ts.... So that is how the adoption
of swine husbandry and a diet of pork compelled our nomad Celts to
take the next step and settle down to agriculture.']

[Footnote 131: This Gallic _tomacina_ was doubtless the ancestor of the
_mortadella_ now produced in the Emilia and known to English speaking
consumers as "Bologna" sausage.]

[Footnote 132: The Gaul of which Cato was here writing is the modern
Lombardy, one of the most densely populated and richest agricultural
districts in the world. Here are found today those truly marvellous
"marchite" or irrigated meadows which owe the initiative for their
existence to the Cistercian monks of the Chiaravalle Abbey, who began
their fruitful agricultural labours in the country near Milan in the
twelfth century. There is a recorded instance of one of these meadows
which yielded in a single season 140 tons of grass per hectare, equal
to 75 tons of hay, or 30 tons per acre! The meadows are mowed six
times a year, and the grass is fed green to Swiss cows, which are kept
in great numbers for the manufacture of "frommaggio di grana," or
Parmesan cheese. This system of green soiling maintains the fertility
of the meadows, while the by-product of the dairies is the feeding of
hogs, which are kept in such quantity that they are today exported as
they were in the times of Cato and Varro. There is no region of the
earth, unless it be Flanders, of which the aspect so rejoices the
heart of a farmer as the Milanese. Well may the Lombard proverb say,
"Chi ha prato, ha tutto."]

[Footnote 133: Virgil (_Aen_. VII, 26) subsequently made good use of
this tradition of the founding of Lavinium, the sacred city of the
Romans where the Penates dwelt and whither solemn processions were
wont to proceed from Rome until Christianity became the State
religion. The site has been identified as that of the modern village
of Practica, where a few miserable shepherds collect during the winter
months, fleeing to the hills at the approach of summer and the dread
_malaria_.]

[Footnote 134: Cf. Polybius, XII, 4: 'For in Italy the swineherds manage
the feeding of their pigs in the same way. They do not follow close
behind the beasts, as in Greece, but keep some distance in front of
them, sounding their horn every now and then: and the animals follow
behind and run together at the sound. Indeed, the complete familiarity
which the animals show with the particular horn to which they belong
seems at first astonishin