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101-474: The Akbash is a traditional breed of livestock guardian dog , used to protect flocks from predators in the rugged terrain of western Anatolia . It is distributed mainly in the provinces of Afyon , Ankara , Eskişehir and Manisa ; some are present in the provinces of Ağrı , Konya , Sivas and Tunceli . A standard was published by the Turkish Standards Institution in 2002, and in 2006

202-586: A "West-India georgic", spreading the scope of this form into the Caribbean with the British colonial enterprise. Unlike most contemporary translations of Virgil, many of these practical manuals preferred Miltonic blank verse and the later examples stretched to four cantos, as in the Virgilian model. Later still there were poems with a broader scope, such as James Grahame 's The British Georgics (Edinburgh, 1809). His work

303-616: A careful study by Ward Briggs goes a long way to show, the repetition of lines in the Georgics and the Aeneid is probably an intentional move made by Virgil, a poet given to a highly allusive style, not, evidently, to the exclusion of his own previous writings. Indeed, Virgil incorporates full lines in the Georgics of his earliest work, the Eclogues , although the number of repetitions is much smaller (only eight) and it does not appear that any one line

404-497: A description of the havoc and devastation caused by a plague in Noricum . Both halves begin with a short prologue called a proem . The poems invoke Greek and Italian gods and address such issues as Virgil's intention to honour both Caesar and his patron Maecenas , as well as his lofty poetic aspirations and the difficulty of the material to follow. Many have observed the parallels between the dramatic endings of each half of this book and

505-513: A farmer was a qualification he considered the guarantee of his 1825 blank verse translation of the first book of the Georgics; and even in modern times it was made a commendation of Peter Fallon's 2004 version that he is "both a poet and a farmer, uniquely suited to translating this poem". However, Hoblyn could only support his stance at this date by interpolation and special pleading. Throughout Europe, Virgilian-style farming manuals were giving way to

606-666: A new entomological direction with his poem on the breeding and care of the silkworm , the two-canto De Bombycum cura ac usu (1527) written in Latin hexameters, which had been preceded by two poems in Italian on the same subject. Vida's work was followed in England by Thomas Muffet 's The Silkwormes and their Flies (1599), a subject that he had studied in Italy. The poem was written in Ottava rima , contained

707-517: A patriotic statement. As he commented later: "More and more I was buoyed up by a feeling that England was speaking to me through Virgil, and that the Virgil of the Georgics was speaking to me through the English farmers and labourers with whom I consorted." Among a multiplicity of earlier translations, his new version would be justified by avoiding "that peculiar kind of Latin-derived pidgin-English which infects

808-419: A pup, most LGDs are as protective of their family as a working guard dog is of its flock. In fact, in some communities where LGDs are a tradition, the runt of a litter often was kept or given as a household pet or simply kept as a village dog without a single owner . For various reasons, including the decline in livestock and the transition to other methods of livestock breeding and management, in many regions,

909-567: A series of almost constant civil wars. After almost 15 years of political and social upheaval, Octavian, the sole surviving member of the Second Triumvirate , became firmly established as the new leader of the Roman world. Under Octavian, Rome enjoyed a long period of relative peace and prosperity. However, Octavian's victory at Actium also sounded the death knell of the Republic. With Octavian as

1010-422: A summary of the four books, followed by a prayer to various agricultural deities as well as Augustus himself. It takes as its model the work on farming by Varro , but differs from it in important ways. Numerous technical passages fill out the initial half of the first book; of particular interest are lines 160–175, where Virgil describes the plow . In the succession of ages , whose model is ultimately Hesiod ,

1111-405: A typical colour were given preference for breeding in different regions. Rigg notes that often the color of dogs is chosen according to the main color of the livestock: in flocks of white sheep, the dogs are white, with coloured sheep, goats or yaks, the dogs are usually grey or brown. It is assumed that animals are calmer about being in a presence of dogs of a similar color. In addition, the color of

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1212-577: A way for the poem's rebirth, since Roman farming practices still prevailed in the Netherlands and were sustained there by Joost van den Vondel ’s prose translation of the Georgics into Dutch (1646). English farmers too attempted to imitate what they thought were genuine Virgilian agricultural techniques. In 1724 the poet William Benson wrote, "There is more of Virgil's husbandry in England at this instant than in Italy itself". Among those translators who aimed to establish Virgil's up-to-date farming credentials

1313-480: A wealth of Classical stories and has been mentioned as "one of the earliest of English georgic poems". Vida's poem was just one among several contemporary Latin works on exotic subjects that have been defined by Yasmin Haskell as 'recreational georgics', a group which "usually comprises one or two short books, treats self-consciously small-scale subjects, is informed by an almost pastoral mood" and deals with products for

1414-473: Is a poem by Latin poet Virgil , likely published in 29 BCE. As the name suggests (from the Greek word γεωργικά , geōrgiká , i.e. "agricultural (things)") the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The Georgics is considered Virgil's second major work, following his Eclogues and preceding

1515-412: Is approximately 45 kg (99 lb), and mean height at the withers just over 75 kg (165 lb). The coat may be either long or of medium length; it is always double, and is usually white, though there may be some shading towards a biscuit colour. As with other white-coated flock guardian dogs, the white coat makes it easy for the shepherd to distinguish between the dog and a predator, even in

1616-585: Is considered to be the territories of modern Turkey , Iraqi Kurdistan and Syria . Livestock dogs are mentioned in the Old Testament , the works of Cato the Elder and Varro . Images are found on works of art created more than two thousand years ago. Their use being recorded as early as 150 BC in Rome . Both Aristotle 's History of Animals and Virgil 's Georgics mention the use of livestock guardian dogs by

1717-534: Is fitting, as the stuff of many epic similes is rooted in the natural and domestic worlds from which epic heroes are cut off. Virgil shows his technical expertise by recontextualising identical lines to produce meanings that are different or inverted from their initial meaning in the Georgics . Additionally, some of these reproduced lines are themselves adapted from works by Virgil's earlier literary models, including Homer's Iliad and Odyssey , Apollonius of Rhodes' Argonautica , Ennius' Annals , and Lucretius' On

1818-506: Is more descriptive than didactic. Nevertheless, the Classical inspiration behind the work was so obvious that Thompson was pictured as writing it with "the page of Vergil literally open before him". Other works in this vein moved further from the Virgilian didactic mode. William Cowper’s discursive and subjective The Task (1785) has sometimes been included, as has Robert Bloomfield ’s The Farmer’s Boy (1800). The latter proceeds through

1919-447: Is said to have recited the Georgics in 29 BCE. A comment by the Virgilian commentator Servius , that the middle to the end of the fourth book contained a large series of praises for Cornelius Gallus ( laudes Galli means "praises of Gallus" in Latin), has spurred much scholarly debate. Servius tells us that after Gallus had fallen out of favour, Virgil replaced the praises of Gallus with

2020-468: The Aeneid . The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present. The work consists of 2,188 hexametric verses divided into four books. The yearly timings by the rising and setting of particular stars were valid for the precession epoch of Virgil's time, and so are not always valid now. Virgil begins his poem with a dedication to Maecenas , then

2121-409: The Aeneid , there are some 51 lines that are recycled, either whole or in part, from the Georgics . There is some debate whether these repetitions are (1) intrusions within the text of later scribes and editors, (2) indications pointing toward the level of incompleteness of the Aeneid , or (3) deliberate repetitions made by the poet, pointing toward meaningful areas of contact between the two poems. As

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2222-541: The Georgics the themes of man's relationship to the land and the importance of hard work. The Hellenistic poet Nicander 's lost Georgics may also be an important influence. Virgil used other Greek writers as models and sources, some for technical information, including the Hellenistic poet Aratus for astronomy and meteorology, Nicander for information about snakes, the philosopher Aristotle for zoology, and Aristotle's student Theophrastus for botany, and others, such as

2323-458: The Molossians in the ancient region of Epirus . Livestock guardian dogs specialise in protection of small farm animals, mainly sheep. Unlike herds of cattle or horses, which are able to withstand even large predators on their own, herds of sheep and goats need the protection that LGDs are designed to provide. In large farms, sheep are managed mainly by using the distant-pasture method. In winter

2424-415: The agricultural revolution and their use was supplanted by scientific data, technical graphs and statistics. The overtly political element in Virgil's poem attracted some translators, who applied it to their own local circumstances. The translation of the Georgics into Ancient Greek by Eugenios Voulgaris was published from St Petersburg in 1786 and had as one aim the support of Russia’s assimilation of

2525-523: The newly annexed Crimea by encouraging Greek settlement there. Virgil’s theme of taming the wilderness was further underlined in an introductory poem praising Grigory Potemkin as a philhellene Maecenas and the Empress Catherine the Great as the wise ruler directing the new territory's welfare. The inference is also there that Voulgaris himself (now archbishop of Novorossiya and Azov) has become thus

2626-483: The plague of Athens that closes the De Rerum Natura . Virgil is also indebted to Ennius , who, along with Lucretius, naturalized hexameter verse in Latin. Virgil often uses language characteristic of Ennius to give his poetry an archaic quality. The intriguing idea has been put forth by one scholar that Virgil also drew on the rustic songs and speech patterns of Italy at certain points in his poem, to give portions of

2727-400: The 18th century. In the same year, the young Joseph Addison published his “Essay on Virgil’s Georgics”. In his eyes Virgil's poem seemed the principal model for this genre, which he defined as “some part of the science of husbandry, put into a pleasing dress and set off with all the beauties and embellishments of poetry”. In the context of the 18th century, however, interest in the georgic, or

2828-586: The Akbash was recognised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs ; it was added to the list of recognised native breeds and types, and the breed standard was published in the Resmi Gazete , the official government gazette. The Akbash is a flock guardian dog, providing protection from predators to shepherds and to their sheep; it does not have any herding ability. It is a large and powerful dog: mean body weight

2929-492: The Epicurean strain is predominant not only in the Georgics but also in Virgil's social and intellectual milieu. Varius Rufus , a close friend of Virgil and the man who published the Aeneid after Virgil's death, had Epicurean tastes, as did Horace and his patron Maecenas. The philosophical text with the greatest influence on the Georgics as a whole was Lucretius' Epicurean epic De rerum natura . G. B. Conte notes, citing

3030-451: The Georgics served as a model but the information in them is updated or supplements Virgil’s account. Thus Giovanni di Bernardo Rucellai 's Le Api (Bees, 1542) restricts itself to the subject of the fourth book of the Georgics and is an early example of Italian blank verse. A Latin treatment of the subject figured as the fourteenth book of the original Paris edition of fr:Jacques Vanière 's Praedium Rusticum (The Rural Estate) in 1696, but

3131-432: The Hellenistic poet Callimachus for poetic and stylistic considerations. The Greek literary tradition from Homer on also serves as an important source for Virgil's use of mythological detail and digression. Lucretius ' De Rerum Natura serves as Virgil's primary Latin model in terms of genre and meter. Many passages from Virgil's poetry are indebted to Lucretius: the plague section of the third book takes as its model

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3232-469: The Latin Georgics, now published his own four-canto poem on the subject of Les Jardins, ou l'Art d’embellir les paysages (Gardens, or the art of beautifying landscape, 1782). Like Mason, he gave his preference for landscaped over formal garden design and his work was several times translated into English verse over the following two decades. In the case of many of these didactic manuals, the approach of

3333-556: The Nature of Things . With a single line or two, Virgil links (or distances), expands (or collapses) themes of various texts treating various subjects to create an Aeneid that is richly intertextual. The work on Georgics was launched when agriculture had become a science and Varro had already published his Res rusticae , on which Virgil relied as a source—a fact already recognized by the commentator Servius. Virgil's scholarship on his predecessors produced an extensive literary reaction by

3434-517: The Orpheus episode is here understood as an integral part of the poem that articulates or encapsulates its ethos by reinforcing many ideas or reintroducing and problematizing tensions voiced throughout the text. The range of scholarship and interpretations offered is vast, and the arguments range from optimistic or pessimistic readings of the poem to notions of labour, Epicureanism , and the relationship between man and nature. Within Virgil's later epic work

3535-420: The Orpheus episode. Those supporting Servius see the Orpheus episode as an unpolished, weak episode, and point out that it is unlike anything else in the Georgics in that it radically departs from the didactic mode that we see throughout, rendering it an illogical, awkward insertion. Indeed, the features of the episode are unique; it is an epyllion that engages mythological material. The episode does not further

3636-560: The United States in the 1930s, American farmers were losing about a million sheep annually to wolf attacks. 76 farmers took part in the Coppingers program, which introduced European livestock guardian dogs into the US sheep breeding (in their project they used Anatolian Shepherd Dogs). In all farms, where, in the absence of dogs, up to two hundred attacks of wolves per year happened, not a single sheep

3737-458: The age of Jupiter and its relation to the golden age and the current age of man are crafted with deliberate tension. Of chief importance is the contribution of labour to the success or failure of mankind's endeavours, agricultural or otherwise. The book comes to one climax with the description of a great storm in lines 311–350, which brings all of man's efforts to nothing. After detailing various weather-signs, Virgil ends with an enumeration of

3838-465: The aristocratic luxury market. Others included Giovanni Pontano 's De Hortis Hesdperidum sive de cultu citriorum on the cultivation of citrus fruits (Venice 1505) and Pier Franceso Giustolo's De Croci Cultu on the cultivation of saffron (Rome 1510). There were also works on hunting like Natale Conti 's De venatione (1551) and the Cynegeticon (Hunting with dogs) of Pietro degli Angeli which were

3939-634: The art of breeding pigeons appeared in 1740; and John Duncombe’s Fishing (quoted above), which was an adaptation written in the 1750s but unpublished until 1809. Besides the 18th century examples already mentioned, English poets wrote other Virgilian styled georgics and country themed pieces manifesting an appreciation of the rustic arts and the happiness of life on the country estate. Among them were poems directed to such specialised subjects as John Philips 's Cyder (1708) and John Gay 's Rural Sports: A Georgic (1713). Gay then went on to compose in Trivia, or

4040-593: The art of walking the streets of London (1716) "a full-scale mock Georgic". The poem is dependent on the method and episodes in Virgil's poem and may be compared with the contemporary renewal of classical genres in the mock epic and the introduction of urban themes into the eclogue by other Augustan poets at that period. Later examples of didactic georgics include Christopher Smart 's The Hop-Garden (1752), Robert Dodsley 's Agriculture (1753) and John Dyer 's The Fleece (1757). Shortly afterwards, James Grainger went on to create in his The Sugar Cane (1764)

4141-640: The author informs the reader (in the words of his English translator): Of fish I sing, and to the rural cares Now add the labours of my younger years… Now more improved since first they gave me fame; From hence to tend the doves and vine I taught, And whate’er else my riper years have wrought. That was followed by Columbae (Doves, 1684), mentioned in the lines above and ultimately section 13; by Vites (Vines, 1689), section 10; and by Olus (Vegetables, 1698), section 9. Two English clergymen poets later wrote poems more or less reliant on one or other of these sections. Joshua Dinsdale's The Dove Cote, or

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4242-516: The bees perish and the entire colony dies. The restoration of the bees is accomplished by bugonia , spontaneous rebirth from the carcass of an ox. This process is described twice in the second half (281–568) and frames the Aristaeus epyllion beginning at line 315. The tone of the book changes from didactic to epic and elegiac in this epyllion, which contains within it the story of Orpheus and Eurydice . Aristaeus, after losing his bees, descends to

4343-600: The century. Also noteworthy is the fact that the brisk rate of new translations continued into the early decades of the nineteenth century, with 1808 as a kind of annus mirabilis , when three new versions appeared." Some among these, like Dryden's and the Earl of Lauderdale 's (1709), had primarily poetic aims. Other translators were clergymen amateurs (Thomas Nevile, Cambridge 1767) or, translating into prose, had school use in mind (Joseph Davidson, London 1743). William Sotheby went on to place his acclaimed literary version of 1800 in

4444-520: The choice of it as a model for independent works, was “profoundly political”, recognising an affinity with Virgil's treatment of rural subjects after the social and political disruptions through which he had lived. The tone of Virgil's work represented a longing for the “creation of order out of disorder” to which the Roman Augustan age succeeded, much as the British Augustan Age emerged from

4545-554: The context of others across Europe when he reissued it in the sumptuous folio edition Georgica Publii Virgilii Maronis Hexaglotta (London, 1827). There it was accompanied by versions in Italian by Gian-Francesco Soave (1765), in Spanish by Juan de Guzmán (1768), in French by Jacques Delille (1769), and in German by Johann Heinrich Voss (1789). Dutch influence on English farming also paved

4646-475: The course of the Georgics. What has been described as "the earliest English georgic on any subject" limited itself to practical advice on gardening. Attributed to an unidentified Master John, "The Feate of Gardeninge" dates from the first half of the 15th century and provides instructions for sowing, planting and growing fruits, herbs and flowers through the course of the year. The poem’s 98 couplets are of irregular line-length and are occasionally imperfectly rhymed;

4747-423: The dark. There is considerable feathering behind the legs, and the tail is heavily feathered. Livestock guardian dog A livestock guardian dog (LGD) is a dog type bred for the purpose of protecting livestock from predators . Livestock guardian dogs stay with the group of animals they protect as a full-time member of the flock or herd . Their ability to guard their herd is mainly instinctive, as

4848-473: The death with predators, in most cases, predator attacks are prevented by a display of aggressiveness. LGDs are known to drive off predators for which physically they would be no match, such as bears and even lions. With the reintroduction of predators into natural habitats in Europe and North America, environmentalists have come to appreciate LGDs because they allow sheep and cattle farming to coexist with predators in

4949-517: The descent of Orpheus into the underworld to retrieve Eurydice , the backward look that caused her return to Tartarus , and at last Orpheus' death at the hands of the Ciconian women. Book four concludes with an eight-line sphragis or seal in which Virgil contrasts his life of poetry with that of Octavian the general. Virgil's model for composing a didactic poem in hexameters is the archaic Greek poet Hesiod , whose poem Works and Days shares with

5050-495: The description of the plague in Book 3 and Virgil's famous description of bee society in Book 4. It is impossible to know whether or not these references and images were intended to be seen as political in nature, but it would not be inconceivable that Virgil was in some way influenced by the years of civil war. Whether they were intentional or not, if we believe Suetonius, these references did not seem to trouble Octavian , to whom Virgil

5151-496: The didactic poems of Hesiod and the Georgica . Its intention was to praise country living in the course of describing its seasonal occupations. A similar approach to the beauties of the countryside in all weathers was taken by James Thomson in the four sections of his The Seasons (1730). The poem has been described as "the supreme British achievement in the georgic genre, even though it has little to do with agriculture per se," and

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5252-399: The dog corresponding to the color of the herd reduces the risk of accidental death of the dog when shooting wolves. LGDs are generally large, independent, and protective, which can make them less than ideal for urban or even suburban living. Nonetheless, despite their size, they can be gentle, make good companion dogs , and are often protective towards children. If introduced to a family as

5353-538: The dog is bonded to the herd from an early age. Unlike herding dogs which control the movement of livestock, LGDs blend in with them, watching for intruders within the flock. The mere presence of a guardian dog is usually enough to ward off some predators, and LGDs confront predators by vocal intimidation, barking, and displaying very aggressive behavior . The dog may attack or fight with a predator if it cannot drive it away. Herding dogs originated in Western Asia , on

5454-518: The early period was to protect herds from a variety of wild predators, which were very numerous at that time. This function predetermined the type of herding dogs: they had to be strong, vicious, courageous, decisive, able to stand alone against a large predator and, most importantly, ready to defend their herd. The ancestors of livestock guarding dogs can be traced back to six thousand years ago, with archaeological findings of joint remains of sheep and dogs dated back to 3685 BC. The land of their origin

5555-481: The earth being addressed to the future through the ancient work. In other words, the past is entering into dialogue with the future right now." And in part, as in Virgil's time, this ecological crisis has come as a result of a loss of focus, preoccupation in the past with foreign wars and civil conflict. Virgil’s work addressed itself to far more than simple farming and later poems of a didactic tendency often dealt with, and elaborated on, individual subjects mentioned in

5656-447: The effectiveness of their group of dogs in meeting specific predator threats. LGDs that follow the livestock closest assure that a guard dog is on hand if a predator attacks, while LGDs that patrol at the edges of a flock or herd are in a position to keep would-be attackers at a safe distance from livestock. Those dogs that are more attentive tend to alert those that are more passive, but perhaps also more trustworthy or less aggressive with

5757-401: The end of the 20th century, shepherds are going back to using LGDs as the only way to protect farm animals from harm in a way that is not lethal to legally protected predators. Thanks to this advantage, LGDs are now used to protect herds in the US, Scandinavia , and a number of African countries, even despite the absence of such a tradition in these regions. The use of livestock guardian dogs for

5858-405: The farming year season by season and a partial translation into Latin was described by William Clubbe as being rendered 'in the manner of the Georgics' ( in morem Latini Georgice redditum ). It was followed in the 20th century by Vita Sackville-West 's The Land (1926), which also pursued the course of the seasons through its four books and balanced rural know-how with celebratory description in

5959-427: The flocks are kept in low-lying pastures or in paddocks, and in the summer they are moved to remote regions, often to the mountains, where there is enough grass during the summer drought. LGDs guard livestock on pastures throughout the year, and also protect sheep from attacks of predators during seasonal migrations. The dogs are introduced to livestock as puppies so they "imprint" on the animals. Experts recommend that

6060-429: The following generations of authors. Seneca's account that "Virgil ... aimed, not to teach the farmer, but to please the reader," underlines that Virgil's poetic and philosophic themes were abounding in his hexameters (Sen., Moral Letter 86.15). John Dryden ’s 1697 poetic translation of Virgil's Georgics sparked a renewed interest in agricultural poetry and country life amongst the more educated classes during

6161-616: The following year as The Rural Philosopher: or French Georgics, a didactic poem , and in the USA in 1804. Both works, however, though they bear the name of georgics, have more of a celebratory than a didactic function. They are a different sort of work that, while paying homage and alluding to Virgil's poem, have another end in view. This descriptive genre of writing had an equally Renaissance pedigree in Politian 's poem Rusticus (1483), which he composed to be recited as an introduction to his lectures on

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6262-419: The herd just as effectively. The large size provides guardian dogs with a number of advantages: they retain heat longer, carry more fat reserves and can go without food for longer, are less likely to get bone fractures and tolerate illnesses better. Their stride is longer, so they are more efficient at long distances. However, dogs that are too large suffer more from the heat, therefore they are used exclusively in

6363-511: The herd, the presence of a shepherd, the presence or absence of fences and other means of protection, the number and species composition of predators, as well as the breed, age, health status of LGDs and their experience. For example, sheep breeders of the Rocky Mountains in the United States breed predominantly white-headed Rambouillet sheep with a strong herd instinct. During the day,

6464-884: The herd. In the absence of a traditional guarding purpose and selection associated with it, hereditary guarding skills and key working qualities of LGDs get lost. Some breeds of LGDs are kept mainly as pets ( Pyrenean mountain dog ). Some working breeds (the Karakachan dog in Bulgaria, the Portuguese LGD breeds) are on the verge of extinction, others ( Kuchi dog in Afghanistan, the Mazandarani saga dog in Iran) are considered completely lost. Nonetheless, livestock breeding remains an important part of agriculture, and livestock guardian dogs are still

6565-441: The home of his mother, the nymph Cyrene , where he is given instructions on how to restore his colonies. He must capture the seer, Proteus , and force him to reveal which divine spirit he angered and how to restore his bee colonies. After binding Proteus (who changes into many forms to no avail), Aristaeus is told by the seer that he angered the nymphs by causing the death of the nymph Eurydice, wife of Orpheus . Proteus describes

6666-557: The imperial Virgil. In Britain there was a tendency to grant Virgil honorary citizenship. In the introduction to his turn of the century translation for the Everyman edition , T. F. Royds argued that "just as the Latin poet had his pedigree, Virgil is here an adopted English poet, and his many translators have made for him an English pedigree too". So too, living in Devon as World War II progressed, C. Day Lewis saw his own translation as making

6767-434: The irresistible power of their respective themes of love and death. Book four, a tonal counterpart to book two, is divided approximately in half; the first half (1–280) is didactic and deals with the life and habits of bees, as a model for human society. Bees resemble man in that their labour is devoted to a king and they give their lives for the sake of the community, but they lack the arts and love. In spite of their labour,

6868-625: The livestock, attentive in that they are situationally aware of threats by predators, and protective in that they attempt to drive off predators. Dogs, being social creatures with differing personalities, take on different roles with the herd and among themselves; most stick close to the livestock, others tend to follow the shepherd or rancher when one is present, and some drift away from the livestock. These differing roles are often complementary in terms of protecting livestock, and experienced ranchers and shepherds sometimes encourage these differences by adjustments in socialization technique so as to increase

6969-491: The livestock. At least two dogs may be placed with a flock or herd, depending on its size, the type of predators, their number, and the intensity of predation. If predators are scarce, one dog may be adequate, though most operations usually require at least two dogs. Large operations (particularly range operations) and heavy predator loads require more dogs. Male and female LGDs have proved to be equally effective in protecting of livestock. While LGDs have been known to fight to

7070-601: The most efficient and sustainable way of protecting the herds. LGDs invariably remain an integral part of the industry in places of traditional sheep breeding where large carnivores have survived, such as the Carpathian and Balkan regions , in central Italy, on the Iberian Peninsula , in the mountain regions of the Middle East and Central Asia . In Western and Northern Europe , where large predators were reintroduced in

7171-529: The most famous passage of the poem, the Laudes Italiae or Praises of Italy, is introduced by way of a comparison with foreign marvels: despite all of those, no land is as praiseworthy as Italy. A point of cultural interest is a reference to Ascra in line 176, which an ancient reader would have known as the hometown of Hesiod . Next comes the care of vines, culminating in a vivid scene of their destruction by fire; then advice on when to plant vines, and therein

7272-405: The narrative and has no immediately apparent relevance to Virgil's topic. The difficult, open-ended conclusion seems to confirm this interpretation. In a highly influential article Anderson debunked this view, and it is now generally believed that there were not Laudes Galli and that the Orpheus episode is original. Generally, arguments against the view above question Servius' reliability, citing

7373-444: The northern regions and in mountain pastures. Livestock guardian dogs working with the herds in hot areas are lighter in bone and shorter. All LGDs have similar physical traits. Differences in appearance reflect the peculiarities of the climate in which these dogs live and work. All LGDs have a dense water-repellent coat, strong build, and independent disposition. Differences in the colour are determined by local traditions: puppies of

7474-415: The number of LGDs has critically declined. Instead of their original purpose, livestock guardian dogs are more often used to guard property, bred as show dogs with a spectacular appearance, and sometimes used in dog fight business . The breed standards used by canine organisations in purebred breeding and their selection process are mainly focused on physical characteristics and not on their ability to protect

7575-531: The number of dogs in the flock usually increases. Protection is more reliable if the herd is guarded by dogs of different breeds, for example, powerful Pyrenean mastiffs , who prefer to lie close to livestock, in cooperation with more mobile Maremmas or Kangals , who control the perimeter of the pasture. The three qualities most sought after in LGDs are trustworthiness, attentiveness, and protectiveness; trustworthy in that they do not roam off and are not aggressive with

7676-463: The olive. In the next hundred lines, Virgil treats forest and fruit trees. Their propagation and growth are described in detail, with a contrast drawn between methods that are natural and those that require human intervention. Three sections on grafting are of particular interest: presented as marvels of man's alteration of nature. Also included is a catalogue of the world's trees, set forth in rapid succession, and other products of various lands. Perhaps

7777-459: The other famous passage of the second book, the Praises of Spring. These depict the growth and beauty that accompany spring's arrival. The poet then returns to didactic narrative with yet more on vines, emphasizing their fragility and laboriousness. A warning about animal damage provides occasion for an explanation of why goats are sacrificed to Bacchus . The olive tree is then presented in contrast to

7878-443: The portents associated with Caesar’s assassination and civil war; only Octavian offers any hope of salvation. Prominent themes of the second book include agriculture as man's struggle against a hostile natural world, often described in violent terms, and the ages of Saturn and Jupiter . Like the first book, it begins with a poem addressing the divinities associated with the matters about to be discussed: viticulture , trees, and

7979-480: The possibility that he confused the end of the Georgics with the end of the Eclogues, which does make mention of Gallus. Further, they question its validity based on chronological evidence: the Georgics would have been finished a number of years before the disgrace and suicide of Gallus, and so one would expect more evidence of an alternative version of the end of the poem—or at least more sources mentioning it. Instead,

8080-645: The programmatic statement " Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas " in Georgics 2.490–502, which draws from De rerum natura 1.78–9, "the basic impulse for the Georgics came from a dialogue with Lucretius." Likewise, David West remarks in his discussion of the plague in the third book, Virgil is "saturated with the poetry of Lucretius, and its words, phrases, thought and rhythms have merged in his mind, and become transmuted into an original work of poetic art." Beginning with Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE and ending with Octavian's victory over Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 BCE, Rome had been engaged in

8181-655: The protection of herds reduces losses of animals between 11% and 100%, without requiring significant investments, special technologies and government assistance. Attempts to return the LGDs into agriculture are supported by government programs and public organisations in a number of countries. Many breeds of LGDs are little known outside of the regions where they are still worked. Nevertheless, some breeds are known to display traits advantageous to guarding livestock. Some specialist LGD breeds include: Georgics The Georgics ( / ˈ dʒ ɔːr dʒ ɪ k s / JOR -jiks ; Latin : Georgica [ɡeˈoːrɡɪka] )

8282-819: The pups begin living with the herd at 4 to 5 weeks of age. This imprinting is thought to be largely olfactory and occurs between 3 and 16 weeks of age. Training requires regular daily handling and management, preferably from birth. A guardian dog is not considered reliable until it is at least 2 years of age. Until that time, supervision, guidance, and correction are needed to teach the dog the skills and rules it needs to do its job. Having older dogs that assist in training younger dogs streamlines this process considerably. Trials are underway to protect penguins with LGDs. In Namibia in Southwest Africa, Anatolians are used to guard goat herds from cheetahs , and are typically imprinted between 7 and 8 weeks of age. Before use of dogs

8383-473: The same or nearby habitats. Unlike trapping and poisoning, LGDs seldom kill predators; instead, their aggressive behaviors tend to condition predators to seek unguarded (thus, nonfarm animal) prey. For instance, in Italy's Gran Sasso National Park , where LGDs and wolves have coexisted for centuries, older, more experienced wolves seem to "know" the LGDs and leave their flocks alone. LGDs are large, powerful dogs, although smaller dogs drive wild animals away from

8484-462: The sheep scatter over the pasture that is about one square mile, and at night they gather in a denser flock. In an ordinary flock of a thousand ewes and their lambs, two to five guard dogs live constantly. The number of dogs in a herd can change with their death or the birth of puppies. When the herds gather together for the winter, some dogs can move to another herd and spend the next summer guarding other sheep. When large predators appear near pastures,

8585-482: The simple country life over the corruptness of the city. The third book is chiefly and ostensibly concerned with animal husbandry . It consists of two principal parts, the first half is devoted to the selection of breed stock and the breeding of horses and cattle. It concludes with a description of the furore induced in all animals by sexual desire. The second half of the book is devoted to the care and protection of sheep and goats and their by-products. It concludes with

8686-531: The social ferment and civil strife of the 17th century. The cultured of a later age were quick to see the parallel, but there was also an altered emphasis. Whereas for Virgil there was an antithesis between town life and country simplicity, in the view of the gentry of the 18th century, city and country were interdependent. Those who created specialised georgics of their own considered the commodities about which they wrote as items of trade that contributed to both local and national prosperity. For Roman citizens, farming

8787-522: The sole ruler of the Roman world, the Roman Empire was born. It was during this period, and against this backdrop of civil war, that Virgil composed the Georgics . While not containing any overtly political passages, politics are not absent from the Georgics . Not only is Octavian addressed in the poem both directly and indirectly, but the poem also contains several passages that include references and images that could be interpreted as political, such as

8888-400: The style of so many classical scholars" and making its appeal instead through an approachable, down-to-earth idiom. In the 21st century, Frédéric Boyer 's French version of the Georgics is retitled Le Souci de la terre (Care for the earth) and makes its appeal to current ecological concerns. "For me as a translator", he explains in his preface, "I find today’s tragic paradigm in relation to

8989-486: The territory of modern Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan in association with the beginning of livestock breeding. Domestication of sheep and goats began there in the 8-7th millennium BC. Back then shepherding was a difficult job: the first shepherds did not have horses and managed livestock on foot, as mules, horses and donkeys were not yet fully domesticated and obedient enough. Dogs that previously were helping humans to hunt, became assistants in farming. The main task of dogs in

9090-636: The ultimate Italian ancestors of William Somervile 's The Chace (London, 1735). The preface to the last of these notes with disapproval that one "might indeed have expected to have seen it treated more at large by Virgil in his third Georgick, since it is expressly Part of his Subject. But he has favoured us only with ten Verses." The most encyclopaedic of the authors on country subjects was Jacques Vanière whose Praedium Rusticum reached its completest version in 1730. Integrated into its sixteen sections were several once issued as separate works. They included Stagna (Fishing, 1683), ultimately section 15, in which

9191-508: The vine: it requires little effort on the part of the farmer. The next subject, at last turning away from the vine, is other kinds of trees: those that produce fruit and those that have useful wood. Then Virgil again returns to grapevines, recalling the myth of the battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs in a passage known as the Vituperation of Vines. The remainder of the book is devoted to extolling

9292-533: The work a distinct, Italian character. Virgil draws on the neoteric poets at times, and Catullus' Carmen 64 very likely had a large impact on the epyllion of Aristaeus that ends the Georgics 4. Virgil's extensive knowledge and skilful integration of his models is central to the success of different portions of the work and the poem as a whole. The two predominant philosophical schools in Rome during Virgil's lifetime were Stoicism and Epicureanism . Of these two,

9393-503: The work was never printed, although annotated manuscript copies give evidence of its being studied and put to use. Master John's poem heads the line of later gardening manuals in verse over the centuries. Included among them were poems in Latin like Giuseppe Milio's De Hortorum Cura (Brescia 1574) and René Rapin 's popular Hortorum Libri IV (Of Gdns, 1665). The latter was a four-canto work in Latin hexameters, dealing respectively with flowers, disposition of trees, water and orchards, and

9494-453: Was James Hamilton, whose prose translation of Virgil's work was "published with such notes and reflexions as make him appear to have wrote like an excellent Farmer” (Edinburgh, 1742). This aspiration was supported by the assertion that, to make a proper translation, agricultural experience was a prerequisite—and for the lack of which, in the view of William Benson, Dryden's version was disqualified. That Robert Hoblyn had practical experience as

9595-544: Was carried out in the service of the capital; for Britons the empire was consolidated as the result of mercantile enterprise and such commodities contributed to the general benefit. A critic has pointed out that "the British Library holds no fewer than twenty translations of the Georgics from [the 18th century] period; of these, eight are separately published translations of the Georgics alone. Several of these translations, such as Dryden's, were reprinted regularly throughout

9696-535: Was followed by two English versions shortly afterwards, translated by John Evelyn the Younger in 1673 and James Gardiner in 1706. Where those versions were written in rhyming couplets, however, William Mason later chose Miltonic blank verse for his The English Garden: A Poem in Four Books (1772–81), an original work that took the Georgics as its model. His French contemporary Jacques Delille , having already translated

9797-418: Was implemented, impoverished Namibian farmers often came into conflict with predatory cheetahs; now, Anatolians usually are able to drive off cheetahs with their barking and displays of aggression. The experiments of Lorna and Raymond Coppinger and the studies of other specialists have shown the effectiveness of protecting flocks with the help of dogs. After the reintroduction of wolves, that were eliminated in

9898-438: Was lost under the protection of LGDs. At the same time, none of the predators protected by law got killed: the dogs simply did not allow them to approach the herd. For the protection of flocks, on average, five dogs are used per 350 heads of sheep, but the need for LGDs depends on many conditions, such as the landscape and size of the territory, vegetation available in the pasture area, the species, breed and number of animals in

9999-669: Was on a different plan, however, proceeding month by month through the agricultural year and concentrating on conditions in Scotland, considering that "the British Isles differ in so many respects from the countries to which Virgil's Georgics alluded". Jacques Delille had already preceded him in France with a similar work, L'Homme des champs, ou les Géorgiques françaises (Strasbourg, 1800), a translation of which by John Maunde had been published in London

10100-430: Was reduplicated in all three of his works. The repetitions of material from the Georgics in the Aeneid vary in their length and degree of alteration. Some of the less exact, single-line reduplications may very well show a nodding Virgil or scribal interpolation. The extended repetitions, however, show some interesting patterns. In about half the cases, technical, agrarian descriptions are adapted into epic similes. This

10201-473: Was to have a separate English existence in a verse translation by Arthur Murphy published from London in 1799, and later reprinted in the United States in 1808. But an earlier partial adaptation, Joshua Dinsdale 's The Modern Art of Breeding Bees , had already appeared in London in 1740, prefaced with an apology to Virgil for trespassing on his ancient territory while bringing "some new Discov'ries to impart". For his part, Marco Girolamo Vida struck out in

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