of a 20-man commission set up by I C in 59 to redistribute public land in
southern Italy. During the civil war he led forces for Pompey in Spain, and saw his property
confiscated when the latter was defeated. He was given a pardon by Caesar, who selected
him to oversee the establishment of Rome’s first public library. After Caesar’s death the
project was abandoned, and Varro’s property was once again targeted for confiscation, its
owner marked out for death; only the protection of powerful friends ensured his survival.
He devoted the rest of his life to scholarship. In his will he requested that he be buried in
accordance with Pythagorean custom.
During his lifetime Varro composed some 620 books under 74 different titles. His efforts
included humorous essays on human nature (Saturae Menippeae, 150 books), dialogues on
philosophical topics (Logistorici, 76 books), a massive encyclopedia of Roman antiquities
(Antiquitates rerum humanarum et diuinarum, 41 books), and his 700 collected portraits of famous
Greeks and Romans (Hebdomades uel de imaginibus, 15 books). From this vast corpus only nine
books under two titles survive intact, the works De Rebus Rusticis, and De Lingua Latina.
Surviving Works: The characteristic features of Varro’s writings are prodigious erudi-
tion, keen interests in terminology, etymology, and numerology, close attention to the organ-
ization of his material, and occasional brilliant insights. These traits are all on display in the
one work of his which has come down to us complete, the De Rebus Rusticis (RR). Divided
into three books, the treatise deals with all the activities of cultivation that might be found
on a typical large Roman estate in the 1st c. BCE. The first book covers the essentials of
farming and the raising of plant crops, the second focuses on animal husbandry, while the
third deals with uillatica pastio, or the raising of specialty products such as birds, bees, rabbits,
and fish. It was apparently published in stages, with an early version of Book 1 appearing
before 55 BCE, Book 2 composed somewhat later, and Book 3 added to complete the trilogy
at the time of final publication in 37 BCE. Much of the material is clearly based on first-
hand observation, but Varro introduces his treatise with a list of 52 authors whose writings
he claims to have read.
The first book opens with an introduction of the dramatis personae (each book is presented
as a dialogue among prominent Roman land-owners), and a lengthy debate as to the sub-
jects that fall under the purview of agriculture proper. A guide to different types of land and
soil is followed by directions for preparing vineyards and farm-buildings, procuring the right
staff and equipment for the farm, and a discussion of the most profitable crops. Varro then
inserts a farmer’s calendar with tasks arranged according to an eight-fold division of the
solar year, and concludes by describing how to sow, care for, and harvest various field crops.
The book’s advice (18.8) that the farmer combine imitation of his predecessors with system-
atic experimentation was to inspire many a later agronomist, and there are several interest-
ing reports on agricultural technology, e.g. that in Spain farmers used a riding thresher
on which the driver sat while it cleaned the grain (52.1). Nevertheless, the author’s grasp
of agricultural technique is uneven in this book. Varro is particularly weak on grafting,
for which he paraphrases and in many cases misunderstands his source (cf. 40 – 41, and
T, Caus. Pl. 1.6).
The second book, by contrast, stands out for the depth and accuracy of its treatment of
stock-breeding – a fact no doubt connected to Varro’s possession of large-scale sheep-
ranches in Apulia and mule-farms near his hometown of Reate. The book as a whole is
structured according to a notional matrix: it has 81 subdivisions, to cover nine different
varieties of animal and nine different kinds of animal care in every possible combination –
that is, everything from “sheep, feeding of” to “dogs, health problems of.” The longest
M. TERENTIUS VARRO OF REATE