Background
Varro was born at Reate in the Sabine country (now Rieti, Italy) into a family of some means.
(Renowned in the Roman world for his vast learning, Varro ...)
Renowned in the Roman world for his vast learning, Varro was an antiquarian, historian and agriculturist. Of Varros more than seventy works, his treatise On Agriculture survives complete and a significant part of his magnum opus On the Latin Language, revealing his deep interest in antiquarian matters. Delphis Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both English translations and the original Latin texts. This comprehensive eBook presents Varros complete extant works, with illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Varros life and works * Features the complete extant works of Varro, in both English translation and the original Latin * Concise introductions to the extant works * Provides two translations of On Agriculture (William Davis Hooper and F. H. Belvoir) * Includes translations previously appearing in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Varro * Features the rare translation by On the Latin Language by Roland G. Kent, first time in digital print * Excellent formatting of the texts * Easily locate the sections you want to read with individual contents tables * Provides a special dual English and Latin text of On Agriculture, allowing readers to compare the sections paragraph by paragraph ideal for students * Features two bonus biographies discover Varros ancient world * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to explore our range of Ancient Classics titles or buy the entire series as a Super Set CONTENTS: The Translations ON AGRICULTURE ON THE LATIN LANGUAGE The Latin Texts LIST OF LATIN TEXTS The Dual Text DUAL LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT The Biographies INTRODUCTION TO MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO by Roland G. Kent MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO by F. H. Belvoir Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles
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(Excerpt from Varro On The Latin Language, Vol. 1 of 2: Bo...)
Excerpt from Varro On The Latin Language, Vol. 1 of 2: Books V-VII Throughout his life he wrote assiduously. His works number seventy-four, amounting to about six hundred and twenty books; they cover virtually all fields of human thought: agriculture, grammar, the history and antiquities of Rome, geography, law, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy, education, the history of literature and the drama, satires, poems, orations, letters. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
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(Excerpt from The Three Books of M. Terentius Varro Concer...)
Excerpt from The Three Books of M. Terentius Varro Concerning Agriculture Italy has produced more tranfiations of the Latin writers than any other country 5 but I do not find that this author has been tranf. Lated into Italian, or into any other language. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Varro was born at Reate in the Sabine country (now Rieti, Italy) into a family of some means.
He was educated at Rome under L. Aelius Stilo, the first Roman philologist, and at Athens.
As a follower of Pompey (against Julius Caesar) in the political struggles of the time, Varro held several public offices at Rome and carried out other assignments, some military, for his leader. He served under Pompey in the civil war. When he returned to Rome after the Battle of Pharsalus in 48 B. C. , Caesar, the victor, pardoned him and commissioned him to establish a public library of Greek and Latin literature. After Caesar was murdered in 44 B. C. , Mark Antony put Varro's name on the list of those considered to be enemies of the state. Although his villa was plundered and his library destroyed, Varro escaped death through the intervention of Octavian (later Augustus). Thereafter, Varro spent his remaining years in seclusion, reading and writing.
Varro's range of subjects was vast, although only a small number of works are extant. He wrote 150 books of Menippean satire (a mixture of poetry and prose on a variety of topics), plus other satires, poems, and dramatic works; 41 books called Antiquities of Things Human and Divine; Annals; City Affairs; On the Nationality of the Roman People, dealing with the origins of the Romans; On the Life of the Roman People, an outline of Roman civilization; Causes, an investigation into Roman customs; and Logistorici, philosophical essays using historical examples. Varro also wrote Civil Law; The Seashore, a treatise on geography; works on meteorology; and almanacs for farmers and sailors. He produced books on rhetoric, grammar, poets, poetry, and stage equipment, as well as criticism of the Roman dramatist Plautus. His illustrated biography, called Portraits, contained brief biographical essays on some 700 famous Greeks and Romans, with likenesses of each. Varro also wrote on agriculture, mathematics, and astronomy. His Subjects for Learning set forth in 9 books a curriculum in the liberal arts, that is, areas of learning in which a free man should be knowledgeable: grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, medicine, and architecture. Antiquities contained 25 books on "matters human" and 16 on "matters divine. " The work reflected Varro's immense knowledge of the Roman past.
The Menippeae saturae consists of a form of satire that predates that of Lucilius, the first Roman satirist. Varro named his satires after the Greek Menippus of Gadara, a Cynic philosopher of the 3d century B. C. who wrote in a seriocomic style and gave humorous expression to serious views, and whose works were a mixture of prose and poetry. Varro's satires were originally in 150 books, but only fragments remain, totaling some 600 lines and about 90 titles. They aimed to make serious logical discussion palatable to the uneducated reader by blending it with humorous treatment of contemporary society. Two themes run through the satires. One is the absurdity of much of Greek philosophy; the other, the contemporary preoccupation with material luxury, in contrast to the old days, when the Romans were thrifty and self-denying. Various titles indicate something of the spirit of the work: "Who can tell what the late evening will bring?" (on dinner parties); "It's a long trip to escape your relatives"; and "A pot has its limits: on drunkenness. "
Of the 25 books of De lingua Latina, books 5-10 survive, although even they are incomplete. After an introduction (book 1), the work was divided into etymology (2-7), inflection (8-13), and syntax (14-25). From the fifth book on, it was dedicated to Cicero, which suggests that it was written no later than 43 B. C. Although the work is dry, pedantic, and often clumsy, it does contain occasional flashes of wit and often accurate etymologies. Moreover, it is a valuable source for quotations from old Latin poets. Books 8-10 set forth the arguments for accepting either the linguistic principle of anomaly or that of analogy. Varro argues in favor of analogy - as did Caesar's work on grammar, which Varro probably influenced. Although Varro's philosophy of language had its limitations, he realized the necessity of getting back to origins in the study of grammar, and he made the subject worthy of notice.
Varro wrote Res rusticae for his wife, Fundania, in haste, he said, for "if man is a bubble, all the more so is an old man. My eightieth year warns me to pack my bags before I set forth on the journey out of life. " However, Varro lived for another 10 years. The treatise is divided into three books, the first on agriculture, the second on cattle, and the third on game and fish preserves. He used dialogue to make it more readable. The spirit of Res rusticae is very Italian and very patriotic. Varro admires the peasantry and exalts country life as honorable as well as useful.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(Renowned in the Roman world for his vast learning, Varro ...)
(Excerpt from Varro On The Latin Language, Vol. 1 of 2: Bo...)
(Excerpt from The Three Books of M. Terentius Varro Concer...)
(De M. Terenti Varronis Libris Grammaticis by Marcus Teren...)
Varro was a shrewd, practical man rather than a profound one, possessed of an encyclopedic rather than a synthesizing mind. He did try, however, to know all there was to be known, and to pass his knowledge on to his fellow Romans. In fact, he was so committed to conveying information to the uneducated that he wrote résumés of some of his longer works.
Quotes from others about the person
"When we were foreigners and wanderers-strangers, as it were, in our own land-your books led us home and made it possible for us at length to learn who we were as Romans and where we lived. " - Cicero
He was married to Fundania.