you maintain that the wild
boar is not a true member of the swine family.

"There are still many cattle running at large in Dardania, Medica and
Thrace, while there are wild asses in Phrygia and Lycaonia, and wild
horses in certain regions of hither Spain.

"I have now told you of the origin of the industry of feeding cattle.
As to its importance, I have this to say:

"The most important persons of antiquity were all keepers of live
stock, as both the Greek and Latin languages reveal, as well as the
earliest poets, who describe their heroes some as [Greek: polyarnos]
(rich in lambs), some as [Greek: polymaelos] (rich in sheep), and
others as [Greek: polyboutaes] (rich in herds), and tell of flocks
which on account of their value were said to have golden fleeces, like
that of Atreus in Argos which he complained that Thyestes stole away
from him: or that ram which Aeetes sacrificed at Colchis, whose fleece
was the quest of those princes known as the Argonauts: or again like
those so called golden apples (_mala_) of the Hesperides that Hercules
brought back from Africa into Greece, which were, according to the
ancient tradition, in fact goats and sheep which the Greeks, from the
sound of their voice, called [Greek: maela]: indeed, much in the same
way our country people, using a different letter (since the bleat of a
sheep seems to make more of the sound of _bee_ than of _me_) say that
sheep "be-alare," whence by the elision of a letter as often happens,
is derived the word _belare_ (or _balare_), to bleat.

"If cattle had not been held in the highest esteem among the ancients
the astrologers would not have called the signs of the zodiac by their
names in describing the heavens: and they not only did not hesitate to
place them there but many even begin their enumeration of the twelve
signs with these animal names, thus giving Aries and Taurus precedence
over Apollo and Hercules, whose signs, very gods as they are, are
subordinated under the name of Gemini: nor did they deem that a sixth
of these twelve signs was a sufficient proportion for the names of
cattle, but they must even add Capricornus and make it a quarter.
Furthermore, in naming the constellations they selected other names of
cattle, as the goat, the kid, and the dog. And in like manner have not
certain parts both of the sea and of the land taken their names from
cattle, as witness the Aegean Sea, which is called after the Greek
name for goat [Greek: aigeos