Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/109

V A R R O 93 In belles lettres lie showed himself throughout, both in matter and form, the pupil and admirer of Lucilius. He wrote satires in the style of his master, and he may be one of those to whom Horace alludes (Sat., i. 10, 47) as having "tried satire in vain." 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 poern 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 dogium 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 third century B.C., 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 composi tions, partly in prose and partly in verse. The fragments of A r arro s imitations have been frequently collected and edited, most recently by Riese and by Bucheler. The glowing and picturesque account of these fragments given by Mommsen in his History of Rome is known to all students of Roman literature, but few readers could pass from Mommsen s picture to a careful study of the passages themselves without severe disappointment. 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 untastefnl. 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 Menippcan 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" ("Exw ere) ; "You don t Know what Evening is to Bring" (Nestis quid vesper scrus vchat) ; " Know Thyself" (YvuOi aeavTov). Occasionally the heading indicates that the writer is flying at some social folly, as in "Old Men are Children for the Second Time" (Ais 7rcu5es oi ytpovTfs) and in the "Bachelor" (Calebs). In many satires the philosophers were pounded, as in the "Burial of Menippus" and "Concerning the Sects" (llepl aipetrtuv). 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 Menippcan 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 Mar-ins, de Fortuna, from which the contents may easily be guessed, and Sisenna, de Historia, most likely a dialogue in which the old annal ist 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 (Lauda- tiones), some "exhortations" (Suasioncs), 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 anti quities, 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 anti quarian and historian were to be now discovered, scholars might find themselves compelled to reconstruct the earlier history of the Roman republic from its very foundations. Varro s greatest pre decessor in this field of inquiry, the man who turned over the virgin soil, was Cato the Censor. His example, however, seems to have remained unfruitful till the time of Varro s master, Lucius ^Elius Stilo Prrcconinus. From his age to the decay of Roman civilization there were never altogether wanting men devoted to the study of their nation s past ; but none ever pursued the task with the advan tages of Varro s comprehensive learning, his indefatigable industry, and his reverent, yet discriminating regard for the men and the in stitutions of the earlier ages. The greatest work of this class was that on Antiquities, divided into forty-one books. Of these the first twenty-five were entitled the Antiquities of Human Things (Antiquitates llerum Humanarum), while the remaining sixteen were designated the Antiquities of Things Divine (Antiquitates Rcrum Dimnarum). The book was the fruit of Varro s later years, in which he gathered together the material laboriously amassed through the period of an ordinary lifetime. The second division of the work was dedicated to Cresar as supreme pontiff. The design was as far-reaching as that of the Natural History of Pliny. The general heads of the exposition in the secular portion of the book were four, (1) "who the men are who act (qui agant), (2) the places in which they act (ubi), (3) the times at which they act (quando), (4) the results of their action (quid agant)." In the portion relating to divine affairs there were divisions parallel to these four, with a fifth, which dealt with the gods in whose honour action in divine affairs is taken. Our knowledge of this great book is to a large ex tent derived from the works of the early Christian writers, and especi ally from Augustine s De Civitate Dei. These lights of the church, as was natural, directed their attention mainly to the portion which treated of the religion of Rome. A glance at the authorities quoted in such a book as Preller s Romische Mythologie will suffice to show how largely the imperfect indeed, but nevertheless invaluable, in formation now attainable concerning the older and un-Hellenized forms of Roman and Italian religious rites depends on the citations by Christian authorities from the Antiquitates llerum Dimnarum. It is a great misfortune that no similar series of citations from the secular part of the Antiquitates has come down to us. Most of the other historical and antiquarian writings of Varro were special elaborations of topics which he could not treat with sufficient ful ness and minuteness in the larger book. The treatise on the Genealogy of the Roman People dealt mainly with the relation of Roman chronology to the chronology of Greece and the East. Dates were assigned even to mythological occurrences, because Varro be lieved in the theory of Euhemerus, that all the beings worshipped as gods had once lived as men. To Varro s researches are due the traditional dates assigned to the era of the kings and to that of the early republic. Minor writings of the same class were the De Vita Populi Romani, apparently a kind of history of Roman civilization ; the De Familiis 1 rojanis, an account of the families who "came over" with ./Eneas ; the sEtia (Afrta), an explanation of the origin of Roman customs, on which Plutarch drew largely in his Quxstioncs Rumanse ; a Tribuum Liber, used by Festus ; and the constitutional handbook written for the instruction of Pompey when he became consul. Nor must the labour expended by Varro in the study of literary history be forgotten. His activity in this direction, as in others, took a wide range. One of his greatest achievements was to fix the canon of the genuine plays of Plautus. The " Varronian plays " were the twenty which have come down to us, along with one which has been lost. The third class of treatises, which we have called technical, was also numerous and very varied. Philosophy, grammar, the history and theory of language, rhetoric, law, arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, mensuration, agriculture, naval tactics, were all repre sented. The only works of this kind which have come down to our days are the De Lingua Latina (in part) and the De Re Rustica. The former originally comprised twenty-five books, three of which (the three succeeding the first) are dedicated to a P. Septimius who had served with the author in Spain and the last twenty-one to Cicero. The whole work was divided into three main sections, the first dealing with the origin of Latin words, the second with their inflexions and other modifications, the third with syntax. The books still preserved (somewhat imperfectly) are those from the fifth to the tenth inclusive. The Latin style is harsh, rugged, and far from lucid. As Mommsen remarks, the clauses of the sentences are often arranged on the thread of the relative pronoun like thrushes on a string. The arrangement of the subject-matter, -while pretending to much precision, is often far from logical. The fifth, sixth, and seventh books give Varro s views on the etymology of Latin words. The principles he applies are those which he had learned from the philosophers of the Stoic school, Chrysippns, Antipater, and others. The study of language as it existed in Varro s day was thoroughly dominated by Stoic influences. Varro s etymologies could be only a priori guesses, but he was well aware of their character, and very clearly states at the outset of the fifth book the hindrances that barred the way to sound knowledge. He was thoroughly alive to the importance of not arguing merely from the forms and meanings of words as they existed in his day, and was fully conscious that language and its mechanism should be studied historically. The books from the eighth to the tenth in clusive are devoted to the inflexions of words and their other modifications. These Varro classes all under the head of "de- clinatio," which implies a swerving aside from a type. Thus

Hcrculi from Hercules and manubria from manus are equally re-