Swords and Plowshares: Agriculture and Military Imagery in Vergil’s Georgics

In the first two books of his Georgics, Vergil introduces a decidedly military theme within the context of agriculture: the farmer’s tools are ferrum (1.50, 1.143, 2.301, et al.), and even arma (1.160). The farmer himself “commands” (imperat), “trains” (exercet), and subjugates

(subigebant) the fields (1.99, 1.125). Vergil also employs a simile comparing the arrangement of grapevines to the formation of troops in battle (2.276-287). In each of these instances Vergil’s language departs from that of his agricultural model, Varro, by introducing military references in contexts where there previously were none (cf. Haberman 1977). Some modern scholars argue that this combination of military and agricultural language leads to a devaluation of moral vocabulary (Johnston 1980, Kronenberg 2009). Others argue that the farmer’s identity, shifting between aggressive warrior and gentle cultivator, indicates a larger moral ambiguity (Betenskey

1979, Perkell 1989). This paper proposes a new interpretation of the soldier-farmer relationship in the first two books; it identifies a distinction between positive, productive instances of military agriculture and negative, destructive instances. This dichotomy illustrates the moral and material implications of foreign war, represented by productive agriculture, and civil war, represented by destructive agriculture.

In Georgics 3 and 4, Vergil undermines the clear distinction between productive and destructive agriculture. He instructs the farmer to injure and kill his livestock (3.452-69) and bees (4.88-90, 106-7) in order to resolve or prevent further destruction. These creatures are humanized throughout, making such violence unappealing (Gale 1991). Miles 1980, Putnam

1979, and Gale 2000 identify the agricultural mandate for productivity as the driving force behind such acts. But the growing focus on the famer’s brutality, culminating in the bugonia

(4.284-314), blurs the distinctions between destruction and production. As Vergil demands more

violent means of creation, it becomes clear to the reader that the dichotomy of Georgics 1 and 2 is unrealistic. As Powell 2008 concludes, the results of the bugonia may be beneficial but the violence is inescapable. By undermining the idealized world-order of militarized agriculture,

Vergil forces his readers to examine more closely the justifications for violence presented throughout the Georgics, and question their assumptions about the benefits of war.

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