[Footnote 147: Aristotle (_H.A._ VI, 20) says that puppies are blind from twelve to seventeen days, depending upon the season of the year at which they are born. Pliny (_H N._ VIII, 62) says from seven to twenty days, depending upon the supply of the mother's milk.] [Footnote 148: It was among these hardy shepherd slaves that Spartacus recruited his army in 72-71 B.C., as did Caelius and Milo in 48 B.C., while their descendants were the brigands who infested Southern Italy even in the nineteenth century.] [Footnote 149: Gaius, I, 119, II, 24, 41, describes in detail the processes here referred to by which a slave was acquired under the Roman law.] [Footnote 150: Dennis, in his _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, draws a picture of modern Italy which may serve to illustrate Varro's sketch of the mountain life of the shepherds of his day: "Occasionally in my wanderings on this site (Veii) I have entered, either from curiosity or for shelter, one of the _capanne_ scattered over the downs. These are tall conical thatched huts which the shepherds make their winter abode. For in Italy, the lowlands being generally unhealthy in summer, the flocks are driven to the mountains about May, and as soon as the great heats are past are brought back to the rich pastures of the plains. It is a curious sight, the interior of a _capanna_, and affords an agreeable diversity to the antiquity hunter. A little boldness is requisite to pass through the pack of dogs, white as new dropt lambs, but large and fierce as wolves, which, were the shepherd not at hand, would tear in pieces whoever might venture to approach the hut: but with one of the _pecoraj_ for a Teucer, nothing is to be feared. The _capanne_ are of various sizes. One I entered not far from Veii was thirty or forty feet in diameter and fully as high, propped in the centre by two rough masts, between which a hole was left in the roof for the escape of smoke. Within the door lay a large pile of lambs, there might be a hundred, killed that morning and already flayed, and a number of shepherds were busied in operating on the carcases of others: all of which were to be dispatched forthwith to the Roman market. Though a fierce May sun blazed without, a huge fire roared in the middle of the hut: but this was for the sake of the _ricotta_, which was being made in another part of the _capanna_. Here stood a huge cauldron, full of boiling ewes' milk. In a warm state this curd is a delicious jelly and has often tempted me to enter a _capanna_ in quest of it, to the amazement of the _pecoraj_, to whom it is _vilior alga_. Lord of the cauldron, stood a man dispensing ladlefuls of the rich simmering mess to his fellows, as they brought their bowls for their morning allowance: and he varied his occupation by pouring the same into certain small baskets, the serous part running off through the wicker and the residue caking as it cooled. On the same board stood the cheeses, previously made from the cream.