Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/108

Rh 92 V A R R O resin at proper temperatures the solution is brought to the desired consistency. After the mixture of oil and resin has sufficiently cooled, oil of turpentine in certain propor tion is added. The making of copal varnish is attended with great risk of burning, and special precautions have to be observed for the extinction of the fire that frequently bursts out in these highly-heated and most inflammable bodies. Copal varnish is also made by boiling together the requisite proportions of resin and oil under pressure in a closed vessel, and subsequently adding turpentine, or by dissolving the resin and turpentine at the high heat and adding the oil afterwards. Amber varnish is prepared by the same methods as those followed in preparing copal, but, the resin being still more refractory and insoluble, a higher heat is required. A peculiar varnish forms the basis of the celebrated Japanese lacquer. The substance is a resinous exudation, which is obtained by making in cisions in the bark of the Japanese urushi or lacquer-tree, JRkm vernici/era. The resinous juice on settling in vats separates into two layers, the upper and thinner of which, on mixture with a drying oil, forms a transparent varnish, having a rich yellow colour, which dries into coatings of remarkable tenacity, durability, and lustre (see JAPANNIXG, vol. xiii. p. 592). VARRO, MARCUS TEEENTIUS, Roman polymath and man of letters, lived from 116 to 27 B.C. When he was born, the Gracchan agitation had only just been laid to rest, and the year of his death saw the final and formal establish ment of the empire. Into the changing life of that stirring time Varro entered deeply, and there was no current in thought, culture, literature, and even politics, with which he was not closely in contact. Few have ever so thoroughly combined the pursuit of scholarship and literature with experience of practical affairs. Dionysius of Halicarnassus well described him as the man of widest experience during his age. Nothing is known of Varro s ancestors but that they were natives of the Sabine country, where Varro himself was born in the town of Reate. 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. ^Elius Stilo, the first systematic student, critic, and teacher of Latin philology and literature, and of the antiqui ties of Rome and Italy. We know from Cicero that Varro also studied at Athens, especially under the philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon. It was the aim of this teacher to lead back the Academic school from the scepticism of Arcesilaus and Carneades to the tenets of the early Platon- ists, as he understood them. Ilis opponents, however, declared that he identified Platonism with Stoic dogmatism, and that a very slight change in his views would have con verted him into a Stoic of the Stoics. When Cicero wrote his Posterior Academics, he introduced Varro as an inter locutor, and made him expound the views of Antiochus. The influence of Antiochus is most plainly to be traced in the extant remains of Varro s writings, and indirectly in works like the De Civitate Dei of Augustine, which owe much to Varro. In spite of controversial statements to the contrary, the differences between Antiocheanism and Stoicism were great and marked, and it is a serious, though a common, error to treat Varro as an adherent of the Stoic school. The political career of Varro seems to have been late and slow ; but he arrived at the praetor- ship, after having been tribune of the people, quaestor, and curule sedile. 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 ridi culed the coalition in a work entitled the Three-Headed Monster (TptKaparov 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 B.C.). 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 &quot;naval crown,&quot; 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. 1 7-20) Ctesar 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 inti mates that, though Varro did his best for Pompey from a sense of duty, his heaTt 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 grati tude 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. The two, though alike in political inclinations and in their love for literature, were anti pathetic in their natures, the one soft in fibre, and vain, richly abundant in expression, and subtly sensitive, the other somewhat harsh, severe, and retiring, solid in learn ing, and no master of literary form. The impression of Varro s personality which Cicero gives is unattractive enough, but probably on the whole true. 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 B.C.) almost pen in hand. Van-o 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 &quot;books&quot; he had written at 490 ; but &quot; book &quot; 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 Menlppean 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 &quot;books&quot; 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 iirst of these three classes no doubt mainly belonged to Varro s earlier life. In poetry he seems to have attempted nothing that was veiy elaborate, and little of a serious character. His genius tended naturally in the direction of burlesque and satire.