Note 1065 — Chapter XIX · ST. GEORGE AND THE PARILIA

I owe this observation to F. A. Paley, on Ovid, Fasti, iv. 754. He refers to Virgil, Georg. ii. 435, Ecl. x. 30; Theocritus, xi. 73 sq.; to which may be added Virgil, Georg. iii. 300 sq., 320 sq.; Horace, Epist. i. 14. 28; Cato, De re rustica, 30; Columella, De re rustica, vii. 3. 21, xi. 2. 83 and 99-101. From these passages of Cato and Columella we learn that the Italian farmer fed his cattle on the leaves of the elm, the ash, the poplar, the oak, the evergreen oak, the fig, and the laurel.