of the Idylls of Theokritos and other pastoral poems, which he released as a collection,
entitled the Bucolics, in 37. Entering the circle of poets patronized by Maecenas, A’
most trusted political advisor, Vergil spent the next eight years of his life working on a
didactic poem about agriculture, the Georgics; that he read to Augustus in person during the
summer of 29. He devoted the rest of his life to the task of creating a Roman equivalent for
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the result being a new national epic, the Aeneid. The poem had yet
to receive its final touches when Vergil died while returning from vacation in Greece in 19.
Of his three poems, the Georgics best illustrates Vergil’s place in the scientific tradition at
Rome. The poem is in four books, the first treating cereal crops and weather signs, the
second vines and orchards, the third animal husbandry, and the fourth bees. Its language is
that of Latin lyric and epic, and for euphony and vividness it ranks among the most pol-
ished works of Latin literature. But aesthetic demands also forced the poet to be selective:
typically Vergil will only relate a small set of precepts on a given topic, leaving it to the
reader to fill in the rest (cf. his short list of wine varieties [2.89–108], or Book 3, which gives
instructions for raising cattle, horses, and sheep but not donkeys, mules, or pigs). This
compression can sometimes result in statements which are confused or simply incorrect (as
often happens in the section on weather signs [1.351–460], and with the apiary lore of
Book 4). On the other hand, Vergil’s elisions encouraged later scholars to fill in the gaps; in
doing so they were contributing to the promulgation of technical knowledge. Entire books
were written to expand on or explain brief portions of the poem; cf. C bk. 10,
and Seruius ad Georg. 1.231.
For the most part, Vergil derived his lore from other sources; the Georgics draws upon a
wide range of authorities, most notably A (for data on bees and animal sexual
behavior), T (for botany), A (for weather-signs), E (for
Vergilius Reproduced with permission, Musée national du Bardo
P. VERGILIUS MARO OF MANTUA