Though Varro began the De Re Rustica with an invocation to twelve agricultural gods, the star of book 1 is ratio (“reason”) and not religio (“religion”). In this book, agriculture is presented as a rational art form by the modern-sounding farming expert Cn. Tremelius Scrofa, who engages in debate with the old-fashioned agronomist C. Licinius Stolo. Scholars have generally interpreted Scrofa's agricultural theories with utmost seriousness and present him as a great innovator, who contributed much to the advancement of agricultural science in the Late Republic. Instead, I would argue that Scrofa is a semi-fictional, satiric character and that Varro creates this hyper-intellectual discussion of agriculture in book 1 as a parody of academic debates in the Late Republic, debates which are best represented in serious guise by those in Ciceronian dialogue. In the end, both Scrofa and Stolo come off as incompetent intellectuals and farmers, and the world of ratio, with its optimistic attitude towards controlling nature, is cut down to size.

SCROFA

Before analyzing the debate between Scrofa and Stolo, I would like to say a brief word about the historical Scrofa. No doubt one of the reasons readers have taken Scrofa seriously as a character is that he is attested by other ancient authors as a respected agronomist. Yet, closer inspection of these references reveals that Varro's version of Scrofa is hard to square with them and that he took some creative liberties in his portrayal.