Like the poems on the scolopendra, these thank-offerings are from the Anthology's book of dedicatory epigrams. Their authors take on the point-of-view of grateful ploughmen, but were themselves highly educated; Macedonius was a hupatos or 'Consul', a court official under Justinian in the sixth century AD.
Addaeus is among the first of the Hellenistic literary epigrammatists, active in the fourth century BC. Between his time and Justinian's nearly a millennium had passed, but the oxen's work never changed.
6.40
MACEDONIUS
My pair of oxen, that brought forth the corn:
Accept them in good spirit, Demeter,
Though these are dough; grant the real beasts may live.
My acres, fill with sheaves; give rich return,
Because your honest ploughman has endured
Eight decades, four years back. He never reaped
Harvests like those at Corinth, nor did taste
The bitter poverty that knows no corn.
6.228
ADDAEUS OF MACEDON
His working ox, broken by age and toil,
Alcon did not lead to the slaughterman,
In honour of its labours. Now that ox
In some rich pasture bellows and is glad:
It celebrates its freedom from the plough.
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