Varro in his saturae is very severe upon philosophers. He had almost as great a contempt for them as his archetype Cato. And yet Varro was deeply read in the philosophy of Greece. He did not yield to Cicero in admiration of her illustrious thinkers. It is probable that with his keen appreciation of the Roman character he saw that it was unfitted for speculative thought; that in most cases its cultivation would only bring forth pedants or hypocrites. When asked by Cicero why he had not written a great philosophical work, he replied that those who had a real interest in the study would go direct to the fountain head, those who had not would be none the better for reading a Latin compendium. Hence he preferred to turn his labours into a more productive channel, and to instruct the people in their own antiquities, which had never been adequately studied, and, now that Stilo was dead, seemed likely to pass into oblivion. [12] His researches occupied three main fields, that of law and religion, that of civil history and biography, and that of philology.
Of these the first was the one for which he was most highly qualified, and in which he gained his highest renown. His crowning work in this department was the Antiquities Divine and Human, in 41 books. [13] This was the greatest monument of Roman learning, the reference book for all subsequent writers. It is quoted continually by Pliny, Gellius, and Priscian; and, what is more interesting to us, by St Augustine in the fifth and seventh books of his Civitas Dei, as the one authoritative work on the subject of the national religion. [14] He thus describes the plan of the work. It consisted of 41 books; 25 of human antiquities, 16 of divine. In the human part, 6 books were given to each of the four divisions; viz. of Agents, of Places, of Times, of Things. [15] To these 24 one prefatory chapter was prefixed of a general character, thus completing the number. In the divine part a similar method was followed. Three books were allotted to each of the five divisions of the subject, viz. the Men who sacrifice, the Places, and Times of worship, [16] the Rites performed, and finally the Divine Beings themselves. To these was prefixed a book treating the subject comprehensively, and of a prefatory nature. The five triads were thus subdivided: the first into a book on Pontifices, one on Augurs, one on Quindecimviri Sacrorum; the second into books on shrines, temples, and sacred spots, respectively; the third into those on festivals and holidays, the games of the circus, and theatrical spectacles; the fourth treats of consecrations, private rites, and public sacrifices, while the fifth has one treatise on gods that certainly exist, one on gods that are doubtful, and one on the chief and select deities.
We have given the particulars of this division to show the almost pedantic love of system that Varro indulged. Nearly all his books were parcelled out on a similar methodical plan. He had no idea of following the natural divisions of a subject, but always imposed on his subject artificial categories drawn from his own prepossessions. [17] The remark has been made that of all Romans Varro was the most unphilosophical. Certainly if a true classification be the basis of a truly scientific treatment, Varro can lay no claim to it. His erudition, though, profound, is cumbrous. He never seems to move easily in it. His illustrations are far-fetched, often inopportune. What, for instance, can be more out of place than to bring to a close a discussion on farming by the sudden announcement of a hideous murder? [18] His style is as uncouth as his arrangement is unnatural. It abounds in constructions which cannot be justified by strict rules of syntax, e.g. "hi qui pueros in ludum mittunt, idem barbatos … non docebimus?" [19] "When we send our children to school to learn to speak correctly, shall we not also correct bearded men, when they make mistakes?" Slipshod constructions like this occur throughout the treatise on the Latin tongue, though, it is true, they are almost entirely absent from that on husbandry, which is a much more finished work. Obscurity in explaining what the author means, or in describing what he has seen, is so frequent an accompaniment of vast erudition that it need excite little surprise. And yet how different it is from the matchless clearness of Cicero or Caesar! In the treatise on husbandry, Varro is at great pains to describe a magnificent aviary in his villa at Casinum, but his auditors must have been clear-headed indeed if they could follow his description. [20] And in the De Lingua Latina, wishing to show how the elephant was called Luca bos from having been first seen in Lucania with the armies of Pyrrhus, and from the ox being the largest quadruped with which the Italians were then acquainted, he gives us the following involved note— In Virgilii commentario erat: Ab Lucanis Lucas; ab eo quod nostri, quom maximam quadrupedem, quam ipsi haberent, vocarent bovem, et in Lucanis Pyrrhi bello primum vidissent apud hostes elephantos, Lucanum bovem quod putabant Lucam bovem appellassent.
In fact Varro was no stylist. He was a master of facts, as Cicero of words. Studiosum rerum, says Augustine, tantum docet, quantum studiosum verborum Cicero delectat. Hence Cicero, with all his proneness to exaggerate the excellences of his friends, never speaks of him as eloquent. He calls him omnium facile acutissimus, et sine ulla dubitatione doctissimus. [21] The qualities that shone out conspicuously in his works were, besides learning, a genial though somewhat caustic humour, and a thorough contempt for effeminacy of all kinds. The fop, the epicure, the warbling poet who gargled his throat before murmuring his recondite ditty, the purist, and above all the mock-philosopher with his nostrum for purifying the world, these are all caricatured by Varro in his pithy, good-humoured way; the spirit of the Menippean satires remained, though the form was changed to one more befitting the grave old teacher of wisdom. The fragments of his works as well as the notices of his friends present him to us the very picture of a healthy-minded and healthy-bodied man.
To return to the consideration of his treatise on Antiquities, from which we have digressed. The great interest of the subject will be our excuse for dwelling longer upon it. There is no Latin book the recovery of which the present century would hail with so much pleasure as this. When antiquarianism is leading to such fruitful results, and the study of ancient religion is so earnestly pursued, the aid of Varro's research would be invaluable. And it is the more disappointing to lose it, since we have reason for believing that it was in existence during the lifetime of Petrarch. He declares that he saw it when a boy, and afterwards, when he knew its value, tried all means, but without success, to obtain it. This story has been doubted, chiefly on the ground that direct quotations from the work are not made after the sixth century. But this by itself is scarcely a sufficient reason, since the Church gathered all the knowledge of it she required from the writings of St Augustine. From him we learn that Varro feared the entire collapse of the old faith; that he attributed its decline in some measure to the outward representations of divine objects; and, observing that Rome had existed 170 years without any image in her temples, instanced Judea to prove "eos qui primi simulacra deorum populis posuerunt, eos civitatibus suis et metum dempsisse, et errorem addidisse." [22] Other fragments of deep interest are preserved by Augustine. One, showing the conception of the state religion as a purely human institution, explains why human antiquities are placed before divine, "Sicut prior est pictor quam tabula picta, prior faber quam aedificium; ita priores sunt civitates, quam ea quae a civitatibus instituta sunt." Another describes the different classes of theology, according to a division first made by the Pontifex Scaevola, [23] as poetical, philosophical, and political, or as mythical, physical, and civil. [24] Against the first of these Varro fulminated forth all the shafts of his satire: In eo multa sunt contra dignitatem et naturam immortalium ficta … quae non modo in hominem, sed etiam quae in contemptissimum hominem cadere possunt. About the second he did not say much, except guardedly to imply that it was not fitted for a popular ceremonial. The third, which it was his strong desire to keep alive, as it was afterwards that of Virgil, seemed to him the chief glory of Rome. He did not scruple to say (and Polybius had said it before him) that the grandeur of the Republic was due to the piety of the Republic. It was reserved for the philosopher of a later age [25] to asperse with bitter ridicule ceremonies to which all before him had conformed while they disbelieved, and had respected while seeing through their object.
Varro dedicated his work to Caesar, who was then Pontifex Maximus, and well able to appreciate the chain of reasoning it contained. The acute mind of Varro had doubtless seen in Caesar a disposition to rehabilitate the fallen ceremonial, and foreseeing his supremacy in the state, had laid before him this great manual for his guidance. Caesar evinced the deepest respect for Varro, and must have carefully studied his views. At least it can be no mere coincidence that Augustus, in carrying out his predecessor's plans for the restoration of public worship, should have followed so closely on the lines which we see from Augustine Varro struck out. To consider Varro's labours as undirected to any practical object would be to misinterpret them altogether. No man was less of the mere savant or the mere littérateur than he.
Besides this larger work Varro seems to have written smaller ones, as introductions or pendants to it. Among these were the Aitia, or rationale of Roman manners and customs, and a work de gente populi Romani, the most noticeable feature of which was its chronological calculation, which fixed the building of Rome to the date now generally received, and called the Varronian Era (753 B.C.). It contained also computations and theories with regard to the early history of many other states with which Rome came in contact, e.g. Athens, Argos, etc., and is referred to more than once by St Augustine. [26] The names of many other treatises on this subject are preserved; and this is not surprising, when we learn that no less than 620 books belonging to 74 different works can be traced to his indefatigable pen, so that, as an ancient critic says, "so much has he written that it seems impossible he could have read anything, so much has he read that it seems incredible he could have written anything."
In the domain of history and biography he was somewhat less active. He wrote, however, memoirs of his campaigns, and a short biography of Pompey. A work of his, first mentioned by Cicero, to which peculiar interest attaches, is the Imagines or Hebdomades, called by Cicero "Peplographia Varronis." [27] It was a series of portraits—700 in all— of Greek and Roman celebrities, [28] with a short biography attached to each, and a metrical epigram as well. This was intended to be, and soon became, a popular work. An abridged edition was issued shortly after the first, 39 B.C. no doubt to meet the increased demand. This work is mentioned by Pliny as embodying a new and most acceptable process, [29] whereby the impressions of the portraits were multiplied, and the reading public could acquaint themselves with the physiognomy and features of great men. [30] What this process was has been the subject of much doubt. Some think it was merely an improved method of miniature drawing, others, dwelling on the general acceptableness of the invention, strongly contend that it was some method of multiplying the portraits like that of copper or wood engraving, and this seems by far the most probable view; but what the method was the notices are much too vague for us to determine.
The next works to be noticed are those on practical science. As far as we can judge he seems to have imitated Cato in bringing out a kind of encyclopaedia, adapted for general readers. Augustine speaks of him as having exhaustively treated the whole circle of the liberal, or as he prefers to call it, the secular arts. [31] Those to which most weight were attached would seem to have been grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic, medicine, and geometry. From one or two passages that are preserved, we should be inclined to fancy that Varro attached a superstitious (almost a Pythagorean) importance to numbers. [32] He himself was not an adherent of any system, but as Mommsen quaintly expresses it, he led a blind dance between them all, veering now to one now to another, as he wished to avoid any unpleasant conclusion or to catch at some attractive idea. Not strictly connected with the Encyclopaedia, but going to some extent over the same ground though in a far more thorough and systematic way, was the great treatise De Lingua Latina, in twenty-five books, of which the first four were dedicated to Septimius, the last twenty-one (to the orator's infinite delight) to Cicero. Few things gave Cicero greater pleasure than this testimony of Varro's regard. With his insatiable appetite for praise, he could not but observe with regret that Varro, trusted by Pompey, courted by Caesar, and reverenced by all alike, had never made any confidential advances to him. Probably the deeply-read student and simple-natured man failed to appreciate the more brilliant, if less profound, scholarship of the orator, and the vacillation and complexity of his character. While Cicero loaded him with praises and protestations of friendship, Varro appears to have maintained a somewhat cool or distant attitude. At last, however, this reserve was broken through. In 47 B.C. he seems to have promised Cicero to dedicate a work to him, which by its magnitude and interest required careful labour. In the letter prefixed to the posterior Academica, 45 B.C., Cicero evinces much impatience at having been kept two years waiting for his promised boon, and inscribes his own treatise with Varro's name as a polite reminder which he hopes his friend will not think immodest. In the opening chapters Cicero extols Varro's learning with that warmth of heart and total absence of jealousy which form so pleasing a trait in his character. Their diffuseness amusingly contrasts with Varro's brevity in his dedication. When it appeared, there occurred not a word of compliment, nothing beyond the bare announcement In his ad te scribam. [33] Truly Varro was no "mutual admirationist."
C. O. Müller, who has edited this treatise with great care, is of opinion that it was never completely finished. He argues partly from the words politius a me limantur, put into Varro's mouth by Cicero, partly from the civil troubles and the perils into which Varro's life was placed, partly from the loose unpolished character of the work, that it represents a first draught intended, but not ready for, publication. For example, the same thing is treated more than once; Jubar is twice illustrated by the same quotation, [34] Canis is twice derived from canere; [35] merces is differently explained in two places; [36] Lympha is derived both from lapsus aquae, and from Nympha; [37] valicinari from vesanus and versibus viendis. [38] Again marginal additions or corrections, which have been the means of destroying the syntactical connection, seemed to have been placed in the text by the author. [39] Other insertions of a more important character though they illustrate the point, yet break the thread of thought; and in one book, the seventh, the want of order is so apparent that its finished character could hardly be maintained. These facts lead him to conclude that the book was published without his knowledge, and perhaps against his will, by those who pillaged his library. It is obvious that this is a theory which can neither be proved nor disproved. It is an ingenious excuse for Varro's negligence in not putting his excellent materials together with more care. The plan of the work is as follows:—