupils of hers, whose
conversation in past times was in husbandry, [17] shall, by reason of
the multitude of invading armies, be ousted from their labours. The work
of their hands may indeed be snatched from them, but they were brought
up in stout and manly fashion. They stand, each one of them, in body and
soul equipped; and, save God himself shall hinder them, they will march
into the territory of those their human hinderers, and take from them
the wherewithal to support their lives. Since often enough in war it is
surer and safer to quest for food with sword and buckler than with all
the instruments of husbandry.

[15] Reading {thelousa}, vulg., or if after Cobet, {theos ousa},
transl. "by sanction of her divinity." With {thelousa} Holden
aptly compares Virgil's "volentia rura," "Georg." ii. 500.

[16] "That is, her 'lex talionis.'"

[17] "Engaged long time in husbandry."

But there is yet another lesson to be learnt in the public shool of
husbandry [18]--the lesson of mutual assistance. "Shoulder to shoulder"
must we march to meet the invader; [19] "shoulder to shoulder" stand to
compass the tillage of the soil. Therefore it is that the husbandman,
who means to win in his avocation, must see that he creates enthusiasm
in his workpeople and a spirit of ready obedience; which is just what a
general attacking an enemy will scheme to bring about, when he deals out
gifts to the brave and castigation [20] to those who are disorderly.

[18] Lit. "But again, husbandry trains up her scholars side by side in
lessons of..."

[19] {sun anthropois}, "man with his fellow-man," is the "mot d'order"
(cf. the author's favourite {sun theois}); "united human effort."

[20] "Lashes," "punishment." Cf. "Anab." II. vi. 10, of Clearchus.

Nor will there be lacking seasons of exhortation, the general haranguing
his troops and the husbandman his labourers; nor because they are slaves
do they less than free men need the lure of hope and happy expectation,
[21] that they may willingly stand to their posts.

[21] "The lure of happy prospects." See "Horsemanship," iii. 1.

It was an excellent saying of his who named husbandry "the mother and
nurse of all the arts," for while agriculture prospers all other arts
like are vigorous and strong, but where the land is forced to remain
desert, [22] the spring that feeds the other arts is dried up; they
dwindle, I had almost said, one