[p. 179] from Scipio's fifth oration Against Claudius Asellus: 1 “When he had seen the highly-cultivated fields and well-kept farmhouses, he ordered them to set up a measuring rod on the highest spot in that district; and from there to build a straight road, in some places through the midst of vineyards, in others through the roborarium and the fish-pond, in still others through the farm buildings.” Thus we see that to pools or ponds of water in which live fish are kept in confinement, they gave their own appropriate name of piscinae, or “fishponds.” Apiaria too is the word commonly used of places in which bee-hives are set; but I recall almost no one of those who have spoken correctly who has used that word either in writing or speaking. But Marcus Varro, in the third book of his treatise On Farming, remarks: 2 “This is the way to make μελισσῶνες, which some call mellaria, or 'places for storing honey.'” But this word which Varro used is Greek; for they say μελισσῶνες, just as they do ἀμπελῶνες (vineyards) and δαφνῶνες (laurel groves).
XXI
[21arg] About the constellation which the Greeks call ἅμαξα and the Romans septentriones; and as to the origin and meaning of both those words.SEVERAL of us, Greeks and Romans, who were pursuing the same studies, were crossing in the same boat from Aegina to the Piraeus. It was night, the sea was calm, the time summer, and the sky
