Career
From Macrobius (Saturnalia, viI, 39. 2, 19) we learn that Varius composed an epic poem De Morte, some lines of which are quoted as having been imitated or appropriated by Virgil. Horace (Sat i10, 43) probably alludes to another epic, and, according to the scholiast on Epistles, i.16, 2 729, these three lines are taken bodily from a panegyric of Varius on Augustus.
But his most famous literary production was the tragedy Thyestes, which Quintilian (Institute Orat x1, 98) declares fit to rank with any of the Greek tragedies.
The didascalia (which is preserved in a Paris manuscript) informs us that it was produced at the games celebrated in 29 British Columbia by Augustus in honour of the victory at Actium, and that Varius received a present of a million sesterces from the emperor. Fragments are located in East. Bahrens, Frag.
Poetarum Romanorum (1886). Monographs by A. Weichert (1836) and R. Unger (1870, 1878, 1898).
Martin Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur (1899), ii.1.
Teuffel, History. of Roman Literature (Engineer transport, 1900), 223.
