Country Life

Why every farm needs an ass

How to be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land

Selected, translated and introduced by Mark D Usher

(Princeton University Press, £12.99)

T HE search term ‘how to be a farmer’ produces some interesting results. Farmers Weekly offers nine options, of which ‘marry into a farming family’ and ‘win the lottery’ strike me as the easiest and most practical. Google suggests that you may have meant ‘how to be a farmer with no money’ (something I know plenty about). Keep scrolling, however, and you will find Mark Usher’s latest anthological offering.

In a (wild-harvested) nutshell, Prof Usher has gathered together two dozen classical Roman and Greek pieces on . If you are hoping for a review of the Dorothy Parker ‘it was written without fear and without research’ variety, you have come to the wrong place. This

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