Novalia (Verg. ecl. 1,70)

In the first eclogue Melibeus, through an articulate and accurate use of words that Varro and contemporary lexicographers have also discussed, outlines an agricultural universe upon which the storm of expropriations has fallen. Even the reuse of a Theocritean suggestion in the mention of the novalia seems to have a polemical purpose, in contrast between a yesterday and a tomorrow that will not be there (Vergil) and a tomorrow that one hopes will arrive soon and be like yesterday (Theocritus).