Varro, Marcus Terentius (redirected from Marcus Terentius Varro)

Varro, Marcus Terentius, 116 B.C.–27? B.C., Roman man of letters. Known as the most erudite man and the most prolific writer of his times, Varro is estimated to have written about 620 volumes. He served as Pompey's legate in Spain and fought at Pharsalus, but was reconciled with Caesar, who made him director of the proposed public library. At the time of the Second Triumvirate his villa was plundered, and he himself was proscribed. He fled, but was pardoned by Augustus. In his writing scarcely a field of contemporary learning was left untouched. Of his many works only one remains intact, De re rustica libri III [three books on farming]. This is one of the most important books of its kind extant from antiquity. Six books (V–X) out of the original 25 remain of De lingua latina [on the Latin language], and about 600 fragments from his Satirae Menippeae survive.

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Varro, Marcus Terentius

(born 116, probably Reate [Italy]—died 27 BC) Roman scholar and satirist. Varro was active in public life, rising to the office of praetor. He sided with Pompey the Great but later reconciled with Julius Caesar. A prolific writer, he sought in his writings to inculcate moral virtues and to link Rome's future with its glorious past. He is best known for his Saturae Menippeae (“Menippean Satires”), medleys in mixed prose and verse that mock the absurdities of modern times. He wrote some 75 works in more than 600 books on a wide range of subjects—jurisprudence, astronomy, geography, education, and literary history—as well as in a variety of genres—satires, poems, orations, and letters.