agrestis

1. Rus (ἄροτον) denotes the country, in opp. to the town or city, the village with what belongs to it; whereas ager (ἀγρός) the country, in opp. to the district in general, the open country or fields. Cels. Med. 1. Sanum oportet . . . modo ruri esse, modo in urbe, sæpiusque in agro. 2. Rusticus denotes, like ἀγροῖκος, merely residing in the country; agrestis, like ἄγριος, growing wild in the fields, like ferus, but as a milder expression, for ferus (φῆρες) denotes wildness as an inward nature; agrestis, merely as a mark of the place of residence, or of extraction. 3. In a spiritual sense, rusticus denotes more an intellectual, agrestis more a moral roughness; rusticus, like countrified, has a reference to bashfulness and uncouthness; in its best sense, it is allied to innocence; in its worst, to awkwardness; whereas agrestis, like boorish, has a reference to shamelessness and vulgarity, is never used in a good sense, but borders on feritas, and answers to the German word Flegelei, ‘churlishness.’ The rusticus, in opp. to urbanus, violates only the conventional laws of decorum; the agrestis, in opp. to humanus, the natural laws of decorum also. 4. When Cicero wishes to give to rusticus a still milder sense, and secure it from ambiguity, he adopts the word rusticanus; so that, according to him, rusticus is one who actually lives in a country-village, rusticanus, one who resembles those who live in country-villages; hence among the rusticani the municipes may be reckoned, as rusticorum similes.