an account of climate zones), B M (for the bugonia), L (for methods
of inference), and V (for much of the practical agricultural knowledge of Books 2–4).
There are only a few particular items which, if not original to Vergil, at least receive their
earliest mention in his poem. In Book 1 these include an explanation for the beneficial
effects of burning stubble that shows the influence of Epicurean physics (84–93); advice to
sow broad beans in the spring, which, though criticized by S (Epist. 86.15), reflects
the custom of the area in northern Italy where Vergil grew up (215; cf. P 18.120); and
an account of the physical causes of weather signs, of particular interest for its suggestion
that abnormal animal behavior can be traced to internal perceptions of atmospheric dens-
ity (415–423). Other Vergilian “firsts” include the mention of the Epirote breed of horses
(1.59, 3.21), Crustumnian pears (2.85), a potent wine called lagois (2.93), a flower, the amellus,
described as a panacea for apiary illnesses (4.271–280), and a recommendation to place
spiked halters on kids to encourage early weaning (3.398–399).
More distinctive is the poet’s holistic vision of agriculture, whereby the pedestrian charac-
teristics of soils, plants, animals, and bees are traced back to broader cosmic trends and
laws. Thus Vergil draws an analogy between the diversity of soils on a large estate and the
diversity of products exported by countries around the oikoumene ̄ (1.50–63). He uses the
tendency of seeds to decline in fertility over time to illustrate a generalized principle of
entropy (1.197–203). The favorable features of the climate in spring are said to reproduce
the conditions which obtained when life first appeared on Earth (2.315–345). Farm animals’
susceptibility to disease is worked up into an illustration of the death drive which affects all
living beings (3.440–566). The rational, collective behavior of bees is offered as evidence for
the existence of a world-soul (4.219–227). Even the peasant is portrayed as an ersatz
philosopher-scientist, who combines practical knowledge of the natural world with a tem-
perate lifestyle (2.475–494). The later ideal of the gentleman farmer who dabbles in scien-
tific and philosophical speculation owes much to this poem, as do many organic and
Romantic conceptions of Nature.
In the Georgics, Vergil often plays with the identification of known flora and fauna in ways
that assume a fairly detailed knowledge of both. Although the Bucolics are not didactic
poetry, they resemble the Georgics in this regard. In the Aeneid, this sort of erudite game is
further expanded, so that it takes in such fields as geography, astronomy, and medicine.
Vergil also engaged the traditions of Homeric allegoresis, which saw the epics as repositories
of insight into the nature of the kosmos, and generally identified the gods with the ele-
ments and other forces of nature, by incorporating allusions to Stoic physical theory into
his own descriptions of the universe and the gods. Yet only once in the epic does he deal
explicitly with cosmology; this is in Anchises’ speech in Book 6 (724–751), where the
vision of the kosmos bears no small resemblance to that presented by P in the Myth
of Er, with touches of C’s Somnium Scipionis and other Stoic and Pythagorean
doctrines added in.
Vergil’s poetry wears its erudition lightly. Yet the reputation for learning and wisdom
which he acquired during his lifetime continued to grow after his death. Subsequent gener-
ations of scholars felt challenged to interpret, expand upon, and even correct his work with
a view towards establishing or refuting some scientific or philosophical dogma (cf. Pliny,
Aulus Gellius, M, etc.). After a few centuries Vergil the scientific dilettante disap-
peared completely from view, having been replaced by the figure best known from Dante’s
Divina Commedia, who stood as the living embodiment of the entire pagan tradition of
rational knowledge and wisdom.
P. VERGILIUS MARO OF MANTUA