VARRO, MARCUS TERENTIUS (11_ 6--27 B.C.), Roman antiquarian and man of letters, was born at Reate. He studied at Rome under L. Aelius Stilo, the first Roman grammarian, and at Athens under Antiochus of Ascalon. In politics he espoused the side of Pompey. He disapproved, apparently, of the first triumvirate (that of Pompey, Caesar and Crassus, 6o B.c.), which he ridiculed in a book called The Three-headed (T puch paPos: cf. Appian Civil War, ii.9, Kat TLS (TVA avyypackin, Oiappcop gvi. (4X br4-ypaikE T puccipavov). Under Pompey he saw considerable military service and was engaged in several operations during the Civil War. Before the battle of Pharsalia he went to Epirus, and along with Cicero and Cato, he awaited at Dyrrachium the issue of the con flict. His personal relations with Caesar were friendly, and when, after the defeat of Pompey, Caesar secured the restoration of some of Varro's property, which had been seized by Mark Antony., Varro showed his gratitude by dedicating to him the second part of his Antiquitates. He also assisted Caesar in col lecting Greek and Latin literature for the great public library which he contemplated. On the formation of the second trium virate (that of Octavianus, Antony and Lepidus 43 B.c.), Varro was proscribed, but through the good offices of Q. Fufius Calenus he was able to come to terms with the triumvirs and the remaining years of his long life were spent in study and writing.
and other evidence Ritschl puts the number of his separate literary works at 74 and the number of "books"—counting, for ex ample, the 150 Menippean Satires as 150 "books"—at about 620.
Conspectus of Writings.—His work, which survives only in fragments, with the exception of the De Lingua Latina, of which six books are extant, and the Rerum Rusticarum libri tres which is extant almost entirely, may be considered under various heads: I. Saturae Menippeae in 15o books. These were medleys in prose and verse in the style of Menippus, a Cynic philosopher of the first half of the 3rd century B.C. (Aul. Gell., ii. 18.6). The titles, often Greek, of the individual Satires are of the most varied kind—sometimes personal names of gods or men; some times proverbs, Greek or Latin, e.g., Nescis quid vesper serus vehat (You know not what evening may bring forth), Als raCSEs 01 7EpOPTES (Old men are in their second childhood), Fvc7.th creavrov (Know thyself). And the range of subject is no less wide and varied—eating and drinking (Est modus matulae, crept rEpl ibEattltrow, poKbow) literature (Parmeno) , philo sophy OrEpili-Xovs, rep1 armorum indicium), politics (the Tpucapavos mentioned above), praise of the good old times (Sexagesis, rEpovro-Su56.aKaXos, Bimarcus)—in a word, Varro might have said with Juvenal (i. 85) : quidquid agunt homines, votum timor ira voluptas gaudia discursus, nostri est farrago libelli. So far as can be judged from the fragments the Menippean Satires had no great merit either of style or content, but the frequency with which they are quoted in later writers suggests that they were the most generally popular of Varro's writings.