Quintilian declared that as an orator Cicero combined “the force of Demosthenes, the copiousness of Plato, and the elegance of Isocrates.” Through all his works flows a current of mingled majesty and sweetness. Merivale aptly styles him “the most consummate specimen of the Roman character under the influence of Hellenic culture.”
CICERO ON PROVIDENCE.
[From the Treatise on the Nature of the Gods.]
“There are and have been philosophers who have given it as their opinion that the gods exercise no superintending care whatever over human affairs. Now, if the opinion of these men be true, what becomes of piety? what of public worship? what of religion itself? For all these marks of homage are to be rendered in a pure and holy spirit unto the majesty of the gods, only in case they are observed by these same, and in case any favor has been bestowed by the immortal gods on the race of men. If, however, the gods are neither able nor willing to assist us; if they take no care whatever of us; if they mark not what we do; if there is nothing that can come from them and exercise an influence on the lives of men,—what reason is there why we are to pay any adoration, render any honors, offer any prayers, to the immortal gods?
Piety, just as much as the other virtues, cannot exist in outward show and empty feignings; while along with piety, both public worship and religion itself must of necessity be done away with. Remove these, and a great disturbance and total confusion of life ensue. Nay, indeed, I do not know whether, if piety toward the gods be removed, good faith also, and every social tie that binds together the human race, and justice too, that most excellent of all virtues, would not be removed along with it.”—Charles Anthon.
Varro (116-28 B.C.).—The great central sun of the Republican Era was Cicero, compared with whom the brightest of his contemporaries seem but as lesser luminaries whose light is swallowed up in his. Of these, Marcus Terentius Varro was perhaps the greatest. Years of incessant application, which a boyhood passed among the Sabine mountains at Reate (re’ă-te) had prepared him to endure, won for Varro the proud title “Most Learned of the Romans.”
During the civil war, Varro sided with Pompey. After the triumph of Cæsar, he retired from public life to his favorite studies, the victor magnanimously recognizing his merit by placing him in charge of the public library at Rome. The material results of his literary labors enabled him to live like a prince, and we find him the proprietor of three sumptuous country-seats, one of which was celebrated for its costly marble aviary of three thousand song-birds—Varro’s pets.
All this wealth did not escape the notice of the rapacious triumvirs after the assassination of Cæsar. The name of Varro, then more than seventy, was placed on the proscription list; his property was confiscated; and Antony sacked his beautiful villa at Casi’num, committing his invaluable library to the flames. The old man owed his life to friends, who concealed him from his implacable foe till the order for his murder was countermanded. Augustus afterward restored his fortune, but Varro always keenly missed the society of his books. At the advanced age of eighty, he composed, in dialogue form, an admirable work “On Husbandry,” written in a brisk and entertaining style.
The genius of Varro was remarkably versatile; as over six hundred different books on various subjects, in both prose and verse, abundantly testify. In fertility he surpassed all other Romans; and we can but wonder, with St. Augustine, how he found time to write so much. His most creditable work was his “Antiquities Divine and Human,” a lost treasure, of which the present age, with its profound interest in the religions of the past, severely feels the want.
Varro also prepared a treatise “On the Latin Language,” edited a popular encyclopædia of the liberal arts, and wrote on history. Throughout his works he appears as a pure patriot, a defender of ancient simplicity and virtue. His satires on effeminacy and affectation are caustic; no one can help enjoying his humorous etchings of the spruce dandy, the dainty epicure, and the finical poet who gargles his throat before reciting his pieces. In every kind of writing that he attempted (and there was little he did not attempt) he is worthy of respect: the familiar line from Dr. Johnson’s epitaph on our own Goldsmith, would apply with equal force to Varro—“He touched nothing that he did not adorn.”
Little survives of Varro’s writings beyond the treatise on agriculture, and a part of that on the Latin language.