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Updated: May 23, 2025
These facts lead him to conclude that the book was published without his knowledge, and perhaps against his will, by those who pillaged his library. It is obvious that this is a theory which can neither be proved nor disproved. It is an ingenious excuse for Varro's negligence in not putting his excellent materials together with more care. The plan of the work is as follows:
Other descriptions are longer and more ambitious; the confusion of the Catilinarian conspirators after detection; the character of Catiline; the debauchery of Antony in Varro's villa; the scourging and crucifixion of Gavius; the grim old Censor Appius frowning on Clodia his degenerate descendent; the tissue of monstrous crime which fills page after page of the Cluentius.
There is no reason to suppose that he was a worse general than many other Romans who met Hannibal and were beaten; the early historians, being all aristocrats, fixed the disgrace of Cannae on the democratic consul. Varro's contemporaries were more just to him. Far from reproaching him, the Senate commended his spirit, and several times afterwards entrusted him with important business.
The impulse and in general the form he derived from Heraclides and Menippus; but his was a nature too individual and too decidedly Roman not to keep his imitative creations essentially independent and national. Varro's Philosophico-Historical Essays
To Varro alone, cringing and insolent, was the oath administered; for Varro alone was the prayer put up; for Varro was the declaration twice made, according to the laws of the Republic, and into Varro's hands was placed the presidency over the assembly that was to elect his colleague. Then followed an exhibition of plebeian cunning.
When this was known, one of Varro's two legions, which was called Vernacula, carried off the colours from Varro's camp, he himself standing by and looking on, and retired to Hispalis, and took post in the market and public places without doing any injury, and the Roman citizens residing there approved so highly of this act, that every one most earnestly offered to entertain them in their houses.
We are told that Varro, at the age of eighty, had written 480 volumes, and that he went on writing for eight years longer. I wish I knew what was the length of Varro's volumes; I comfort myself by reflecting that the amount of manuscript described as a book in Varro's time was not much. Varro, too, is dead, and Voltaire; whereas I am still living, and may add to the pile.
In Varro's satire, "The Aborigines," he sarcastically set forth how the primitive men had not been content with the God who alone is recognized by thought, but had longed after puppets and effigies. III. XI. Interference of The Community in War and Administration IV. VI. Political Projects of Marius IV. X. Co-optation Restored in the Priestly Colleges IV. VI. The Equestrian Party
Cicero and his correspondents never mention farming, never betray any interest in the new movement, if such there was, for the scientific cultivation of the vine and olive. For such things we must go to Varro's treatise, written, some years after Cicero's death, in his extreme old age.
But the grace and humour of the Menippean satires above all, which seem to have been in number and importance far superior to Varro's graver works, captivated his contemporaries as well as those in after times who had any relish for originality and national spirit; and even we, who are no longer permitted to read them, may still from the fragments preserved discern in some measure that the writer "knew how to laugh and how to jest in moderation."
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