Le livre XVIII des Géoponiques sur l’élevage des moutons. Sa place au sein de la tradition littéraire agronomique grecque et latine.

Willocx, Louise [UCL]

(eng) Book XVIII of the Geoponica on sheep farming. Its place in the Greek and Latin agricultural literary tradition. After an introduction to the compedium of the Geoponica reminding the history of the text, its author, its reworkings and reception but also its sources and textual features, we took a closer look at the book XVIII of the Geoponica dealing with sheep breeding. By means of tables, we compared some selected chapters of the Geoponica with various authors through History. First, we selected some ancient Greek and Roman authors who wrote about sheep farming. This helped us, on one hand, clarify the parallels and differences between the authors and, on the other hand, evaluate the contribution of the Geoponica to the tradition. We then went further with our comparison with the Encyclopedia of Diderot, which was written just before the industrial revolution and its upheavals. Eventually, we compared the content our Geoponica chapters with the current sheep farming methods, to measure the permanence and evolution of knowledge and techniques in the field. The permanence and continuity of tradition appear very clear after reading these tables. First, the sheep breeding has not fundamentally changed, because tradition, folklore and memory are key concepts in the agricultural and rural world which ensure the perpetuation of practices. This explains why certain practices remained unchanged until the eighteenth century and even until today. On the other hand, the literary tradition is also marked by the principle of permanence and continuity: there is a blatant trend among agricultural authors to copy and paraphrase their predecessors’ work is evident here. Finally, this compedium, which gathers both Greek and Roman heritage, helped save a large part of the lost agricultural tradition and transmit this agricultural knowledge through centuries.