Georgics

The Georgics is a didactic poem by the Roman poet Virgil, written in Latin and published in four books, usually dated to the late 1st century BCE (composed between 37 and 29 BCE). The work blends practical instruction on farming with myth, natural history, and reflections on rural life, drawing on earlier agricultural traditions such as Hesiod's Works and Days and, in some accounts, Mago's agricultural writings. It treats farming as both a technical craft and a moral ideal, set within the Augustan world of Rome and its provincial landscapes.

Book I offers general guidance on land preparation, crop rotation, and husbandry; Book II turns to orchards, vines, trees, olives, and beekeeping; Book III concerns livestock, poultry, and the management of animals, as well as rural hazards; Book IV focuses on beekeeping and concludes with a mythic interlude about Aristaeus that explains agricultural origins and imparts pastoral wisdom.

Legacy: The Georgics helped shape the Latin pastoral tradition and influenced later agrarian writing. While valued for its technical detail, it is also studied for its poetic language, imagery, and political context in Augustan Rome. It remained widely read in antiquity and the Middle Ages, and continues to be studied in classical literature.