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Introduction

Marcus Terentius Varro (b. 116–d. 27 BCE) was the most notable polymath of the Roman world. Over the course of his long life, which spanned several of the major events of the late Republic and the birth of the empire, his career brought him to the fore of politics, military service, and (most significantly) scholarship. Educated in Rome by the grammarian L. Aelius Stilo and in Athens by the Platonist Antiochus of Ascalon, Varro produced a remarkably broad spectrum of works that covered almost all areas of intellectual inquiry: history, religion, theology, philosophy, language, literature, metre, music, medicine, geography, agriculture, rhetoric, law, and architecture, all of which were complemented by his own colourful poetic compositions. Not only was Varro’s range of publications enormous, but his scale of output was extraordinary: having declared that he had written 490 books by the age of 78, his subsequent years proved to be among his most productive. Yet, of his vast output, only one work (the three-book De re rustica) survives complete, and the only books that exist intact from any other work (i.e., six of twenty-five books of his monumental De lingua Latina) represent about a fifth of the original treatise. All other works are either represented by small fragments quoted or paraphrased by subsequent ancient authors or entirely lost beyond their title. To piece together the complete picture of Varro’s literary output is therefore inevitably painstaking and tentative and has demanded the formidable labours of generations of scholars ever since Giovanni Boccaccio stumbled across a codex of Varro at Montecassino in 1355; notwithstanding the difficulty of the material, Varronian studies have continued keenly into the 21st century, and significant progress in our understanding of the man and his works proceeds apace. It is now clearer than ever that there are few figures of the ancient world whose study leaves a more vivid and rewarding impression than Varro of Reate.

General Overviews

Varro’s long and eventful life overlapped with several of the figures from the ancient world about whom we know the most (Cicero, Caesar, Pompey, Horace, etc.). However, since so little of Varro’s writings survives, his biography must be reconstructed largely through external sources, in particular via Cicero’s extant correspondence with (and about) him, and the remarks of subsequent figures of Antiquity. The most important details were brought together in Boissier 1875, which remains a useful and thorough survey although many of its specific conclusions have been rejected or refined. All available evidence about Varro’s life, career, and intellectual output was masterfully arranged and deployed in Dahlmann 1935; this account remains indispensable, although it has served as the basis for the markedly shorter summary in Sallmann 2002 (also available in English translation). The most compact introduction to Varro’s life and works is Cardauns 2001, which is concise, lucid, and judicious. A more ambitious attempt to flesh out the chapters of Varro’s tumultuous political career and intellectual endeavours is Della Corte 1970, which makes good reading but should be treated with some caution. Important context regarding Varro’s relationship with the other major intellectual figure of the 1st century BCE, Marcus Tullius Cicero, is provided in Rösch-Binde 1998. Wider context about the development of the scholarly environment in late Republican Rome is given by the invaluable Rawson 1985. Since Varro’s works are so broad in range, and their degree of survival is so variable, multi-author collections of papers can bring together a lot of material in one place: Reverdin 1963 provides excellent context for Varro’s grammatical, linguistic, metrical, and literary-critical writings; the two-volume Congresso Internazionale di Studi Varroniani 1976, a multi-author collection of articles covering the full range of Varro’s life and writings, is an informative and handy companion.

Boissier, Gaston. 1875. Étude sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. T. Varron. 2d ed. Paris: L. Hachette.
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NNNThe classic study of Varro’s life, first published in 1861, surveying his career, his various writings, and his philosophical and theological beliefs.
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Cardauns, Burkhart. 2001. Marcus Terentius Varro: Einführung in sein Werk. Heidelberger Studienhefte zur Altertumswissenschaft. Heidelberg, Germany: C. Winter.
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NNNThe best available general introduction to Varro, outlining the most important details regarding his biography and what is known of his corpus of writings.
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Congresso Internazionale di Studi Varroniani. 1976. Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Studi Varroniani. 2 vols. Proceedings of the Congresso Internazionale di Studi Varroniani held in Rieti, Italy, in September 1974. Rieti, Italy: Centro di Studi Varroniani.
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NNNA collection of forty-four articles covering the full spectrum of Varronian studies, including his biography; his corpus of writings; his philosophical, historical, and linguistic doctrines; and his ancient and Renaissance reception. The collection proceeds from a major conference marking the bimillennial anniversary of Varro’s death in 1974.
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Dahlmann, Hellfried M. 1935. Terentius Varro. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Supplement 6, Abretten bis Thunudromon. Edited by Wilhelm Kroll, 1172–1277. Stuttgart: Metzler.
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NNNThe most methodical and detailed account of Varro’s life, scholarly output, and intellectual significance.
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Della Corte, Francesco. 1970. Varrone, il terzo gran lume romano. 2d ed. Florence: La Nuova Italia.
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NNNA chronological account of Varro’s life, first published in 1954 (Genoa, Italy: Pubblicazioni dell’Istituto Universitario di Magisterio), attempting to reconstruct the major events of his political and literary career. The book’s title derives from Petrarch’s famous praise of the man.
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Rawson, Elizabeth. 1985. Intellectual life in the late Roman Republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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NNNA seminal account of intellectual life in late Republican Rome; although no specific chapter concerns Varro alone, he is a constant presence and is mentioned throughout.
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Reverdin, Olivier, ed. 1963. Varron: Six exposés et discussions. Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique 9. Vandoeuvres-Geneva, Switzerland: Fondation Hardt.
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NNNAn important collection of six essays on Varro’s contributions to the fields of linguistic and literary scholarship, each followed by the report of a discussion from the 1962 conference held at the Fondation Hardt.
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Rösch-Binde, Christiane. 1998. Vom “δεινὸς ἀνήρ” zum “diligentissimus investigator antiquitatis”: Zur Komplexen Beziehung zwischen M. Tullius Cicero und M. Terentius Varro. Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften. Munich: H. Utz.
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NNNA rich investigation of the complex interaction between Varro and Cicero, particularly as witnessed in their written works and extant correspondence. Publication of the author’s 1997 University of Cologne doctoral thesis.
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Sallmann, Klaus. 2002. Varro [2]. In Der Neue Pauly. Vol. 12.1, Altertum, Tam–Vel. Edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, 1130–1144. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler.
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NNNA markedly briefer and notably updated survey on the basis of Dahlmann 1935; also available in English translation in Brill’s New Pauly, Vol. 15, pp. 209–226 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010).
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The Catalogue of Varro’s Works and Their Transmission

Varro achieved fame in Antiquity and beyond for the scale and breadth of his literary output. In a lost letter (Epistula ad Paulam) St Jerome recorded a list of Varro’s works, which is also referred to by Rufinus (Apology 2.20): however, in the mid-19th century a citation of this catalogue was discovered in a manuscript containing the preface to Rufinus’s translation of Origen’s Homilies on Genesis. On the basis of this and other available information, Ritschl 1848 offers the credible calculation that Varro’s total corpus amounted to some 74 different works (of which 55 titles are known) spanning some 620 books. Since this is our most important source for the range of Varro’s writings, debate has continued about the exact source for the catalogues of Jerome and Rufinus: whereas Ritschl 1848 argues for Varro’s own biographical treatise, De sua vita, Klotz 1911 maintains that Varro’s De imaginibus is a more probable source, given the importance of the number seven in Varro’s conception of his own literary output, a theory that has since been refined to the first book of that work in Lehmann and Lehmann 2005; Hendrickson 1911 instead proposes that the list is the compilation of a subsequent biographer or antiquarian. Since only two Varronian works survive via their own manuscript traditions (De re rustica, De lingua Latina Books 5–10), the account of Varro’s textual transmission is largely negative. Nevertheless, useful information about the fate of Varro’s works can be found in Brown 1980; specific details about the complex and tenuous survival of part of De lingua Latina are offered in Piras 2000.

Brown, Virginia. 1980. Varro, Marcus Terentius. In Catalogus translationum et commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin translations and commentaries; Annotated lists and guides. Vol. 4. Edited by F. Edward Cranz and Paul O. Kristeller, 451–500. Washington, DC: Catholic Univ. of America Press.
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NNNA rich survey of Varro’s transmission and reception, along with a detailed account of editorial progress regarding his extant works.
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Hendrickson, George L. 1911. The provenance of Jerome’s catalogue of Varro’s works. Classical Philology 6.3: 334–343.
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NNNThis brief survey, prompted by the arguments in Klotz 1911, argues that the Imagines cannot be the ultimate source for Jerome’s catalogue. Instead, Hendrickson believes the catalogue to be the work of a “subsequent biographer or literary antiquarian” (p. 342). This article provides the most convenient introduction to the catalogue of Varro’s works.
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Klotz, Alfred. 1911. Der Katalog der Varronischen Schriften. Hermes 46.1: 1–17.
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NNNA further study of Varro’s catalogue of writings, building on Ritschl’s contribution (Ritschl 1848). It is argued that the source for the catalogue, which shows awareness of the importance of the number 490 (70 x 70), was Varro’s Hebdomades sive De imaginibus.
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Lehmann, Aude, and Yves Lehmann. 2005. Saint Jérôme et l’Encyclopédisme Varronien. In Antiquité tardive et humanisme: De Tertullien à Beatus Rhenanus; Mélanges offerts à François Heim à l’occasion de son 70e anniversaire. Edited by Yves Lehmann, Gérard Freyburger, and James Hirstein, 261–273. Studia Humanitatis Rhenana 2. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
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NNNThe most recent account of Varro’s catalogue of writings. The authors argue for the first book of De imaginibus as the catalogue’s source, where it was cited as part of Varro’s playful fascination with numbers.
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Piras, Giorgio. 2000. Per la tradizione del De lingua Latina di Varrone. In Manuscripts and tradition of grammatical texts from Antiquity to the Renaissance: Proceedings of a conference held at Erice, 16–23 October 1997, as the 11th course of International School for the Study of Written Records. Vol. 2. Edited by Mario De Nonno, Paolo De Paolis, and Louis Holtz, 747–772. Cassino, Italy: Edizioni dell’Università degli Studi di Cassino.
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NNNA detailed survey of the transmission of De lingua Latina, the history of its most important manuscript F (Laur. 51.10), and the Renaissance reception of the text by the editor of the forthcoming Teubner text. The paper forms part of the proceedings from a 1997 conference.
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Ritschl, Friedrich. 1848. Die Schriftstellerei des M. Terentius Varro. Rheinisches Museum 6:481–560.
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NNNAlso available in Friderici Ritschelii Opuscula Philologica, Vol. 3, pp. 419–505 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1877). The fundamental article on Varro’s literary output, which details the newly discovered manuscript evidence for his catalogue, before calculating and refining its significance on the basis of other available evidence. Ritschl here provides for the first time an accurate calculation of the number of titles and books of Varro’s corpus and suggests that the source of his information was Varro’s autobiographical De sua vita.
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Indexes

Given the disparate nature of Varro’s extant works, word indexes can be invaluable tools for tracing fragments and for investigating his deployment of given terms or names. Since the exhaustive treatment of De re rustica in Briggs 1983, Salvadore 1995 covers all other Varronian material.

Briggs, Ward W., Jr., ed. 1983. Concordantia in Varronis libros, De re rustica. Alpha-Omega 65. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms.
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NNNA comprehensive index verborum to De re rustica.
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Salvadore, Marcello, ed. 1995. Concordantia Varroniana: Pars I, Concordantia in M. Terenti Varronis libros de lingua Latina et in fragmenta ceterorum operum. 2 vols. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms.
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NNNA thorough index verborum (of Latin and Greek terms) that covers De lingua Latina and all the fragmentary works. No further parts have been published.
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Bibliographies

Although most editions, commentaries, and studies of Varro tend to provide well-stocked bibliographies, two convenient and self-standing bibliographical tools exist. The first, Riposati and Marastoni 1974, provides an annotated survey of important contributions to Varronian studies from early printed editions through to 1973 and thus remains a very useful aid. More judicious in its arrangement is the overlapping survey in Cardauns 1982, although it covers a period of only forty-five years.

Cardauns, Burkhart. 1982. Stand und Aufgaben der Varroforschung (mit einer Bibliographie der Jahre, 1935–1980). Abhandlungen der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Klass 4. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNA thorough bibliography of Varronian works published between 1935 and 1980: following a survey of developments in the major areas of Varronian scholarship, 659 publications are listed alphabetically.
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Riposati, Benedetto, and Aldo Marastoni, eds. 1974. Bibliografia Varroniana. Milan: Celuc.
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NNNThe only annotated bibliography of Varronian works to range from early editions of the author into the 20th century (1973), covering well over a thousand items. Particularly helpful for pre-20th-century works.
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Editions of the Complete Works

Varro has not enjoyed the editorial attention he deserves: it is regrettable that there is still no satisfactory edition containing all that survives of Varro’s writings. The gathering in Semi 1965 cannot be commended and is cited here only for the convenience it offers. A new edition of all extant fragments of Varro is currently being produced, but only the first two (of many) volumes have appeared: Salvadore 1999 and Salvadore 2004 (the latter cited under De vita populi Romani). The collection in Traglia 1974 has the advantage of gathering De lingua Latina and De re rustica, along with Varro’s various grammatical fragments, into a single volume.

Salvadore, Marcello, ed. 1999. M. Terenti Varronis fragmenta omia quae extant. Vol. 1, Supplementum. Bibliotheca Weidmanniana 4. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms.
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NNNThis, the first volume of a prospective complete edition of Varro, treats 166 “new” fragments (i.e., those that have been neglected by earlier Varronian editions): the majority of these are not assigned to named works but are incertae sedis or merely testimonia. Combined with Semi 1965, this “supplement” provides the most complete collection of Varronian fragments and testimonia available.
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Semi, Francesco, ed. 1965. M. Terentius Varro. 4 vols. Venice: Editrice Armena.
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NNNThis is the only modern collection of the complete fragments of Varro. The first volume contains De lingua Latina; the second volume, the grammatical fragments, Logistorici, and Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum; the third volume, the satirical and other historical fragments; and the fourth volume, De re rustica. Unfortunately, the collection is unsatisfactory, unscientific, and inconsistent in its method, largely compiling material from earlier editions.
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Traglia, Antonio, ed. 1974. Opere di Marco Terenzio Varrone. Turin, Italy: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese.
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NNNThe most readily accessible edition that contains both major surviving works, along with the grammatical fragments (for which, see also De lingua Latina below). A facing Italian translation is provided throughout.
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Individual Works

Since the fate of Varro’s works differs so greatly between individual cases, most of the energy of Varronian scholarship has been devoted to specific works that have survived the vicissitudes of fortune. Generally speaking, the scale of scholarly inquiry correlates with the amount of text that has survived, although the extant books of the incomplete De lingua Latina have attracted the most interest.

De re rustica

Varro’s only complete surviving work is his three-book dialogue De re rustica (On Agriculture), written in 37 BCE, when Varro was aged eighty. The treatise advertises the viability of living an agricultural life for contemporary Romans instead of providing methodical advice on farming practice. Book 1 concerns general agriculture; Book 2, the breeding of cattle and sheep; and Book 3, the breeding of domestic animals, fish, and apiculture. The major contribution to the editing of Varro’s De re rustica was made by Heinrich Keil in the 19th century, the fruits of whose research can be seen in the philological commentary in Keil 1891 and the updated Teubner text, Goetz 1929, which still remains authoritative. Subsequent 20th-century editions have been published with translations and notes (of varying degrees of thoroughness). The Loeb edition of Hooper and Ash 1934 remains the most convenient companion, although its annotation is brief. The Budé edition of Heurgon and Guiraud 1978–1997 provides a reliable Latin text with a French translation and a greater degree of notes. The German edition of Flach 1996–2002 offers a conservative Latin text with a German translation and a commentary focused on textual matters; from this work, a single-volume edition of an updated Latin text with German translation has followed (Flach 2006). There is no complete commentary on the agricultural aspects of De re rustica in any language; however, Tilly 1973 provides commentary of a wider scope on selections drawn from throughout the work, and it offers a very useful starting point for new students of Varro.

Flach, Dieter, ed. and trans. 1996–2002. Marcus Terentius Varro: Gespräche über die Landwirtschaft. 3 vols. Texte zur Forschung 65, 67. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
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NNNA critical Latin text with German translation and a philologically focused commentary. The editor is more conservative than most, and his text, although the most recent, is not always the most reliable.
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Flach, Dieter, ed. and trans. 2006. Varro: Über die Landwirtschaft. Texte zur Forschung 87. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
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NNNA revised Latin text based on his three-volume commentary (Flach 1996–2002), with a facing German translation and a brief introduction. The same textual concerns apply as with Flach 1996–2002.
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Goetz, Georg, ed. 1929. M. Terenti Varronis: Rerum rusticarum libri tres. 2d ed. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNThis important revision of the groundbreaking Teubner edition of Heinrich Keil (1884; ed. minor 1889) still remains the most reliable and regularly cited text of De re rustica. The first edition was published in 1912.
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Heurgon, Jacques, and Charles Guiraud, eds. 1978–1997. Varron: Économie rurale. 3 vols. Collection des Universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
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NNNThe Budé edition, with critical Latin text and facing French translation. Heurgon completed Volume 1; Guiraud, Volumes 2 and 3. An introduction and notes are provided.
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Hooper, William D., and Harrison Boyd Ash, eds. and trans. 1934. Cato and Varro: On Agriculture. Loeb Classical Library 283. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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NNNThe Loeb edition of Varro’s De re rustica, published with Cato’s work of the same title. This sensibly edited Latin text with a facing English translation, introduction, and notes may serve as the most convenient port of call for English readers. Reprinted in 1979.
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Keil, Heinrich. 1891. Commentarius in Varronis rerum rusticarum libros tres. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNThe formative contribution on the textual criticism and interpretation of De re rustica, providing a companion to his Teubner edition of the work (1884; ed. minor 1889).
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Tilly, Bertha, ed. 1973. Varro the farmer: A selection from the Res rusticae. London: Univ. Tutorial Press.
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NNNAn English commentary on many selections of the Latin text, excerpted in order from the work’s three books. A running summary is given of those parts of the work that are not cited in full, and a Latin-English vocabulary is helpfully offered at the rear.
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Studies

Varro’s De re rustica has attracted keen scholarly interest, although much research still remains to be done. The most important contribution to understanding Varro’s methodology and practice when writing the treatise is offered in Skydsgaard 1968, which sheds light more widely on Varro’s scholarly modus operandi. The literary form of the work is thoroughly analyzed in Heisterhagen 1952, although several aspects of the author’s conclusions have been debated and refined since. In particular, satirical and humorous aspects of the work have been more usefully surveyed in Green 1997 (on Book 3) and Agache 1998; more recently, Kronenberg 2009 provides the most sophisticated analysis of subversive elements within the work. Issues of text and interpretation regarding the first two books of De re rustica are tackled in Giusta 2006. Whereas Martin 1995 analyzes Varro’s own conception of what status agriculture should have as a subject, his place in the historical development of agricultural writing in Rome is lucidly chronicled in White 1973.

Agache, Sylvie. 1998. Construction dramatique et humour dans le Traité d’agriculture de Varron. In Le rire des anciens: Actes du colloque international, Université de Rouen, École normale supérieure, 11–13 janvier 1995. Edited by Monique Trédé and Philippe Hoffmann, 201–230. Études de Littérature Ancienne 8. Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure.
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NNNAn informative survey of the presence of humour in Varro’s work, focusing on the names of characters, the work’s dramatic structure, and the role played by various historical figures. The paper forms part of the proceedings from a 1995 conference.
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Boscherini, Silvano. 1993. La medicina in Catone e Varrone. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. II.37.1, Philosophie, Wissenschaften, Technik. Edited by Wolfgang Haase and Hildegard Temporini, 729–755. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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NNNA valuable survey of medical elements in the writings of Cato and Varro, drawing in particular on the De re rustica (see especially pp. 740–751).
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Giusta, Michelangelo. 2006. Per il testo delle Res rusticae di Varrone: Libri I–II. Edited by Giuseppina Magnaldi. Minima Philologica 3. Alessandria, Italy: Edizioni dell’Orso.
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NNNA posthumously published collection of textual notes on De re rustica 1 and 2, which closes (pp. 151–179) with a detailed bibliography on the work, provided by Raffaella Falcetto.
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Green, Carin M. C. 1997. Free as a bird: Varro De re rustica 3. American Journal of Philology 118.3: 427–448.
DOI: 10.1353/ajp.1997.0040 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNAn account of the complex role played by Varro’s description of the aviary in De re rustica 3. Green argues that the conceit could be a satire of the contemporaneous social and political state of Rome.
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Heisterhagen, Reinhard. 1952. Die literarische Form der Rerum rusticarum libri Varros. PhD diss., Philipps-Universität Marburg.
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NNNThe most detailed account of the literary form and genre of Varro’s De re rustica, which highlights, among other literary aspects, the Menippean satirical element inherent within the work.
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Jackson, Giorgio. 1988. Il “De re r.” di Varrone: Fonti, “Economico” di Teofrasto e storia degli studi dal Quattrocento. Vichiana 17:33–80.
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NNNA detailed discussion of the various sources on which Varro’s De re rustica could have drawn, with particular focus on the pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomica, attributed to Theophratus by Philodemus: the history of scholarly responses to this problem is traced from the Renaissance onward.
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Kronenberg, Leah. 2009. Allegories of farming from Greece and Rome: Philosophical satire in Xenophon, Varro and Virgil. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511729973 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNA major account of the satirical features of Greco-Roman allegories of farming, particularly in Xenophon, Varro, and Virgil. Kronenberg argues that Varro’s De re rustica is a subservise and self-parodic treatise, drawing on the heritage of Menippean satire. See especially Part II, “Varro’s De re rustica” (pp. 73–130).
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Martin, René. 1995. Ars an quid aliud? La conception varronienne de l’agriculture. Revue des Études Latines 73:80–91.
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NNNDiscussion, on the basis of the preface to De re rustica 1, of whether Varro regarded agriculture as an ars or empirical common sense (as propounded by Xenophon and several other writers in his wake, including Cicero).
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Skydsgaard, Jens E. 1968. Varro the scholar: Studies in the first book of Varro’s De re rustica. Analecta Romana Instituti Danici Supplementum 4. Copenhagen: Munskgaard.
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NNNA groundbreaking analysis of the structure, form, and context of the first book of De re rustica, putting particular focus on Varro’s analytic method and his deployment of sources. Although limited to the work’s opening book, its conclusions can be readily extended to the subsequent two.
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White, Kenneth D. 1973. Roman agricultural writers I: Varro and his predecessors. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. 1.4. Edited by Hildegard Temporini, 439–497. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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NNNThe authoritative survey of Roman agricultural writers up to and including Varro, who is analyzed in detail on pp. 463–493.
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De lingua Latina

Varro’s De lingua Latina was his most major survey of the Latin language, covering twenty-five books and being deemed a worthy work to present to Cicero not long before his death in 43 BCE. Six books (5–10) survive, of which only Books 5 and 6 are wholly complete. The general structure of the entire work can be reconstructed: Book 1, introduction; Books 2–7, etymology and word formation (impositio verborum); Books 8–13, declension and morphology (declinatio); and Books 14–25, syntax of propositions (coniunctio proloquiorum). Each section moves from theory to application (to res, tempora, and actiones). Given the insight that this portion of De lingua Latina gives both into Hellenistic and Republican linguistic theory, Greek and Latin, these surviving books are the most studied of all of Varro’s works. The most reliable text of Varro’s De lingua Latina that is available is Goetz and Schoell 1910, which was the first text to profit from direct autopsy of the codex unicus (Florence, Laur. 51.10). Although its text is often very conservative, it remains an indispensible tool for serious inquiry. The most readable text, by contrast, is that provided by the Loeb edition of Kent 1951; the partial text of Mette 1952 (covering a selection from Books 7–10), although not formally an edition, deserves consultation. Although there is no complete commentary on the six surviving books of Varro’s De lingua Latina, its individual books (save the seventh and ninth) are well served by specific commentaries: Book 5 (Collart 1954), Book 6 (Riganti 1978, Flobert 1985), Book 8 (Dahlmann 1940), and Book 10 (Traglia 1967, Taylor 1996). Taylor 1996 provides a particularly useful overview of Varro’s linguistic theory and the progress of scholarship in that field.

Collart, Jean, ed. and trans. 1954. Varron: De lingua Latina; Livre V. Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de Strasbourg 122. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
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NNNIntroduction, Latin text with facing French translation, and detailed commentary.
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Dahlmann, Hellfried, ed. and trans. 1940. Varro: De lingua Latina, Buch VIII. Hermes 7. Berlin: Weidmann.
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NNNBrief introduction, Latin text with facing German translation, and detailed commentary.
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Flobert, Pierre, ed. and trans. 1985. Varron: De lingua Latina; Livre VI. Collection des Universités de France. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
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NNNBrief introduction, Latin text with facing French translation, and commentary.
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Goetz, Georg, and Friedrich Schoell, eds. 1910. M. Terenti Varronis De lingua Latina quae supersunt. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNThe most authoritative Latin text. Although conservative it provides the most detailed account of the work’s codex unicus (F: Florence, Laur. 51.10). This edition also contains the thirty-nine fragments of De lingua Latina from Books 11–24 (pp. 192–198) and the fragments from Varro’s other grammatical works (pp. 199–241); these had already been collected by Gino Funaioli in Grammaticae romanae fragmenta, pp. 179–371 (Leipzig: Teubner, 1907) and were subsequently republished in Semi 1965 (Vol. 2) and Traglia 1974 (both cited under Editions of the Complete Works).
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Kent, Roland G., ed. and trans. 1951. Varro: On the Latin language. 2 vols. 2d ed. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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NNNThe most accessible and readable text, thanks to Kent’s ready acceptance of textual emendations to patch up and smooth over Varro’s often-terse or inconsistent text. First published in 1938.
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Mette, Hans Joachim, ed. 1952. Parateresis: Untersuchungen zur Sprachtheorie des Krates von Pergamon. Halle, Germany: Niemeyer.
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NNNNot only does this work make a fundamental contribution to the study of the linguistic theory of Crates of Mallos, librarian of Pergamon, but it offers an important partial edition (pp. 89–138) of Varro’s De lingua Latina 7.109–10.84, for which Crates was a significant source.
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Riganti, Elisabetta, ed. and trans. 1978. Varrone: De lingua Latina, Libro VI; Testo critico, traduzione e commento. Edizioni e Saggi Universitari di Filologia Classica 19. Bologna, Italy: Pàtron Editore.
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NNNIntroduction, Latin text with facing Italian translation, followed by commentary.
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Taylor, Daniel J., ed. and trans. 1996. Varro: De lingua Latina X; A new critical text and English translation with prolegomena and commentary. Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, 3d ser. 85. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins.
DOI: 10.1075/sihols.85 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNIntroduction, Latin text with facing English translation, followed by a detailed commentary; particularly strong on linguistic matters. The introduction provides a rewarding survey of Varro, his linguistic theory, the transmission of De lingua Latina, and its editorial progress.
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Traglia, Antonio, ed. and trans. 1967. M. Terenzio Varrone: La lingua Latina; Libro X. 2d ed. Scriptores Latini 7. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo.
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NNNIntroduction, Latin text, Italian translation, and commentary. First published in 1956 (Bari, Italy: Adriatica Editrice).
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Studies

Academic studies of De lingua Latina have typically focused on two aspects prominent in the section that survives: Varro’s etymological theory and practice (treated in Books 5–7) and the history and nature of the controversy posited between linguistic analogy and anomaly (treated in Books 8–10). Cavazza 1981 offers a broad survey of ancient etymological theory and practice up to the time of Varro, before analyzing his use of etymology, analogy, and anomaly. Pfaffel 1981 analyzes the famously mysterious description offered by Varro of the fourth and final gradus (grade, step) of etymology at De lingua Latina 5.7, on the basis of which the author argues that Varro’s etymological practice was more methodical than is regularly supposed. Piras 1998 offers a highly sophisticated account of Varro’s particular treatment of poetic words in Book 7. Fehling 1956 provides the fundamental account of Varro’s engagement with the analogy-anomaly dichotomy, arguing that the portrayal of the debate in Books 8–10 was the author’s unhappy fiction. Ax 1995 argues for the existence of ancient disagreement on the issue, which motivated Varro to produce a self-standing account of the controversy in these books, positing Crates of Mallos as an anomalist and Aristarchus of Samothrace as an analogist. Blank 2005 develops a more sophisticated theory about the possible source for Varro’s discussion. Taylor 1974 provides the most detailed survey of Varro’s application of declinatio in De lingua Latina.

Ax, Wolfram. 1995. Disputare in utramque partem: Zum literarischen Plan und zur dialektischen Methode Varros in De lingua Latina 8–10. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 138:146–177.
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NNNRepublished in Lexis und Logos, pp. 140–163 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2000). Provides an analysis of De re rustica 8–10 as a unit composed separately from the rest of De lingua Latina before surveying either side of the analogy-anomaly debate.
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Blank, David L. 2005. Varro’s anti-analogist. Paper presented at the Ninth Symposium Hellenisticum, held at Hamburg, Germany, on 23–28 July 2001. In Language and learning: Philosophy of language in the Hellenistic Age; Proceedings of the Ninth Symposium Hellenisticum. Edited by Dorothea Frede and Brad Inwood, 210–238. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511482526 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNHaving surveyed the overall structure of De lingua Latina, and the historical proponents and opponents of analogy, Blank argues that Varro’s source when discussing inflectional analogy was an empiricist (perhaps Epicurean) work, not Crates of Mallos himself. This source pitched Crates in argument against Aristarchus about how to understand the rules of analogy.
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Cavazza, Franco. 1981. Studio su Varrone etimologo e grammatico: La lingua Latina come modello di struttura linguistica. Pubblicazioni della Facoltà di Magistero, n.s. 7. Florence: La Nuova Italia.
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NNNSurvey of ancient etymological theory and practice, from the Hellenistic period through to Varro, whose grammatical writings are studied for their treatment of etymology, analogy, and anomaly.
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Fehling, Detlev. 1956. Varro und die grammatische Lehre von der Analogie und der Flexion. Glotta 35.3–4: 214–270.
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NNNContinued in Glotta 36.1–2 (1957): 48–100. Major survey of Varro’s Greek and Latin sources regarding his theory of inflection and analogy. Argues that Varro’s weighing of arguments about analogy and anomaly drew on certain Hellenistic views, including those of Crates and Aristarchus, but that the debate was invented by Varro. The appraisal of Varro’s own linguistic acumen and accuracy is generally negative.
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Pfaffel, Wilhelm. 1981. Quartus gradus etymologiae: Untersuchungen zur Etymologie Varros in “De lingua Latina.” Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie 131. Königstein, Germany: Hain.
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NNNAnalysis of the fourth and final grade of etymology as mentioned by Varro at 5.7, the stage that he primarily occupies and that seems to be concerned with establishing the earliest form of words. An attempt is made to demonstrate some methodical working in Varro’s etymological practice, particularly in the positing of hypothetical medial forms, even if only in a small proportion of cases.
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Piras, Giorgio. 1998. Varrone e i Poetica verba: Studio sul settimo libro del De lingua Latina. Bologna, Italy: Pàtron.
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NNNDetailed analysis, based on De lingua Latina 7, of Varro’s treatment of poetic (rather than prosaic) verbs. Particular focus is given to the book’s complex structure, overturning the opinion of earlier scholars that it is organized according to the second grade of Varronian etymology, as Varro stated himself. The work builds on the study of Robert Schröter (Schröter 1960), which likewise focused on Book 7.
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Schröter, Robert. 1960. Studien zur varronischen Etymologie I. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNAfter a survey of the etymological theory and practice of Varro’s Greek and Roman predecessors, this study offers a detailed analysis of the second of Varro’s four grades of etymology, with particular focus on Book 7, and the sense of the terms fingere, confingere, and declinare. Despite the implication of the title, no further volumes were published.
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Taylor, Daniel J. 1974. Declinatio: A study of the linguistic theory of Marcus Terentius Varro. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
DOI: 10.1075/sihols.2 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNImportant assessment of whether Varro had a coherent doctrine of language and grammatical theory. Taylor demonstrates that words were the fundamental unit of Varro’s theory, and highlights the Varronian distinction between humans’ impositio when creating neologisms as circumstances dictate, which resists scientific inquiry, and the systematic declinatio (naturalis), which approximates to inflectional morphology and can be analyzed with a near-mathematical exactness. The study is a revised version of Taylor’s 1970 doctoral thesis.
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Linguistic Theory and Practice

Although Varro’s De lingua Latina naturally remains the most fertile subject for analyzing his linguistic theory, several studies have taken a broader view of his wider linguistic publications, his grammatical predecessors, and the tradition that he duly influenced. Wilmanns 1864 provided the foundations in this field, by surveying (and editing) Varro’s other fragmentary grammatical and linguistic works. Dahlmann 1932 made a definitive contribution to the influence of Hellenistic linguistic theory on Varro and the Roman tradition, a narrative that was refined in certain respects in Della Corte 1981. A succinct survey of Varro’s contribution to the development of ancient linguistics is conveniently provided in Taylor 1988. The wide-ranging survey in Collart 1954 ushered in a new level of sophistication to the study of Varro’s own linguistic theory. Important collections of papers on Varro’s linguistic practice and context are to be found in Collart 1978 and Calboli 2001. (Several of the contributions in the section De lingua Latina: Studies necessarily touch on some of the central concerns treated in this section.)

Calboli, Gualtiero, ed. 2001. Papers on grammar VI. Bologna, Italy: CLUEB.
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NNNAn important collection of twelve papers on Varro’s De lingua Latina, other grammatical works, and his linguistic theory.
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Collart, Jean. 1954. Varron, grammairien latin. Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Strasbourg 121. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
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NNNGroundbreaking survey of Varro’s own grammatical theory and practice.
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Collart, Jean, ed. 1978. Varron, grammaire antique et stylistique latine. Publications de la Sorbonne, Série “Études” 14. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
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NNNA rich gathering of thirty-eight articles on Varro’s grammatical and literary output, his influence, and the ancient grammatical tradition. Part I (pp. 3–192) concerns Varro specifically.
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Dahlmann, Hellfried. 1932. Varro und die hellenistische Sprachtheorie. Berlin: Weidmann.
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NNNA detailed account of the Hellenistic tradition and its influence on Varro’s grammatical theories, most especially in his De lingua Latina. Argues for the important role played by L. Aelius Stilo.
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Della Corte, Francesco. 1981. La filologia latina dalle origine a Varrone. 2d ed. Florence: La Nuova Italia.
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NNNSurvey of the development of Latin philology from its Hellenistic origins, through the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, up to Varro, who occupies the last and largest chapter (pp. 149–216). First published in 1937 (Turin, Italy: F. Casanova).
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Taylor, Daniel J. 1988. Varro and the origins of Latin linguistic theory. In L’héritage des grammairiens latins de l’Antiquité aux Lumières: Actes du colloque de Chantilly, 2–4 septembre 1987. Edited by Irène Rosier, 37–48. Bibliothèque de l’Information Grammaticale 13. Paris: Société pour l’Information Grammaticale.
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NNNA concise account of Varro’s formative role in the development of linguistic theory among the Romans.
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Wilmanns, August. 1864. De M. Terenti Varronis libris grammaticis. Berlin: Weidmann.
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NNNFoundational survey of Varro’s grammatical works: De lingua Latina (and the epitome on the same), De sermone Latino, De grammatical, De antiquitate litterarum, De origine linguae Latinae, De similitudine verborum, and De utitilate sermonis. The book closes with an edition (pp. 141–223) of the surviving fragments of these works (save for Books V–X of De lingua Latina).
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Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum

Arguably Varro’s most major work was a forty-one-book survey of the history of Roman civilization, religion, customs, and institutions, divided between human (Res humanae, twenty-five books) and divine matters (Res divinae, sixteen books). The latter part of the collection was dedicated to Julius Caesar as Pontifex Maximus, perhaps in 47 or 46 BCE. The work’s arrangement, which consisted of hexads and triads, can be tentatively reconstructed: Antiquitates rerum humanarum (Book 1, Introduction; Books 2–7, De hominibus; Books 8–13, De locis; Books 14–19, De temporibus; Books 20–25, De rebus); Antiquitates rerum divinarum (Book 26, Introduction; Books 27–29, De hominibus; Books 30–32, De locis; Books 33–35, De temporibus; Books 36–38, De sacris; Books 39–41, De dis). The scope of the section on Res humanae covered Roman civilization and its customs and apparently sought to demonstrate Rome’s independence from the Greek world. The section on Res divinae, by contrast, surveyed priestly colleges, cult sites, festivals, rituals, and theology, with a particular emphasis on state religion. The work was praised in the highest terms by Cicero (Acad. I.5) and was immensely influential, both in the cultural and literary revolutions of the Augustan Age and in the understanding and criticism of Roman paganism by the Church Fathers (on which, see also Influence). There is no complete and satisfactory edition of the complete Antiquitates. The 107 fragments of Antiquitates rerum humanarum have not been edited in full since the invaluable contribution in Mirsch 1882; 284 fragments of Antiquitates rerum divinarum were gathered and analyzed in Cardauns 1976, although two 19th-century works, including Merkel 1841, which surveys the fragments over the 16 books, and Agahd 1898, which concerns the best-represented books (26 = 1, 14–16 = 39–41), still deserve consultation for the broader context they supply.

Agahd, Reinhold, ed. 1898. Antiquitates rerum divinarum, Libri I, XIV, XV, XVI: Praemissae sunt quaestiones Varronianae. Jahrbücher für Klassische Philologie S24:3–220, 367–381.
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NNNAnalysis of four books of Res divinae, their use by Augustine, and how they may be reconstructed through the lens of Augustine, Tertullian, and Cornelius Labeo. An edition of Books 1, 14, 15, and 16 (i.e., Books 26, 39, 40, and 41 of the complete work) follows on pp. 137–220. Publication of the author’s 1896 Leipzig thesis.
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Cardauns, Burkhart, ed. 1976. M. Terentius Varro: Antiquitates rerum divinarum. 2 vols. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNThe most readily available contribution to the study of Antiquitates rerum divinarum. The first volume contains the most authoritative collection of 284 fragments and testimonia; the second provides a commentary and German translation.
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Merkel, Rudolf, ed. 1841. P. Ovidii Nasonis Fastorum libri sex. Berlin: G. Reimer.
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NNNMerkel’s celebrated edition of Ovid’s Fasti offers within its extensive preface a detailed account (pp. xcix–ccxlvii) of the fragments of Varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum, arranged by book order. Valuable context is given about Varro’s importance as a source not only for Ovid but for other Augustan poets.
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Mirsch, Paul, ed. 1882. De M. Terenti Varronis Antiquitatum rerum humanarum libris XXV. Leipziger Studien zur Classischen Philologie 5:1–144.
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NNNSurvey of the one hundred or so fragments that survive from the twenty-five books of Res humanae, analyzing their purpose, content, and method of preservation. An edition of the fragments follows on pp. 75–144.
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Studies

The most detailed treatment of the Antiquitates outside the editions is the wide-ranging Jocelyn 1982, although it is limited to the Antiquitates rerum divinarum, and some of its conclusions (in particular regarding the work’s date) have not been widely accepted. Tarver 1996 treats the historical and political context of the publication of Antiquitates rerum divinarum and its relationship to Caesar’s reform of the calendar. Peglau 2003 details Varro’s method in researching this part of the work, highlighting the conflict between the author’s scientific method and his religious biases. Rüpke 2009 claims that Varro’s primary purpose in these books was to uphold Roman civic religion in a period of change and turbulence from foreign influences. Van Nuffelen 2010 likewise considers Varro’s agenda in the Antiquitates rerum divinarum, arguing for a more philosophical agenda. Jocelyn 1980 provides a clear survey of the difficulties of editing this particular corpus, prompted by Cardauns 1976 (cited under Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum). Ferenczy 1989 analyzes the various sources of Varro’s Antiquitates rerum humanarum. Attempts to reconstruct individual books of that work are made in Ranucci 1972 (Book 20 on the basis of Nonius) and Deschamps 1987 (Book 2 on the basis of Propertius).

Deschamps, Lucienne. 1987. Properce et Varron de Réate. Bulletin de la Faculté des Lettres de Mulhouse 15:85–97.
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NNNAn attempt to reconstruct Book 2 of Varro’s Antiquitates rerum humanarum on the basis of Propertius 4.9.
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Ferenczy, Endre. 1989. Über die Quellen der historischen Werke Varros unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Antiquitates rerum humanarum. Klio 71:353–360.
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NNNAn account of the sources on which Varro drew in compiling his Antiquitates rerum humanarum, with particular emphasis on Cato and his Italic ideology.
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Jocelyn, Henry D. 1980. On editing the remains of Varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum. Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 108:100–122.
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NNNA detailed survey of the task of editing the Antiquitates rerum divinarum, surveying editorial progress to date, the source material that has been defined and is yet to be defined, the various manuscripts, and the appropriate form that commentary should take.
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Jocelyn, Henry D. 1982. Varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum and religious affairs in the late Roman Republic. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 65:148–205.
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NNNSurvey of the context and date in which the Antiquitates rerum divinarum were written, including Caesar’s attitudes toward religious reform; Jocelyn suggests an earlier date of publication between 58 and 55 BCE. Contrary to many scholars, he argues that Varro did not write the work to aid Caesar’s alleged agenda of religious reform or as a practical guide to religion but in order to produce an encyclopedic account of the history of Roman religious antiquities.
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Peglau, Markus. 2003. Varro, ein Antiquar zwischen Tradition und Aufklärung. In O tempora, o mores! Römische Werte und römische Literatur in den letzten Jahrzehnten der Republik. Edited by Andreas Haltenhoff, Andreas Heil, and Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, 137–164. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 171. Munich: K. G. Saur.
DOI: 10.1515/9783110943726 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNAn account of the conflict that Varro felt when composing his Antiquitates rerum divinarum, between his scientific method of antiquarian inquiry on the one hand and his devotion to restabilizing religious traditions and practice on the other.
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Ranucci, Giuliano. 1972. Il libro XX delle Res humanae di Varrone. Studi Noniani 2:107–137.
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NNNOn the basis of Nonius’s citation of fourteen fragments from Book 20 (known through the intermediary of Aulus Gellius and glossary IV), Ranucci reconstructs the contents of Book 20 and suggests that Varro was more interested in the archaic aspects of the law rather than its political or ideological elements.
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Rüpke, Jörg. 2009. Antiquar und Theologe: Systematisierende Beschreibung römischer Religion bei Varro. In Römische Religion im historischen Wandel: Diskursentwicklung von Plautus bis Ovid. Edited by Andreas Bendlin and Jörg Rüpke, 73–88. Potsdamer Altertumswissenschaftliche Beiträge 17. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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NNNA brief account of how Varro, particularly in his Antiquitates rerum divinarum, sought to uphold the so-called genus civile of theology (i.e., state religion and its customs) in the face of foreign influences, by selecting and emphasizing those aspects that were most useful and beneficial for this purpose.
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Salvadore, Marcello. 2012. Ricostruzioni improbabili: Gli Antiquitatum rerum humanarum libri varroniani. Paper presented at the conference held at the Sapienza di Roma, Italy, on 11–12 January 2010. In Le strade della filologia: Per Scevola Mariotti. Edited by Leopoldo Gamberale, Mario De Nonno, Carlo Di Giovine, and Marina Passalacqua, 89–138. Storia e Letteratura 277. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
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NNNAn important discussion of nearly seventy fragments from the Antiquitatum rerum humanarum libri, with critical analysis of scholars’ attempts to contextualize these fragments in their original setting.
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Tarver, Thomas. 1996. Varro, Caesar and the Roman calendar. In Religion and superstition in Latin literature. Edited by Alan Sommerstein, 39–57. Nottingham Classical Literature Studies 3. Bari, Italy: Levante.
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NNNA conspectus of the political, cultural, and religious context of Varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum, which maintains that the work was published in the middle of 46 BCE and influenced the reform of the calendar by its dedicatee, Julius Caesar.
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Van Nuffelen, Peter. 2010. Varro’s Divine antiquities: Roman religion as an image of truth. Classical Philology 105.2: 162–188.
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NNNA survey of Varro’s view of the history of Roman religion and his belief (according to Stoic doctrine) that it reflects the philosophical truth known to primitive humans, a topic that thus becomes a central concern of the Antiquitates.
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Religion and Theology

Varro’s religious and theological ideas are notoriously difficult to reconstruct with precision, although his Antiquitates rerum divinarum provides invaluable guidance. He there famously divided theology into three genera: “mythicon appellant, quo maxime utuntur poetae; physicon, quo philosophi; ciuile, quo populi” (“they call that which the poets use ‘mythical,’ that which philosophers use ‘natural,’ and that which the people use ‘civic’”; Cardauns 1978). The sources of this tripartite division of theology and its role in Varro’s account of Roman religion past and present have been much discussed. Boyancé 1955 clearly sets Varro’s theological outlook in his contemporaneous cultural context, analyzing the important influence of Mucius Scaevola (cited by Augustine and Varro) in the tripartite division, and Pépin 1956 argues that it arose from a Greek Stoic source; these theories and various responses to them are surveyed in detail in Lieberg 1973. Lieberg 1982 offers the author’s own theory about the distinction being already deeply ingrained in Greek thought, without specific affiliation to a philosophical school. Rüpke 2005 focuses on Varro’s particular interest in theologia civilis with a view to upholding the doctrines and institutions of Roman state religion. More broadly, Barra 1978 treats the question of Varro’s monotheism and his wider conception of divinity.

Barra, Giovanni. 1978. Le idee religiose di Varrone. Vichiana 7:3–20.
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NNNA survey of Varro’s views of the divine and the supernatural, with particular focus on his monotheism and belief in the omnipresence of the divine. Barra argues that Varro did not maintain a clear separation between the divine and human spheres, particularly in the most primitive history of mankind, a close relationship that instilled hope in mankind.
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Boyancé, Pierre. 1955. Sur la théologie de Varron. Revue des Études Anciennes 57:57–84.
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NNNA rich account of Varro’s theology, its political and cultural context, and the source of his tripartite distinction of theology: the various roles of Numa, Tarquin the Elder, the Neoplatonic Antiochus of Ascalon, Mucius Scaevola, and Stoic sources are surveyed. Reprinted in Études sur la religion romaine, pp. 253–282 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1972).
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Cardauns, Burkhardt. 1978. Varro und die römische Religion: Zur Theologie, Wirkungsgeschichte und Leistung der “Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum.” In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. II.16.1. Edited by Wolfgang Haase and Hildegard Temporini, 80–103. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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NNNA clear and concise survey of Varro’s conception of Roman religion, reconstructed from the fragments of Varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum as preserved and discussed by subsequent writers.
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Lieberg, Godo. 1973. Die “theologia tripertita” in Forschung und Bezeugung. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. 1.4. Edited by Hildegard Temporini, 63–115. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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NNNAn excellent survey of the varied responses to the problem posed by the notion of theologia tripertita from the late 18th century through to more recent accounts (Boyancé 1955, Pépin 1956). Lieberg maintains that no specific Greek source of philosophical school underpins the division, but that it was instead a fundamentally entrenched division in contemporaneous Greco-Roman thought.
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Lieberg, Godo. 1982. Die theologia tripertita als Formprinzip antiken Denkens. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 125:25–53.
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NNNBuilding on the research of Lieberg 1973, this survey traces the development of the tripartite division of theology from Epicurus to Late Antiquity, arguing that it was well established in Greek doxography by the 1st century BCE.
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Pépin, Jean. 1956. La théologie tripartite de Varron: Essai de reconstruction et recherche des sources. Revue des Études Augustiniennes 2:65–294.
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NNNA detailed investigation of the possible sources of Varro’s tripartite theology, arguing on the basis of its appearance in Plutarch, Aetius, Dio Chrysostom, and Eusebius that a Greek Stoic source is most probable.
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Rüpke, Jörg. 2005. Varro’s Tria genera theologiae: Religious thinking in the late Republic. Ordia Prima 4:107–129.
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NNNA new analysis of Varro’s threefold classification of theology, arguing that Varro conceived of the genus ciuile as covering the traditional religious practices of society. As such, research into this sector was primarily of utilitarian interest, rather than of purely theoretical value.
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De vita populi Romani

The De vita populi Romani was a four-book treatise on the history of Roman civilization and its lifestyle and habits, dedicated to Atticus and postdating 49 BCE. A total of 152 fragments survive from the work, with over 100 being preserved by Nonius (fl. c. 400 CE). The most thorough edition of the fragments is Salvadore 2004, but for commentary Riposati 1972 remains essential. Ax 2000 analyzes the influence of Dicaearchus’s Bios Hellados (Life of Greece) on the De vita populi Romani, whereas Lehmann 1992 documents the sociological concerns of Varro in the work.

Ax, Wolfram. 2000. Dikaiarchs Bios Hellados und Varros De vita populi Romani. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 143.3–4: 337–369.
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NNNAn examination of the structure, content, and genre of Dicaearchus’s Βίος Ἑλλάδος and its probable influence on Varro’s De vita populi Romani.
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Lehmann, Yves. 1992. Varron sociologue dans le De uita populi Romani. Ktèma 17:273–279.
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NNNOn the basis of the fragments preserved in Nonius, Lehmann argues that Varro’s inquiry was not one of primarily antiquarian value but rather aimed to provide a diachronic outlook on Roman history and society.
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Riposati, Benedetto, ed. 1972. M. Terenti Varronis De vita populi Romani: Fonti, esegesi, edizione critica dei frammenti. 2d ed. Le Fonti 3. Milan: CELUC.
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NNNCritical edition of the fragments of De vita populi Romani, with introduction and exegetical comment. First published in 1939 (Milan: Vita e Pensiero).
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Salvadore, Marcello, ed. 2004. M. Terenti Varronis Fragmenta omnia quae extant: Pars II, De vita populi Romani Libri IV. Hildesheim, Germany: Olms-Weidmann.
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NNNThe second part of a proposed complete edition of Varro’s fragmentary corpus, gathering the fragments and testimonia of De vita populi Romani and providing them with a detailed critical apparatus. Lacks both translation and commentary.
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De gente populi Romani

The four-book treatise De gente populi Romani surveyed the history of the Roman people from prehistoric times up to the recent past. It was written c. 43 BCE, and twenty-three fragments survive. The fragments are gathered and discussed in Fraccaro 1907, which remains the most important contribution on the work. Its purpose is discussed in Taylor 1934, which argues for Varro’s pro-Octavian stance, and in Baier 1999, which argues instead that neither Octavian nor Caesar played a significant role in Varro’s undertaking.

Baier, Thomas. 1999. Myth and politics in Varro’s historical writings. Echos du Monde Classique: Classical Views, new ser., 18.3: 351–367.
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NNNThis informative contribution focuses on the social and political agenda of De gente populi Romani and the Antiquitates rerum divinarum, arguing (contrary to several earlier scholars) that these works were not explicitly pro-Caesarian or pro-Octavian, although a skeptical view of imperial divinization remained a central concern.
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Fraccaro, Plinio. 1907. Studi varroniani: De gente populi Romani libri IV. Padua, Italy: A. Draghi.
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NNNThe major account of the sources, structure, and chronology of De gente populi Romani and the major phases of work. Closes with an edition of the fragments (pp. 247–286). Republished as recently as 1991 (Los Altos, CA: Packard Humanities Institute).
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Taylor, Lily Ross. 1934. Varro’s De gente populi Romani. Classical Philology 29.3: 221–229.
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NNNA general account of the work’s content and purpose, arguing that the treatise served as pro-Octavian propaganda literature.
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Other Historical, Chronological, and Legal Works

The other historical works that Varro wrote are poorly preserved and have therefore not enjoyed specific commentaries or detailed studies. The fragments of such works were collected in Peter 1906, which remains the most convenient source for accessing them. Mercklin 1848 laid the groundwork for the study of the Aetia (of which six fragments survive), and Lehmann 2009 discusses in greater detail some of the work’s primary concerns. Sanders 1902 outlines the probable structure and content of the Annals (of which two fragments survive). Grafton and Swerdlow 1985 reconstructs Varro’s method of calculating chronology and offers an instructive comparison with early modern chronological studies. Cenderelli 1973 provides the authoritative survey of what can be gleaned about Varro’s legal theory.

Cenderelli, Aldo. 1973. Varroniana: Istituti e terminologia giuridica nelle opere di M. Terenzio Varrone. Milan: A. Giuffrè.
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NNNAlthough no fragment survives from Varro’s fifteen-book De iure civili, which surveyed legal antiquities, and only a single fragment from his treatise De gradibus (on degrees of family relationship) has survived, this book reconstructs what can be inferred of Varro’s legal works: on the basis of fragments drawn from across his corpus that make legal references, Cenderelli offers a tentative analysis of Varro’s views about sacred, public, and private law.
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Grafton, Anthony T., and Noel M. Swerdlow. 1985. Technical chronology and astrological history in Varro, Censorinus and others. Classical Quarterly, new ser., 35.2: 454–465.
DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800040295 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNSurvey of Varro’s calculation of chronology, primarily on the basis of Censorinus: it is concluded that Varro’s chronological method differed importantly from early modern methods, since he did not make use of previously known calendar dates or observed eclipses to date events, relying instead on astrological concerns.
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Lehmann, Yves. 2009. Antiquités profanes et religieuses dans les Aetia de Varron. In L’étiologie dans la pensée antique. Edited by Martine Chassignet, 283–291. Recherches sur les Rhétoriques Religieuses 9. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols.
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NNNAn account of Varro’s interest in the origin and meaning of the holidays, customs, and institutions of his country.
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Mercklin, Ludwig. 1848. Aetia des Varro. Philologus 3:267–277.
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NNNArgues that the Aetia perhaps treated the origins of Roman customs and institutions.
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Peter, Hermann, ed. 1906. Historicorum Romanorum reliquiae. Vol. 2. Leipzig: Teubner. xxxii–xxxx, 9–25.
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NNNVarious historical fragments briefly discussed and edited: Annals, Libri rerum urbanarum, De familiis Troianis, De gente populi Romani, and De sua vita.
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Sanders, Henry A. 1902. The Annals of Varro. American Journal of Philology 23:28–45.
DOI: 10.2307/288580 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNA general account of Varro’s Annals, suggesting that they were perhaps a synchronous historical chronology.
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Menippean Satires

Alongside his scholarly tracts in prose, Varro produced 150 prosimetric dialogues, often set in fantastic and absurd settings, after the manner of the Cynic writer Menippus of Gadara (3rd century BCE). From this large corpus there survive 90 titles and 591 fragments, which rarely extend over multiple lines: the majority were preserved owing to their linguistic interest by the lexicographer Nonius (fl. c. 400 CE). The most convenient edition of Varro’s Menippean satires is Astbury 1985. The fragments themselves have been treated by two commentaries since the late 20th century: Cèbe 1972–1999 is the most major contribution, treating in detail in thirteen volumes the fragments in their canonical order (alphabetical by title); Krenkel 2002 is of a smaller compass but provides an original text and commentary of the complete corpus.

Astbury, Raymond, ed. 1985. M. Terentii Varronis, Saturarum Menippearum fragmenta. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNThe most important edition of the extant 591 fragments of Varro’s Menippean satires, which nevertheless builds on the major groundwork established in the 19th century by Alexander Riese (1865) and Franz Buecheler (1871).
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Cèbe, Jean-Pierre, ed. and trans. 1972–1999. Varron, Satires ménippées: Édition, traduction et commentaire. 13 vols. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 9. Rome: École Française de Rome.
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NNNThe most substantial and authoritative commentary on Varro’s Menippeans, with French translation and dense commentary. The satires are treated in alphabetical order, with commentary following the text and translation of the fragments: Vol. 1 (1972), fragments 1–35; Vol. 2 (1974), fragments 36–70; Vol. 3 (1975), fragments 71–108; Vol. 4 (1977), fragments 109–165; Vol. 5 (1980), fragments 166–198; Vol. 6 (1983), fragments 199–232; Vol. 7 (1985), fragments 233–287; Vol. 8 (1987), fragments 288–332; Vol. 9 (1990), fragments 333–383; Vol. 10 (1994), fragments 384–422; Vol. 11 (1996), fragments 423–484; Vol. 12 (1998), fragments 484–543; Vol. 13 (1999), fragments 544–591.
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Krenkel, Werner. 2002. Marcus Terentius Varro, Saturae Menippeae. 4 vols. Subsidia Classica 6. St. Katharinen, Germany: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag.
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NNNVol. 1 contains a detailed introduction and bibliography, before treating fragments 1–205 with Latin text, German translation, and sequential commentary; Vol. 2 treats fragments 206–430; Vol. 3 treats fragments 431–591; Vol. 4 is taken up with indexes. Vols. 1–3 are continually paginated. The commentary provides an interesting counterpart to Cèbe 1972–1999 and often differs on points of substance, although it is more circumscribed in its detail and range.
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Studies

Although there is no monograph devoted to a full study of Varro’s Menippean satires, many valuable surveys do exist. The wider context of the Menippean genre and Varro’s contribution is given in Alfonsi 1973, Woytek 1986, and (most conveniently) Relihan 1993. Salanitro 1990 gathers together various essays on the style, language, and philosophy of the Menippeans, whereas Dal Santo 1976 specifically analyzes Varro’s metrical practice in this genre. The remarkable experimentation and polylingualism of Varro’s language in the satires is analyzed in detail in Zaffagno 1975 and Deschamps 1976. Matters of science and technology are usefully surveyed in Krenkel 2000. Astbury 1967 lays out the evidence concerning Varro’s Trikaranos, composed in protest against the First Triumvirate of 59 BCE, which was probably issued in the form of a Menippean satire.

Alfonsi, Luigi. 1973. Le “Menippee” di Varrone. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. 1.3. Edited by Wolfgang Haase and Hildegard Temporini, 26–59. Berlin: de Gruyter.
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NNNAn introductory conspectus of the satires’ titles, their date, and the difficulty of reconstructing the satires’ contents, which is demonstrated through analysis of the Endymion.
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Astbury, Raymond. 1967. Varro and Pompey. Classical Quarterly, new ser., 17.2: 403–407.
DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800028494 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNA lucid contribution that defends the traditional interpretation that Varro’s Trikaranos (“three-headed monster”) was a satirical attack on the First Triumvirate. The literary form of the work is not treated.
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Dal Santo, Luigi. 1976. I frammenti della musa varroniana. Rivista di Studi Classici 24.2: 252–286, 434–460.
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NNNA four-part analysis of Varro’s metrical practice in his Menippeans (continues in Rivista di Studi Classici 25.3 (1977): 405–433 and Rivista di Studi Classici 27.2–3 (1979): 247–289). After an introductory survey of the contents of each of the satires, Dal Santo analyzes a large number of fragments according to their metrical form, providing translation and brief commentary.
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Deschamps, Lucienne. 1976. Étude sur la langue de Varron dans les “Satires Ménippées.” 2 vols. Paris: Champion.
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NNNA thorough analysis of the phonology, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary in the Menippeans; the appendix at the rear contains a Latin text of all fragments discussed, with French translation. Reproduction of 1974 Univ. of Lille thesis.
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Scholz, Udo W. 2003. Varros Menippeische Satiren. In O tempora, o mores! Römische Werte und römische Literatur in den letzten Jahrzehnten der Republik. Edited by Haltenhoff, Andreas, Andreas Heil, and Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, 165–185. Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 171. Munich: K. G. Saur.
DOI: 10.1515/9783110943726 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNThis survey of Varro’s Menippeans argues that the satires did not seek to deflect the influence of the Greek tradition but instead sought to expose undesirable deviations from the general norm of the Greco-Roman way of life.
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Krenkel, Werner A. 2000. Varro, Menippeische Satiren: Wissenschaft und Technik. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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NNNA lucid study of scientific and technological elements that occur in Varro’s Menippean satires.
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Relihan, Joel C. 1993. Ancient Menippean satire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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NNNAn accessible survey of ancient Menippean satire from Menippus through to Late Antiquity. Chapter 4 (pp. 49–74) treats Varro’s contribution, surveying the available evidence for his satires and highlighting particular themes, such as the self-criticism of the genre and his parodic appropriation of philosophical diatribes.
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Salanitro, Maria. 1990. Le menippee di Varrone: Contributi esegetici e linguistici. Biblioteca Athena, n.s. 27. Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo.
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NNNVarious articles (several republished) on the style, language, and philosophy of Varro’s Menippeans.
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Woytek, Erich. 1986. Saturea Menippea: Varro. In Die römische Satire. Edited by Joachim Adamietz, 311–355. Grundriss der Literaturgeschichten nach Gattungen. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
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NNNA general survey of the form, content, and context of Varro’s Menippean satires.
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Zaffagno, Elena. 1975. Commento al lessico delle Menipee. Studi Noniani 3:195–256.
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NNNA study of the genre and linguistic content of three Menippean works: Varro’s Menippea, Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis, and Petronius’s Satyricon, with particular focus on Grecisms, orthography, archaisms, vulgarisms, and technical terms.
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Logistorici

The Logistorici were prose essays on various issues, each dedicated to a given figure with some expertise or interest in its central subject. The collection of seventy-six essays was perhaps completed in 44 BCE, of which eighteen individual titles are known and seventy-six fragments survive, which are collected, edited, and given brief comment in Bolisani 1937. Two individual Logistorici have received detailed commentaries: Curio de cultu deorum (Cardauns 1960) and Cato de liberis educandis (Müller 1938, Marcucci 2000).

Bolisani, Ettore, ed. and trans. 1937. I logistorici Varroniani. Padua, Italy: Tipografia del Messaggero.
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NNNAn edition of the extant fragments, with introduction, Italian translation, and a brief commentary.
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Cardauns, Burkhart, ed. 1960. Logistoricus über die Götterverehrung (Curio de cultu deorum): Ausgabe und Erklärung der Fragmente. Würzburg, Germany: K. Triltsch.
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NNNA detailed commentary and analysis of the five fragments surviving from Curio de cultu deorum, which offers valuable insight into Varro’s theology before the Antiquitates rerum divinarum and propounds the theory of tria genera deorum.
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Marcucci, Silva, ed. and trans. 2000. M. Terenzio Varrone: Cato; Sull’educazione dei figli. Quaderni di Ricerche Pedagogiche 25. Parma, Italy: Ricerche Pedagogiche.
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NNNIntroduction, text, translation, and commentary of Cato de liberis educandis, with particular focus on how Varro’s attitudes corresponded to Roman ideas of pedagogy.
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Müller, Robert. 1938. Varros Logistoricus über Kindererziehung. Klassisch-philologische Studien 12. Leipzig: Harrassowitz.
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NNNA fundamental contribution to the study of Varro’s Cato de liberis educandis, the published version of Müller’s University of Bonn dissertation attempts to reconstruct the structure and content of this particular Logistoricus. It still rewards consultation for its detail alongside Marcucci 2000.
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Studies

The most detailed survey of Varro’s Logistorici is provided in Zucchelli 1981, although much of the groundwork had already been laid in Dahlmann and Heisterhagen 1957. The particular context and content of particular Logistorici are treated in Dahlmann 1959 (Marius de fortuna, Orestes de insania, Scaevola, Laterensis, Messalla de valetudine, and Atticus de numeris), Katz 1985 (Pius aut de pace), Lehmann 2010 (Marius de fortuna), and Morgan 1974 (Nepos, Orestes de insania), with the last work making an important contribution to the dating of the collection.

Dahlmann, Hellfried. 1959. Zu den Logistorici. In Varronische Studien II. Edited by Hellfried Dahlmann and Wolfgang Speyer, 5–25. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNA brief investigation of Varro’s Marius de fortuna (and Cicero’s Marius), Orestes de insania, Scaevola, Laterensis, Messalla de valetudine and Atticus de numeris.
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Dahlmann, Hellfried, and Reinhard Heisterhagen. 1957. Varronische Studien I: Zu den Logistorici. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNHeisterhagen discusses in Part 1 the nature and form of the Logistorici, and in Part 2 the Tubero de origine humana and its relationship to Censorinus. In Part 1, Dahlmann considers the relationship of Varro’s Logistorici with his Laudationes, before discussing Pius aut de pace in Part 3 and Marcellus in Part 4.
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Katz, Barry. 1985. Varro, Sallust, and the Pius aut de pace. Classica et Mediaevalia 36:127–158.
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NNNOn the basis of Aulus Gellius (17.18), Katz argues that the Pius aut de pace refers to Sextus Pompey and the Peace of Misenum made between him and Octavian in 39 BCE.
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Lehmann, Yves. 2010. Rhétorique et religion dans le logistoricus Marius, de fortuna de Varron. In Varietates fortunae: Religion et mythologie à Rome; Hommage à Jacqueline Champeaux. Edited by Dominique Briquel, Caroline Février, and Charles Guittard, 175–185. Roma Antiqua. Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne.
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NNNAn analysis of the probable content of Marius de fortuna, arguing that Varro praised courage and vigor in the face of adversity, both established virtues in Roman ethics.
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Morgan, M. Gwyn. 1974. Three notes on Varro’s Logistorici. Museum Helveticum 31.2: 117–128.
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NNNAccount of the date of the Logistorici (after 45 BCE), with focus on the Nepos (addressed to Q. Metellus Nepos, treating luxury) and Orestes de insania (addressed to Cn. Aufidius Orestes).
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Zucchelli, Bruno. 1981. Varro logistoricus: Studio letterario e prosopografico. Università degli Studi di Parma: Istituto di Lingua e Letteratura 5. Brescia, Italy: La Nuova Cartografica.
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NNNA detailed survey of the dating, nature, and protagonists of seventeen Logistorici, which nevertheless does not profess to be a commentary and requires consultation of Bolisani 1937 (cited under Logistorici).
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De philosophia and Varro’s Philosophy

Varro’s Liber de philosophia involved the systematic division of philosophy, on the basis of the doctrines of Antiochus and Carneades, into 288 possible philosophical systems, of which Varro judged only three to be practicable (all concerning the relationship and status of virtue and the natural primal human state). This work has been meticulously edited and discussed in Langenberg 1959. Several aspects of Günter Langenberg’s study have been challenged and refined in Tarver 1997. Lehmann 1997 provides a wider-ranging synopsis and reconstruction of Varro’s philosophical and theological doctrines.

Langenberg, Günter. 1959. M. Terenti Varronis Liber de philosophia: Ausgabe und Erklärung der Fragmente. PhD diss., Univ. of Cologne.
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NNNAn edition with commentary of the fragments of Varro’s Liber de philosophia.
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Lehmann, Yves. 1997. Varron théologien et philosophe romain. Collection Latomus 237. Brussels: Éditions Latomus.
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NNNThis detailed survey is divided into three parts: (1) Varro’s “spiritual journey,” emphasizing his Sabine origins and educational progress, (2) his theological system, and (3) his philosophical doctrine. In the final section Lehmann proposes that Varro offered his own brand of Stoic-Roman virtue, regarding the summum bonum as lying between otium and negotium. Revision of the author’s 1993 doctoral thesis, reworking some articles already published.
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Tarver, Thomas. 1997. Varro and the antiquarianism of philosophy. In Philosophia togata II: Plato and Aristotle at Rome. Edited by Jonathan Barnes and Miriam Griffin, 130–164. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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NNNA rich study of the intellectual background, form, content, and purpose of Varro’s Liber de philosophia, with particular focus on the importance of numbers and division in Varro’s methodology.
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Disciplinae

Among Varro’s most influential works is the Disciplinae, the nine-book encyclopedia that is typically thought both to have developed and expanded the seven Greek artes liberales with the addition of medicine and architecture and to have influenced Late Antique conceptions of the curriculum of learning. The first detailed discussion of the forty-two fragments of this work was offered in Ritschl 1877, many of whose arguments still stand. A slight refinement of the proposed contents of the Disciplinae is offered in Hübner 2004. Since the overall structure of Varro’s Disciplinae remains unclear, it is necessary to conjecture its contents on the basis of various writers of Late Antiquity, especially Augustine (who wrote a lost work of the same title), Martianus Capella, Cassiodorus, and Boethius: attempts have been made in this difficult field in Simon 1966, Pizzani 1990, Pizzani 1993, and (most recently and readably) Shanzer 2005; Simon 1964 investigates the history of the work’s transmission through to the Renaissance. However, Hadot 2005 represents the major objection against the theory that Varro’s own canon influenced these figures, instead attributing the development of the artes liberales to Middle Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrine, thus bypassing the Republican and early Imperial Roman tradition.

Hadot, Ilsetraut. 2005. Arts libéraux et philosophie dans la pensée antique: Contribution à l’histoire de l’éducation et de la culture dans l’Antiquité. 2d ed. Textes et Traditions 11. Paris: Vrin.
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NNNThe second, expanded edition of Hadot’s important monograph, first published in 1984 (Paris: Éditions Augustiniennes) maintains that the tradition of seven liberal arts (attested by Augustine’s De ordine and Martianus Capella) originated from Middle Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy, not Hellenistic or Roman education. Significant new appendix, “La question varronienne vingt ans plus tard” (pp. 333–373), surveys the development between 1984 and 2004 of the debate about the extent of Varro’s influence on the tradition of the liberal arts.
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Hübner, Wolfgang. 2004. Musae Varronis: Die neun Bücher von Varros Disciplinae. In Bildergeschichte: Festschrift Klaus Stähler. Edited by Jörg Gebauer, Eva Grabow, Frank Jünger, and Dieter Metzler, 221–237. Möhnesee, Germany: Bibliopolis.
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NNNThis learned contribution argues, on the basis of Cicero’s Academica posteriora 1.2, that Varro referred prominently in his Disciplinae to the nine Muses. Hübner therefore posits that the nine books were arranged in a square format, with arithmetic occupying the central position. The sequence of book subjects is therefore proposed as (1) grammar, (2) dialectic, (3) rhetoric, (4) music, (5) arithmetic, (6) geometry, (7) astronomy, (8) medicine, and (9) architecture.
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Pizzani, Ubaldo. 1990. L’enciclopedismo varroniano. In La Repubblica romana: Da Mario a Silla a Cesare e Cicerone; Atti del convegno (Mantova Teatro Accademico, 5, 7, 8, 9 ottobre 1988). Edited by Eros Benedini, 181–216. Mantua, Italy: Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana.
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NNNA reconstruction of Varro’s conception of encyclopedic knowledge, as witnessed in particular by his Disciplinae, recovered with the assistance of Augustine’s testimony. Forms part of the proceedings from a 1988 conference in Mantua, Italy.
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Pizzani, Ubaldo. 1993. Il Carmen Licentii ad Augustinum e i Disciplinarum libri di Varrone reatino. Helmantica 44:497–515.
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NNNThis study focuses on the opening part of Licentius’s poem to Augustine, in which he instructs him to read Varro. Pizzani argues that the reference is to the Disciplinae, specifically those parts that treated mathematics.
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Ritschl, Friedrich. 1877. De M. Terenti Varronis Disciplinarum Libris Commentarius. In Friderici Ritschelii Opuscula philologia. Vol. 3, Ad litteras latinas spectantia. Edited by Curt Wachsmuth and Friedrich Ritschl, 352–402. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNThe foundational contribution to the study of Varro’s Disciplinae. Ritschl proposed the following ordering of subjects: (1) grammar, (2) dialectic, (3) rhetoric, (4) geometry, (5) arithmetic, (6) astronomy, (7) music, (8) medicine, and (9) architecture. Republication of 1845 essay.
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Shanzer, Danuta R. 2005. Augustine’s disciplines: Silent diutius Musae Varronis? In Augustine and the disciplines: From Cassiciacum to Confessions. Edited by Karla Pollmann and Mark Vessey, 69–112. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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NNNA cogent defense of the contentions in Ritschl 1877 about the content of Varro’s Disciplinae and their influence on Augustine, refuting the arguments in Hadot 2005 and shedding new light on the possible significance of the Muses both for Varro’s and Augustine’s conceptions of the Disciplinae.
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Simon, Manfred. 1964. Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte von Varros Disciplinarum libri IX. Philologus 108.1–2: 142–144.
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NNNA brief but valuable study of the textual transmission of Varro’s Disciplinae, which contends that the book De arithmetica survived into the 16th century.
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Simon, Manfred. 1966. Zur Abhängigkeit spätrömischer Enzyklopädien der artes liberales von Varros Disciplinarum libri. Philologus 110.1–2: 88–101.
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NNNA survey of the influence of Varro’s Disciplinae on the encyclopedias of artes liberales in Late Antiquity, with particular focus on Cassiodorus, Martianus Capella, and Boethius.
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Hebdomades Sive De imaginibus

Varro’s fifteen-book Hebdomades (or De imaginibus) is commonly regarded as the first illustrated book of Antiquity, which brought together by subject various portraits that ranged across Greek and Roman history and culture (after the model of Callimachus’s Pinakes). It contained seven hundred pictorial portraits, each with its own epigram in verse or prose. Book 1 contained fourteen archetypical figures, whereas each of Books 2 to 15 contained forty-nine entries arranged in seven sets of seven. The work was completed in 39 BCE; only four fragments survive. The fundamental study is provided in Ritschl 1878. Geiger 1998 raises the possibility that the collection could have included multiples of seven per subject in its arrangement. The posthumously published Norden 1990 attempts to link the work with important canons of the Augustan Age.

Geiger, Joseph. 1998. Hebdomades (binae?). Classical Quarterly, new ser., 48.1: 305–309.
DOI: 10.1093/cq/48.1.305 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNGeiger suggests on the basis of certain later sources (the Vienna Dioscurides, Nepos, and an anonymous paradoxographical treatise) that the number fourteen (and perhaps greater multiples of seven), as well as units of seven alone, played an important role in Varro’s collection and arrangement of material.
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Norden, Eduard. 1990. Varro’s Imagines. Edited by Bernhard Kytzler. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
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NNNPosthumous publication of a manuscript fragment from Norden’s unfinished study of Varro’s Imagines, initially prompted by his study of the Heldenschau at the close of Vergil’s Aeneid 6: Norden conjectures how Varro’s collection could have related to Vergil’s famous catalogue and to the Forum of Augustus.
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Ritschl, Friedrich. 1878. Über des Marcus Terentius Varro Imaginum sive Hebdomadum libri. In Friderici Ritschelii Opuscula Philologica. Vol. 3, Ad litteras latinas spectantia. Edited by Curt Wachsmuth and Friedrich Ritschl, 508–592. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNThe major survey of the available evidence as to the context, content, and fortune of Varro’s Hebdomades. Reprint of 1861 study.
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Epistulicae quaestiones and Other Epistolary Works

Varro wrote at least seven books of Epistulicae quaestiones, which apparently treated cultural and literary problems in letter form. In addition there exist at least two books of Epistulae on Latin and Greek subjects. The content and relationship of these epistolary works is obscure: Cugusi 1967 provides the most accessible survey of the evidence. Dahlmann 1950 treats specific historical questions about certain Epistulae, whereas Rocca 1978 investigates Nonius’s citation and (indirect) access to Varro’s epistolary corpus.

Cugusi, Paolo. 1967. Le epistole di Varrone. Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 9:78–85.
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NNNSurvey of Varro’s epistolary activity in his Epistulae Latinae, familiar letters to various correspondents, and Epistulicae quaestiones, a collection of scholarly letters of an encyclopedic nature, arranged according to subject.
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Dahlmann, Hellfried. 1950. Bemerkungen zu den Resten der Briefe Varros. Museum Helveticum 7:200–220.
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NNNSeveral brief studies of Varro’s epistolographical corpus: Dahlmann argues that the letter Varro ad Neronem was sent to Tiberius Claudius Nero, father of the first husband of Livia; he also investigates two fragments of Epistulae Latinae and some from the Epistula ad Caesarem, arguing that their prosimetric form suggests a Menippean literary tone.
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Rocca, Rosanna. 1978. Le lettere di Varrone in Nonio. Studi Noniani 5:203–223.
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NNNAccount of the epistolary fragments of the Epistulicae quaestiones and Epistulae Latinae preserved by Nonius, with discussion of their possible sources.
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Works on Poetry, Drama, Literary Criticism, and Meter

Varro wrote several works on the history and nature of poetry, the development of ancient drama, and the criticism and authenticity of earlier literary figures. Although the surviving fragments are scanty in the extreme, a number of studies of these works and Varro’s attitude have helped to shed light on his significant contribution to these fields. Dahlmann 1953 compares the probable content of Varro’s De poematis with the Hellenistic tradition of poetics. Dahlmann 1963 reconstructs the probable content of Varro’s De poetis, a Roman literary history. Cichorius 1888 treats Varro’s De scaenicis originibus, an account of the history of Roman theatre. Waszink 1948 and Schmidt 1989 have contributed further to Varro’s significance to the history and development of this art form. Lehmann 2002 offers a wide-ranging study of Varro’s attitude toward and criticism of earlier Roman poets.

Cichorius, Conrad. 1888. Über Varros libri De scaenicis originibus. In Commentationes philologae quibus Ottoni Ribbeckio, praeceptori inlustri, sexagensimum aetatis magisterii Lipsiensis decimum annum exactum congratulantur discipuli Lipsienses. Edited by Otto Ribbeck, 415–430. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNAn attempt to reconstruct Varro’s three-book De scaenicis originibus, which treated the history of Roman theatre.
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Dahlmann, Hellfried. 1953. Varros Schrift “De poematis” und die hellenistisch-römische Poetik. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNA study of the application of poetic theory (perhaps of Aristotelian origin) to Roman poetry in Varro’s three-book De poematis (of which five fragments survive).
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Dahlmann, Hellfried. 1963. Studien zu Varro “De poetis.” Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNA survey of Varro’s account of Roman literary history that analyzes the fifteen fragments of De poetis, along with the poetic epigrams ascribed to Varro. The appendix (pp. 115–123) treats the minor works Περὶ χαρακτήρων (“On the Alphabet”; three books, one fragment), De proprietate scriptorum (“On the Authenticity of Writers”; three books, one fragment), and De descriptionibus (“On Stage Characters?”; three books, only title known).
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Lehmann, Aude. 2002. Varron, critique littéraire: Regard sur les poètes latins archaïques. Collection Latomus 262. Brussels: Éditions Latomus.
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NNNSeveral studies (many republished) on Varro’s definition of a poet, and scholarship on and criticism of the works of Plautus, Livius Andronicus, Ennius, Naevius, Pacuvius, and Accius.
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Schmidt, Peter L. 1989. Postquam ludus in artem paulatim verterat: Varro und die Frühgeschichte des römischen Theaters. In Studien zur vorliterarischen Periode in frühen Rom. Edited by Gregor Vogt-Spira, 77–134. Script Oralia 12. Tübingen, Germany: G. Narr.
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NNNA valuable account of early Roman theatre, its sources, and the contribution made by Varro.
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Waszink, Jan H. 1948. Varro, Livy and Tertullian on the history of Roman dramatic art. Vigiliae Christianae 2.4: 224–242.
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NNNReprinted in Waszink’s Opuscula selecta, pp. 124–142 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1979). In his digression on the De spectaculis ludi, it is argued that Tertullian drew on Varro through the intermediary of Suetonius, who also serves as the basis for the account of Livy 7.2 and Valerius Maximus 2.4.4.
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Geographical and Topographical Works

Varro’s various geographical books cover navigation (De ora maritime, De litoralibus), tides (De aestuariis), weather forecasting (Ephemeris navalis), and gromatic matters (De mensuris). These works are surveyed and tentatively reconstructed in Reitzenstein 1885. Sallmann 1971 provides the most-detailed analysis of Varro’s geographical writings on the basis of their regular use by Pliny the Elder. Gelsomino 1975 provides the fundamental account of Varro’s canonization of the Seven Hills of Rome and its fortune in later Roman writers.

Gelsomino, Remo. 1975. Varrone e i sette colli di Roma: Per il bimillenario varroniano. Rome: Herde.
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NNNThe most detailed account of Varro’s foundational role in the conception of Rome as a city of seven hills, charting the history of this trope from Varro’s apparently novel interpretation of the festival Septimontium through its fortune in later authors of Antiquity.
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Reitzenstein, Richard. 1885. Die geographischen Bücher Varros. Hermes 20.4: 514–551.
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NNNThe classic survey of Varro’s geographical works, as reconstructed from the citations and testimonia of subsequent Roman writers.
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Sallmann, Klaus. 1971. Die Geographie des älteren Plinius in ihrem Verhältnis zu Varro: Versuch einer Quellenanalyse. Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 11. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter.
DOI: 10.1515/9783110829778 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNDetailed analysis of Varro’s role as a source for the geographical research of Pliny the Elder. Part I (pp. 6–20) surveys what is known of Varro’s geographical output, whereas Parts II (pp. 21–164) and III (pp. 165–268) tackle Pliny’s use of Varro alongside other sources.
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Other Minor Works

Although many of Varro’s minor works that survive in a small number of fragments have not enjoyed detailed analysis, a few of the more important contributions are gathered in this section. Varro’s keen activity in political and military endeavors led him to compose some works with explicitly political content: Kumaniecki 1974–1975 treats Varro’s Eisagogikos ad Pompeium, which sought to offer advice to Pompey when consul elect in 71 BCE (Varro later wrote the three-book De Pompeio). Varro also turned the lens on himself, and Dahlmann 1948 records what may be inferred about his autobiographical De sua vita. Speyer 1959 defends the attribution of a poem, De rerum natura, to Varro of Reate (rather than Varro of Atax), a work known only by its title, although Préaux 1964 argues for the existence of a paraphrased fragment in a medieval source.

Dahlmann, Hellfried. 1948. Varro de sua vita ad Libonem. Philologus 97:365–368.
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NNNA brief survey of the content and context of Varro’s three-book De sua vita, addressed to L. Scribonius Libo.
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Kumaniecki, Kazimierz. 1974–1975. De Varronis libro isagogico ad Pompeium eiusque dispositione. Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 10–11:41–44.
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NNNAttempts a reconstruction of the book according to its quadripartite structure, suggesting that this arrangement was inspired by Pythagorean doctrine.
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Préaux, Jean. 1964. Un fragment retrouvé du De rerum natura de Varron. In Hommages à Jean Bayet. Edited by Marcel Renard and Robert Schilling, 587–598. Collection Latomus 70. Brussels: Latomus.
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NNNAnalysis of a passage from Hugh of St. Victor’s Didascalicon offers possible indirect evidence of Varro’s De rerum natura. Préaux argues that Varro’s poem, like that of Ennius, would have followed particularly Empedoclean lines.
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Speyer, Wolfgang. 1959. De rerum natura, ein vorlorenes Lehrgedicht des Varro von Reate, Bemerkungen zu Varro Reatinus und Varro Atacinus. In Varronische Studien II. Edited by Hellfried Dahlmann and Wolfgang Speyer, 26–47. Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner.
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NNNAn account of the ancient evidence (from Cicero, Licentius, Velleius, Quintilian, and Lactantius) about the nature of Varro’s De rerum natura; arguments are provided against the existence of philosophical content in the poetry of Varro of Atax.
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Mathematics, Music, and Metre

Varro’s broad range of writings covered several technical subjects that were probably treated in his encyclopedic Disciplinae, as well as more specific works, such as mathematics, music, and metre. D’Alessandro 2012 provides the definitive account of Varro’s metrical doctrines and their influence on the tradition of Roman metricians, building on the important groundwork in Della Corte 1963. Milanese 1989 attempts to reconstruct Varro’s conception of musical theory, primarily on the basis of Augustine’s probable use of the Disciplinae in his De musica. Guillaumin 1994 reconstructs Varro’s theory of mathematics.

D’Alessandro, Paolo. 2012. Varrone e la tradizione metrica antica. Spudasmata 143. Hildesheim, Germany: Georg Olms.
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NNNThe most thorough and sophisticated reconstruction of Varro’s metrical doctrines. The bulk of the work is devoted to uncovering how Varro’s metrical theories influenced the doctrines of Caesius Bassus, Aulus Gellius, Rufinus, Diomedes, and Aphthonius.
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Della Corte, Francesco. 1963. Varrone metricista. In Varron: Six exposés et discussions. Edited by Olivier Reverdin, 143–172. Entretiens sur l’Antiquité Classique 9. Vandoeuvres-Geneva, Switzerland: Fondation Hardt.
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NNNReprinted in Della Corte’s Opuscula, Vol. II, pp. 91–120 (Genoa, Italy: Università di Genova, Istituto di Filologia Classica e Medioevale, 1972). A seminal account of Varro’s metrical theory, drawing on his Cynodidascalon, De sermone Latino, Disciplinae, and several fragments of uncertain location.
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Guillaumin, Jean-Yves. 1994. La conception des mathématiques de Varron. In Mélanges François Kerlouégan. Edited by Danièle Conso, Nicole Fick, and Bruno Poulle, 269–281. Annales Littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 515. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.
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NNNArgues that the Pythagorean framework of Varro’s Disciplinae could have drawn heavily on the mathematical doctrines of the Greek astronomer Geminos of Rhodes, since astronomy and mathematics were central modes of inquiry for the Stoics.
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Milanese, Guido. 1989. Tradizione varroniana e tradizioni grammaticali nei libri II–V del De musica di Agostino. Aevum Antiquum 2:273–297.
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NNNA survey of the influence of Varro and the grammatical tradition more broadly on Augustine’s De musica.
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Language and Style

Varro’s language is notoriously sui generis: clipped and colloquial in his prose writings, and free and experimental in his poetic compositions. Although it was claimed on p. 195 in Norden 1915–1918 that one can scarcely speak of a prose style at all in the case of Varro, analysis of his unique manner of expression provides an interesting insight both into Republican Latinity and his peculiar method of composition. The fundamental contribution of Heidrich 1892 still rewards consultation, although Traglia 1993 offers the most wide-ranging account available. Saint-Denis 1947 focuses on De re rustica, whereas Laughton 1960 analyzes the two major surviving works, supporting the inference of many that Varro worked at a very fast pace.

Heidrich, Georg. 1892. Der Stil des Varro. Jahresbericht des k. k. Stiftsgymnasiums der Benedictiner zu Melk 42:5–80.
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NNNThe classic survey of Varro’s prose style.
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Laughton, Eric. 1960. Observations on the style of Varro. Classical Quarterly, new ser., 10.1: 1–28.
DOI: 10.1017/S0009838800024332 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNA study of Varro’s style on the basis of De lingua Latina and De re rustica, focusing especially on the anastrophe of conjunctions, pronouns, and adverbs, and on relative clauses. Laughton argues that Varro wrote quickly and was therefore unable to revise his work.
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Norden, Eduard. 1915–1918. Die Antike Kunstprosa. 2d ed. 2 vols. Leipzig: Teubner.
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NNNStill the most authoritative account of ancient prose styles. That of Varro (which Norden hesitates to call a style) is treated in the first volume (pp. 194–200).
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Saint-Denis, Eugène de. 1947. Syntaxe du Latin parlé dans les “Res rusticae” de Varron. Revue de Philologie 21:141–162.
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NNNAn analysis of the syntax employed in Varro’s De re rustica, treating verbal agreement, cases, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions.
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Traglia, Antonio. 1993. Varrone prosatore. In Cultura e lingue classiche. Vol. 3, 3° Convegno di aggiornamento e di didattica, Palermo, 29 ottobre–1 novembre 1989. Edited by Biagio Amata, 693–885. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
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NNNThe most detailed account of Varro’s prose style: after setting Varro’s prose writings in their contemporaneous context, the prose styles of the De lingua Latina, other grammatical works, De re rustica, the prose elements of the Menippeans, and other works are subjected to thorough analysis. Forms part of the proceedings from a 1989 conference.
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Influence

Varro’s position at the intellectual centre of Rome throughout most of the 1st century BCE, combined with his remarkably broad and undeniably immense scholarly output, effectively guaranteed his significant influence on his contemporaries and subsequent generations. The scale of this influence in the late Republican and early Imperial periods has been carefully documented in Baier 1997. Varro’s influence on Ovid has been analyzed with profit in Green 2002; his influence on Lucretius, much less easy to gauge, is taken up in Deschamps 1997. The significant engagement with, and criticism of, Varro’s writings, particularly the Antiquitates and the Disciplinae, by Augustine (and, in turn, other Church Fathers), is usefully surveyed in Hagendahl 1967, O’Daly 1996, and Burns 2001.

Baier, Thomas. 1997. Werk und Wirkung Varros im Spiegel seiner Zeitgenossen von Cicero bis Ovid. Hermes 73. Stuttgart: Steiner.
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NNNA detailed survey of Varro’s influence on contemporary and near-contemporary figures in Rome, including Cicero, Livy, Horace, Vergil, and Ovid.
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Burns, Paul C. 2001. Augustine’s use of Varro’s Antiquitates rerum divinarum in his De civitate Dei. Augustinian Studies 32.1: 37–64.
DOI: 10.5840/augstudies20013213 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNThis examination argues that Augustine’s use of Varro was distinct from that of other patristic writers, since his focus was to emphasize several shared religious assumptions to assist his engagement with a traditionalist Roman audience.
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Deschamps, Lucienne. 1997. Lucrèce et Varron. In Lucretius and his intellectual background: Proceedings of the colloquium, Amsterdam, 26–28 June 1996. Edited by Keimpe Algra, Mieke Koenen, and Piet Schrijvers, 105–114. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
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NNNAn original attempt to populate intertextual links between Lucretius’s De rerum natura and Varro’s extant writings (particularly the De lingua Latina, Antiquitates, and Logistorici).
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Green, Carin M. C. 2002. Varro’s three theologies and their influence on the Fasti. In Ovid’s Fasti: Historical readings at its bimillennium. Edited by Geraldine Herbert-Brown, 71–99. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198154754.001.0001 Save Citation »Export Citation » Share Citation »
NNNOn the basis of Varro’s tripartite theology as reconstructed from the Antiquitates rerum divinarum, Green highlights how this doctrine influenced the theology of Ovid’s Fasti.
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Hagendahl, Harald. 1967. Augustine and the Latin classics. 2 vols. Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia 20. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
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NNNThe authoritative account of Augustine’s engagement with the Latin pagan classics. In the first volume, Burkhart Cardauns gathers relevant fragments and testimonia reflecting Augustine’s use of Varro (pp. 265–316); in the second volume, Hagendahl analyzes Augustine’s knowledge of and engagement with Varro’s writings (pp. 589–630).
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O’Daly, Gerald J. P. 1996. Augustine’s critique of Varro on Roman religion. In Religion and superstition in Latin literature. Edited by Alan H. Sommerstein, 65–75. Nottingham Classical Literature Studies 3. Bari, Italy: Levante.
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NNNAn analysis of Augustine’s criticism, particularly within his De civitate Dei, of Varro’s writings on Roman religion.
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Marcus Terentius Varro
by
David Butterfield
LAST MODIFIED: 30 June 2014
DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0161

Introduction

General Overviews

The Catalogue of Varro’s Works and Their Transmission

Indexes

Bibliographies

Editions of the Complete Works

Individual Works

De re rustica

Studies

De lingua Latina

Studies

Linguistic Theory and Practice

Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum

Studies

Religion and Theology

De vita populi Romani

De gente populi Romani

Other Historical, Chronological, and Legal Works

Menippean Satires

Studies

Logistorici

Studies

De philosophia and Varro’s Philosophy

Disciplinae

Hebdomades Sive De imaginibus

Epistulicae quaestiones and Other Epistolary Works

Works on Poetry, Drama, Literary Criticism, and Meter

Geographical and Topographical Works

Other Minor Works

Mathematics, Music, and Metre

Language and Style

Influence

Classics

Article

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Marcus Terentius Varro

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Marcus Terentius Varro byDavid ButterfieldLAST MODIFIED: 30 June 2014DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0161

Introduction

General Overviews

The Catalogue of Varro’s Works and Their Transmission

Indexes

Bibliographies

Editions of the Complete Works

Individual Works

De re rustica

Studies

De lingua Latina

Studies

Linguistic Theory and Practice

Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum

Studies

Religion and Theology

De vita populi Romani

De gente populi Romani

Other Historical, Chronological, and Legal Works

Menippean Satires

Studies

Logistorici

Studies

De philosophia and Varro’s Philosophy

Disciplinae

Hebdomades Sive De imaginibus

Epistulicae quaestiones and Other Epistolary Works

Works on Poetry, Drama, Literary Criticism, and Meter

Geographical and Topographical Works

Other Minor Works

Mathematics, Music, and Metre

Language and Style

Influence

Classics

Article

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

Marcus Terentius Varro
by
David Butterfield
LAST MODIFIED: 30 June 2014
DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195389661-0161