III
A FARMER OF LONELINESS
It was a cool morning in Etruria, but the month of Martius had arrived with its usual stomp to awaken the living from their winter slumbers. Birds flit and sang in the still-n***d branches of the trees, and boar ranged over the hills and through the forests. Farmers began to prepare their fields, ploughing the loamy depths of their lands for the Spring planting, seeking the blessings of Mars and Ceres by placing offerings upon their hidden altars wherever men lived by the land.
Men and servants tended to the dormant olive groves, fields, and vineyards from the moment the sun’s chariot broke over the horizon to the moment it fell over the far edge of the world. It was a busy time in that idyllic Etrurian world, from the smallest holding to the largest latifundi
