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 application to wooden and other surfaces improves their appearance and permanency (see ). VARRO, MARCUS TERENTIUS (116–27 ), Roman polymath and man of letters, was born at Reate in the Sabine country. Here he imbibed in his earlier years a good measure of the hardy simplicity and strong seriousness which the later Romans attributed to the men of the early republic—characteristics which were supposed to linger in the Sabine land after they had fled from the rest of Italy. The chief teacher of Varro was L. Aelius Stilo, the first systematic student, critic and teacher of Latin philology and literature, and of the antiquities of Rome and Italy. Varro also studied at Athens, especially under the philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon, whose aim it was to lead back the Academic school from the scepticism of Arcesilaus and Carneades to the tenets of the early Platonists, as he understood them. He was really a stoicizing Platonist; and this has led to the error of supposing Varro to have been a professed Stoic. The influence of Antiochus is clearly to be seen in many remains of Varro’s writings. The political career of Varro seems to have been late and slow; but he arrived at the praetorship, after having been tribune of the people, quaestor and curule aedile. In politics and war he followed Pompey’s lead; but it is probable that he was discontented with the course on which his leader entered when the first triumvirate was formed, and he may thus have lost his chance of rising to the consulate. He actually ridiculed the coalition in a work entitled the Three-Headed Monster ( in the Greek of Appian). He did not, however, refuse to join the commission of twenty by whom the great agrarian scheme of Caesar for the resettlement of Capua and Campania was carried into execution (59 ). Despite the difference between them in politics, Varro and Caesar had literary tastes in common, and were friends in private life. Under Pompey Varro saw much active service: he was attached to Pompey as pro-quaestor, probably during the war against Sertorius in Spain. We next find him, as legate, in command of a fleet which kept the seas between Delos and Sicily, while Pompey was suppressing the pirates, and he even won the “naval crown,” a coveted reward of personal prowess. A little later he was legate during the last Mithradatic war. In the conflict between Caesar and the Pompeian party Varro was more than once actively engaged. In his Civil War (ii. 17–20) Caesar tells how Varro, when legate in Spain along with Afranius and Petreius, lost his two legions without striking a blow, because the whole region where he was quartered joined the enemy. Caesar curiously intimates that, though Varro did his best for Pompey from a sense of duty, his heart was really with the other leader. Nevertheless he proceeded to Epirus before the battle of Pharsalia, and awaited the result at Dyrrachium in the company of Cicero and Cato. Like Cicero, Varro received harsh treatment from Mark Antony after the Pompeian defeat. Some of his property was actually plundered, but restored at the bidding of Caesar, to whom Varro in gratitude immediately dedicated one of his most important writings. The dictator employed the scholar in aiding him to collect and arrange great stores of Greek and Latin literature for the vast public library which he intended to found. We have glimpses of Varro at this time in the Letters of Cicero. He appears as harsh and severe, and a poor stylist. The formation of the second triumvirate again plunged Varro into danger. Antony took possession anew of the property he had been compelled to surrender, and inserted Varro’s name on the list of the proscribed. His friends, however, afforded him protection. He was able to make peace with the triumvirs, but sacrificed his property and much of his beloved library. He was permitted to spend in quiet study and in writing the last fifteen years of his life. He is said to have died (27 ) almost pen in hand.

Varro was not surpassed in the compass of his writings by any ancient, not even by any one of the later Greek philosophers, to some of whom tradition ascribes a fabulous number of separate works. In a passage quoted by Gellius, Varro himself, when over seventy years of age, estimated the number of “books” he had written at 490; but “book” here means, not merely such a work as was not subdivided into portions, but also a portion of a sub-divided work. For example, the Menippean Satires numbered 150, and are all counted separately in Varro’s estimate. Jerome made or copied a catalogue of Varro’s works which has come down to us in a mutilated form. From this and from other extant materials Ritschl has set down the number of the distinct literary works at 74 and the number of separate “books” at about 620. The later years of the author’s life were therefore even more fruitful than the earlier. The complete catalogue may be roughly arranged under three heads—(1) belles lettres, (2) history and antiquities, (3) technical treatises on philosophy, law, grammar, mathematics, philology and other subjects.

The first of these three classes no doubt mainly belonged to Varro’s earlier life. In poetry he seems to have attempted nothing that was very elaborate, and little of a serious character. His genius tended naturally in the direction of burlesque and satire. In belles lettres he showed himself throughout, both in matter and form, the pupil and admirer of Lucilius, after whom he wrote satires. One poetical work probably consisted of short pieces in the style of the more satirical poems of Catullus. It is doubtful whether, as has often been supposed, Varro wrote a philosophical poem somewhat in the style of Lucretius; if so, it should rather be classed with the prose technical treatises. One curious production was an essay in popular illustrated literature, which was almost unique in ancient times. Its title was Imagines, and it consisted of 700 prose biographies of Greek and Roman celebrities, with a metrical elogium for each, accompanied in each case by a portrait. But the lighter works of Varro have perished almost to the last line, with the exception of numerous fragments of the Menippean Satires. The Menippus whom Varro imitated lived in the first half of the 3rd century, and was born a Phoenician slave. He became a Cynic philosopher, and is a figure familiar to readers of Lucian. He flouted life and all philosophies but the Cynic in light compositions, partly in prose and partly in verse. A careful study of the fragments does not justify Mommsen’s glowing account. That the remains exhibit variety and fertility, that there are in them numerous happy strokes of humour and satire, and many felicitous phrases and descriptions, is true, but the art is on the whole heavy, awkward and forced, and the style rudely archaic and untasteful. The Latin is frequently as rough and uncouth as that of Lucilius. No doubt Varro contemned the Hellenizing innovations by which the hard and rude Latin of his youth was transformed into the polished literary language of the late republican and the Augustan age. The titles of the Menippean Satires are very diverse. Sometimes personal names are chosen, and they range from the gods and demigods to the slaves, from Hercules to Marcipor. Frequently a popular proverb or catchword in Greek or Latin supplies the designation: thus we have as titles “I've got You” ( ); “You don't Know what Evening is to Bring” (Nescis quid vesper serus vehat); “Know Thyself” ( ). Occasionally the heading indicates that the writer is flying at some social folly, as in “Old Men are Children for the Second Time” ( ) and in the “Bachelor” (Caelebs). In many satires the philosophers were pounded, as in the “Burial of Menippus” and “Concerning the Sects” ( ). Each composition seems to have been a genuine medley or lanx satura: any topic might be introduced which struck the author’s fancy at the moment. There are many allusions to persons and events of the day, but political bitterness seems to have been commonly avoided. The whole tone of the writer is that of a laudator temporis acti, who can but scoff at all that has come into fashion in his own day. From the numerous citations in later authors it is clear that the Menippean Satires were the most popular of Varro’s writings. Not very unlike the Menippean Satires were the Libri Logistorici, or satirical and practical expositions, possibly in dialogue form, of some theme most commonly taken from philosophy on its ethical side. A few fragments in this style have come down to us and a number of titles. These are twofold: that is to say, a personal name is followed by words indicating the subject-matter, as Marius de Fortuna, from which the contents may easily be guessed, and Sisenna de Historia, most likely a dialogue in which the old annalist of the name was the chief speaker, and discoursed of the principles on which history should be written. Among the lighter and more popular works may be mentioned twenty-two books of Orations (probably never spoken), some funeral eulogies (Laudationes), some “exhortations” (Suasiones), conceivably of a political character, and an account of the author’s own life.

The second section of Varro’s works, those on history and antiquities, form to the present day the basis on which a large part of our knowledge of the earlier Roman history, and in particular of Roman constitutional history, ultimately rests. These writings were used as a quarry by the compilers and dilettanti of later times, such as Pliny, Plutarch, Gellius, Festus, Macrobius, and by Christian champions like Tertullian, Arnobius and Augustine, who did not disdain to seek in heathen literature the means of defending their faith. These men have saved for us a few remains from the great wreck made by time. Judging from what has been casually preserved, if any considerable portion of Varro’s labours as antiquarian and historian were to be now discovered, scholars might