There were seven pictures and panegyrics in each book, whence the whole work has been called Hebdomades. Varro had adopted the superstitious notions of the ancients concern[pg 43]ing particular numbers, and the number seven seems specially to have commanded his veneration. There were in the world seven wonders—there were seven wise men among the Greeks—there were seven chariots in the Circensian games—and seven chiefs were chosen to make war on Thebes: All which he sums up with remarking, that he himself had then entered his twelfth period of seven years, on which day he had written seventy times seven books, many of which, in consequence of his proscription, had been lost in the plunder of his library. It appears from Ausonius, that the tenth book of this work was occupied with pictures and panegyrics of distinguished architects, since, in his Eidyllium, entitled Mosella, he observes, that the buildings on the banks of that river would not have been despised by the most celebrated architects; and that those who planned them might well deserve a place in the tenth book of the Hebdomas of Varro:—

It is evident, however, from one of the letters of Symmachus, addressed to his father, that though this was a professed work of panegyric, Varro was very sparing and niggardly of his praise even to the greatest characters: “Ille Pythagoram qui animas in æternitatem primus asseruit; ille Platonem qui deos esse persuasit; ille Aristotelem qui naturam bene loquendi in artem redegit; ille pauperem Curium sed divitibus imperantem; ille severos Catones, gentem Fabiam, decora Scipionum, totumque illum triumphalem Senatum parca laude perstrinxit.” Varro also wrote an eulogy on Porcia, the wife of Brutus, which is alluded to by Cicero in one of his letters to Atticus. Among his notices of celebrated characters, it is much to be regretted that the Liber de Vita Sua, cited by Charisius, has shared the same fate as most of the other valuable works of Varro. The treatise entitled, Sisenna, sive de Historia, was a tract on the composition of history, inscribed to Sisenna, the Roman historian, who wrote an account of the civil wars of Marius and Sylla. It contained, it is said, many excellent precepts with regard to the appropriate style of history, and the accurate investigation of facts. But the greatest service rendered by Varro to history was his attempt to fix the chronology of the world. Censorinus informs us that he was the first who regulated chronology by eclipses. That learned grammarian has also mentioned the division of three great periods established by Varro. He did not determine whether the earliest [pg 44]of them had any beginning, but he fixed the end of it at the Ogygian deluge. To this period of absolute historical darkness, he supposed that a kind of twilight succeeded, which continued from that flood till the institution of the Olympic games, and this he called the fabulous age. From that date the Greeks pretend to digest their history with some degree of order and clearness. Varro, therefore, looked on it as the break of day, or commencement of the historical age. The chronology, however, of those events which occurred at the beginning of this second period, is as uncertain and confused as of those which immediately preceded it. Thus, the historical æra is evidently placed too high by Varro. The earliest writers of history did not live till long after the Olympian epoch, and they again long preceded the earliest chronologers. Timæus, about the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, was the first who digested the events recorded by these ancient historians, according to a computation of the Olympiads75. Preceding writers, indeed, mention these celebrated epochs, but the mode of reckoning by them was not brought into established use for many centuries after the Olympic æra. Arnobius farther informs us, that Varro calculated that not quite 2000 years had elapsed from the Ogygian flood to the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa. The building of Rome he placed two years higher than Cato had done in his Origines, founding his computation on the eclipse which had a short while preceded the birth of Romulus; but unfortunately this eclipse is not attested by contemporary authors, nor by any historian who could vouch for it with certainty. It was calculated a long time after the phænomenon was supposed to have appeared, by Tarrutius Firmanus, the judicial astrologer, who amused himself with drawing horoscopes. Varro requested him to discover the date of Romulus’s birth, by divining it from the known events of his life, as geometrical problems are solved by analysis; for Tarrutius considered it as belonging to the same art, (and doubtless the conclusions are equally certain,) when a child’s nativity is given to predict its future life, and when the incidents of life are given to cast up the nativity. Tarrutius, accordingly, having considered the actions of Romulus, and the manner of his death, and having combined all the incidents, pronounced that he was conceived in the first year of the second Olympiad, on the 23d of the Egyptian month Choiok, on which day there had been a total eclipse of the sun.

Pompey, when about to enter for the first time on the office of Consul, being ignorant of city manners and senatorial [pg 45]forms, requested Varro to frame for him a written commentary or manual, from which he might learn the duties to be discharged by him when he convened the Senate. This book, which was entitled Isagogicum de Officio Senatus habendi, Varro says, in the letters which he wrote to Oppianus, had been lost. But in these letters he repeated many things on the subject, as what he had written before had perished76.

The philosophical writings of Varro are not numerous; but his chief work of that description, entitled De Philosophia Liber, appears to have been very comprehensive. St Augustine informs us that Varro examined in it all the various sects of philosophers, of which he enumerated upwards of 280. The sect of the old Academy was that which he himself followed, and its tenets he maintained in opposition to all others. He classed these numerous sects in the following curious manner: All men chiefly desire, or place their happiness in, four things—pleasure—rest—these two united, (which Epicurus, however, termed pleasure,) or soundness of body and mind. Now, philosophers have contended that virtue is to be sought after for the sake of obtaining one or other of these four; or, that some one of these four is to be sought after for the sake of virtue; or, that they and virtue also are to be sought after for their own sake, and from these different opinions each of the four great objects of human desire being sought after with three different views, there are formed twelve sects of philosophers. These twelve sects are doubled, in consequence of the different opinions created by the considerations of social intercourse—some maintaining that the four great desires should be gratified for our own sake, and others, that they should be indulged only for the sake of our neighbours. The above twenty-four sects become forty-eight, from each system being defended as certain truth, or as merely the nearest approximation to probability—twenty-four sects maintaining each hypothesis as certain, and twenty-four as only probable. These again were doubled, from the difference of opinion with regard to the suitable garb and external habit and demeanour of philosophers.

We have now got ninety-six sects by a very strange sort of computation, and all these are to be tripled, according to the different opinions entertained concerning the best mode of spending life—in literary leisure, in business, or in both77.

Varro having followed the sect of the old Academy, in preference to all others, proceeded to refute the principles of [pg 46]the sects he had enumerated. He cleared the way, by dismissing, as unworthy the name of philosophical, all those sects whose differences did not turn on what is the supreme final good; for there is no use in philosophizing, unless it be to make us happy, and that which makes us happy is the final good. But those who dispute, for example, whether a wise man should follow virtue, tranquillity, &c. partly for the sake of others, or solely for his own, do not dispute concerning what is the final good, but whether that good should be shared. In like manner, the Cynic does not dispute with regard to the supreme good, but in what dress or habit he who follows the supreme good should be clad. So also as to the controversy concerning the uncertainty of knowledge. The number of sects were thus reduced to the twelve with which our author set out, and in which the whole question relates to what is the final good. From these, however, he abstracted the sects which place the final good in pleasure, rest, or the union of both—not that he altogether disdained these, but he thought they might be included in soundness of body and mind, or what he called the prima Naturæ. There are thus only three questions which merit full discussion. Whether these prima Naturæ should be desired for the sake of virtue, or virtue for their sake, or if they and virtue also should be desired for their own sake.

Such were the doctrines of the old Academy, which Varro was also introduced as supporting in Cicero’s Academica.—“I have comprehended,” says that illustrious orator and philosopher, in a letter to Atticus, “the whole Academic system in four books, instead of two, in the course of which Varro is made to defend the doctrines of Antiochus78. I have put into his mouth all the arguments which were so accurately collected by Antiochus against the opinion of those who contend that there is no certainty to be attained in human knowledge. These I have answered myself. But the part assigned to Varro in the debate is so good, that I do not think the cause which I support appears the better.”

Varro derived much notoriety from his satirical compositions. His Tricarenus, or Tricipitina, was a satiric history of the triumvirate of Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus. Much pleasantry and sarcasm were also interspersed in his books entitled Logistorici; but his most celebrated production in that line was the satire which he himself entitled Menippean. It was so called from the cynic Menippus of Gadara, a city in Syria, who, like his countryman Meleager, was in the habit of expressing himself jocularly on the most grave and important subjects. He was the author of a Symposium, in the manner of Xenophon. His writings were interspersed with verses, parodied from Homer and the tragic poets, or ludicrously applied, for the purpose of burlesque. It is not known, however, that he wrote any professed satire. The appellation, then, of Menippean, was given to his satire by Varro, not from any production of the same kind by Menippus, but because he imitated his general style of humour. In its external form it appears to have been a sort of literary anomaly. Greek words and phrases were interspersed with Latin; prose was mingled with verses of various measures; and pleasantry with serious remark. As to its object and design, Cicero introduces Varro himself explaining this in the Academica. After giving his reasons for not writing professedly on philosophical subjects, he continues,—“In those ancient writings of ours, we, imitating Menippus, without translating him, have infused a degree of mirth and gaiety along with a portion of our most secret philosophy and logic, so that even our unlearned readers might more easily understand them, being, as it were, invited to read them with some pleasure. Besides, in the discourses we have composed in praise of the dead, and in the introductions to our antiquities, it was our wish to write in a manner worthy of philosophers, provided we have attained the desired object.” From what Cicero afterwards says in this dialogue, while addressing himself to Varro, it would appear, that he [pg 48]had indeed touched on philosophical subjects in his Menippean satire, but that, learned as he was, his object was more to amuse his readers than instruct them: “You have entered on topics of philosophy in a manner sufficient to allure readers to its study, but inadequate to convey full instruction, or to advance its progress.”

Many fragments of this Menippean satire still remain, but they are much broken and corrupted. The heads of the different subjects, or chapters, contained in it, amounting to near one hundred and fifty, have been given by Fabricius in alphabetical order. Some of them are in Latin, others in Greek. A few chapters have double titles; and, though little remains of them but the titles, these show what an infinite variety of subjects was treated by the author. As a specimen, I subjoin those ranged under the letter A. Aborigines,—Περι Ανθρωπων φυσεως,—De Admirandis, vel Gallus Fundanius,—Agatho,—Age modo,—Αιει διβυη, vel περι Αἱρεσεων,—Ajax Stramentitius,—Αλλος ὁυτος Ἡρακλης,—Andabatæ,—Anthropopolis,—περι Αρχης, seu Marcopolis,—περι Αρχαιρεσιων, seu Serranus,—περι Αρετης κτησεως,—περι Αφροδισιων, seu vinalia,—Armorum judicium,—περι Αρρενοτητος, seu Triphallus,—Autumedus,—Mæonius,—Baiæ, &c.79

There is a chapter concerning the duty of a husband, (De officio Mariti,) in which the author observes, that the errors of a wife are either to be cured or endured: He who extirpates them makes his wife better, but he who bears with them improves himself. Another is inscribed, “You know not what a late evening, or supper, may bring with it,” (Nescis quid vesper serus vehat.) In this chapter he remarks, that the number of guests should not be less than that of the Graces, or more than that of the Muses. To render an entertainment perfect, four things must concur—agreeable company, suitable place, convenient time, and careful preparation. The guests should not be loquacious or taciturn. Silence is for the bed-chamber, and eloquence for the Forum, but neither for a feast. The conversation ought not to turn on anxious or difficult subjects, but should be cheerful and inviting, so that utility may be combined with a certain degree of pleasure and allurement. This will be best managed, by discoursing of those things which relate to the ordinary occurrences or affairs of life, concerning which one has not leisure to talk in the Forum, or while transacting business. The master of the feast should rather be neat and clean than splendidly attired; and if he introduce reading into the entertainment, it should be so [pg 49]selected as to amuse, and to be neither troublesome nor tedious80. A third chapter is entitled, περι ἐδεσματων; and treats of the rarer delicacies of an entertainment, especially foreign luxuries. Au. Gellius has given us the import of some verses, in which Varro mentioned the different countries which supplied the most exquisite articles of food. Peacocks came from Samos; cranes from Melos; kids from Ambracia; and the best oysters from Tarentum81. Part of the chapter γνωθι σεαυτον was directed against the Latin tragic poets.

What remains of the verses interspersed in the Menippean satire, is too trifling to enable us to form any accurate judgment of the poetical talents of Varro.

The style of satire introduced by Varro was imitated by Lucius Annæus Seneca, in his satire on the deification of Claudius Cæsar, who was called on earth Divus Claudius. The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, in which that writer lashed the luxury, and avarice, and other vices of his age, is a satire of the Varronian species, prose being mingled with verse, and jest with serious remark. Such, too, are the Emperor Julian’s Symposium of the Cæsars, in which he characterizes his predecessors; and his Μισοπωγων, directed against the luxurious manners of the citizens of Antioch.

Besides the works of Varro above mentioned, there is a miscellaneous collection of sentences or maxims which have been attributed to him, though it is not known in what part of his numerous writings they were originally introduced. Barthius found seventeen of these sentences in a MS. of the middle age, and printed them in his Adversaria. Schneider afterwards discovered, in the Speculum Historiale of Vincent de Beauvais, a monk of the thirteenth century, a much more ample collection of them, which he has inserted in his edition of the Scriptores rei Rusticæ82. They consist of moral maxims, in the style of those preserved from the Mimes of Publius Syrus, and had doubtless been culled as flowers from the works of Varro, at a time when the immense garden of taste and learning which he planted, had not yet been laid waste by the hand of time, or the spoiler83.

Though the above list of the works of Varro is far from complete, a sufficient number has been mentioned to justify the exclamation of Quintilian,—“Quam multa, immo pene omnia tradidit Varro!” and the more full panegyric of Cicero,—“His works brought us home, as it were, while we were foreigners in our own city, and wandering like strangers, so that we might know who and where we were; for in them are laid open the chronology of his country,—a description of the seasons,—the laws of religion,—the ordinances of the priests,—domestic and military occurrences,—the situations of countries and places,—the names of all things divine and human,—the breed of animals,—moral duties,—and the origin of things84.”

Nor did Varro merely delight and instruct his fellow-citizens by his writings. By his careful attention, in procuring the most valuable books, and establishing libraries, he provided, perhaps, still more effectually than by his own learned compositions, for the progressive improvement and civilization of his countrymen. The formation of either private or public libraries was late of taking place at Rome, for the Romans were late in attending to literary studies. Tiraboschi quotes a number of writers who have discovered a library in the public records preserved at Rome85, and in the books of the Sibyls86. But these, he observes, may be classed with the library which Madero found to have existed before the flood, and that belonging to Adam, of which Hilscherus has made out an exact catalogue87. From Syracuse and Corinth the Romans brought away the statues and pictures, and other monuments of the fine arts; but we do not learn that they carried to the capital any works of literature or science. Some agricultural books found their way to Rome from Africa, on the destruction of Carthage; but the other treasures of its libraries, though they fell under the power of a conqueror not without pretensions to taste and erudition, were bestowed on the African princes in alliance with the Romans88.

Paulus Emilius is said by Plutarch to have allowed his sons to choose some volumes from the library of Perseus, King of Macedon89, whom he led captive to Rome in 585. But the honour of first possessing a library in Rome is justly due to Sylla; who, on the occupation of Athens, in 667, acquired the library of Apellicon, which he discovered in the temple of [pg 51]Apollo. This collection, which contained, among various other books, the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, was reserved to himself by Sylla from the plunder; and, having been brought to Rome, was arranged by the grammarian Tyrannio, who also supplied and corrected the mutilated text of Aristotle90. Engaged, as he constantly was, in domestic strife or foreign warfare, Sylla could have made little use of this library, and he did not communicate the benefit of it to scholars, by opening it to the public; but the example of the Dictator prompted other commanders not to overlook the libraries, in the plunder of captured cities, and books thus became a fashionable acquisition. Sometimes, indeed, these collections were rather proofs of the power and opulence of the Roman generals, than of their literary taste or talents. A certain value was now affixed to manuscripts; and these were, in consequence, amassed by them, from a spirit of rapacity, and the principle of leaving nothing behind which could be carried off by force or stratagem. In one remarkable instance, however, the learning of the proprietor fully corresponded to the literary treasures which he had collected. Lucullus, a man of severe study, and wonderfully skilled in all the fine arts, after having employed many years in the cultivation of literature, and the civil administration of the republic, was unexpectedly called, in consequence of a political intrigue, to lead on the Roman army in the perilous contest with Mithridates; and, though previously unacquainted with military affairs, he became the first captain of the age, with little farther experience, than his study of the art of war, during the voyage from Rome to Asia. His attempts to introduce a reform in the corrupt administration of the Asiatic provinces, procured him enemies, through whose means he was superseded in the command of the army, by one who was not superior to him in talents, and was far inferior in virtue. After his recall from Pontus, and retreat to a private station, he offered a new spectacle to his countrymen. He did not retire, like Fabricius and Cincinnatus, to plough his farm, and eat turnips in a cottage—he did not, like Africanus, quit his country in disgust, because it had unworthily treated him; nor did he spend his wealth and leisure, like Sylla, in midnight debauchery with buffoons and parasites. He employed the riches he had acquired during his campaigns in the construction of delightful villas, situated on the shore of the sea, or hanging on the declivities of hills. Gardens and spacious porticos, which he adorned with all the elegance of painting [pg 52]and sculpture, made the Romans ashamed of their ancient rustic simplicity. These would doubtless be the objects of admiration to his contemporaries; but it was his library, in which so many copies of valuable works were multiplied or preserved, and his distinguished patronage of learning, that claim the gratitude of posterity. “His library,” says Plutarch, “had walks, galleries, and cabinets belonging to it, which were open to all visitors; and the ingenious Greeks resorted to this abode of the muses to hold literary converse, in which Lucullus delighted to join them91.” Other Roman patricians had patronized literature, by extending their protection to a favoured few, as the elder Scipio Africanus to Ennius, and the younger to Terence; but Lucullus was the first who encouraged all the arts and sciences, and promoted learning with princely munificence.

But the slave Tyrannio vied with the most splendid of the Romans in the literary treasures he had amassed. A native of Pontus, he was taken prisoner by Lucullus, in the course of the war with Mithridates; and, having been brought to Rome, he was given to Muræna, from whom he received freedom92. He spent the remainder of his life in teaching rhetoric and grammar. He also arranged the library of Cicero at Antium93, and taught his nephew, Quintus, in the house of the orator94. These various employments proved so profitable, that they enabled him to acquire a library of 30,000 volumes95. Libraries of considerable extent were also formed by Atticus and Cicero; and Varro was not inferior to any of his learned contemporaries, in the industry of collecting and transcribing manuscripts, both in the Greek and Latin language.

The library of Varro, however, and all the others which we have mentioned, were private—open, indeed, to literary men, from the general courtesy of the possessors, but the access to them still dependent on their good will and indulgence. Julius Cæsar was the first who formed the design of establishing a great public library; and to Varro he assigned the task of arranging the books which he had procured. This plan, which was rendered abortive by the untimely fate of Cæsar, was carried into effect by Asinius Pollio, who devoted part of the wealth he had acquired from the spoils of war, to the construction of a magnificent gallery, adjacent to the Temple [pg 53]of Liberty, which he filled with books, and the busts of the learned. Varro was the only living author who, in this public library, had the honour of an image96, which was erected to him as a testimony of respect for his universal erudition. He also aided Augustus with his advice, in the formation of the two libraries which that emperor established, and which was part of his general system for the encouragement of science and learning. When tyrants understand their trade, and when their judgment is equal to their courage or craft, they become the most zealous and liberal promoters of the interests of learning; for they know that it is for their advantage to withdraw the minds of their subjects from political discussion and to give them, in exchange, the consoling pleasures of imagination, and the inexhaustible occupations of scientific curiosity.

Were I writing the history of Roman arts, it would be necessary to mention that Varro excelled in his knowledge of all those that are useful, and in his taste for all those that are elegant. He was the contriver of what may be considered as the first hour clock that was made in Rome, and which measured time by a hand entirely moved by mechanism. That he also possessed a Museum, adorned with exquisite works of sculpture, we learn from Pliny, who mentions, that it contained an admirable group, by the statuary Archelaus, formed out of one block of marble, and representing a lioness, with Cupids sporting around her—some giving her drink from a horn; some in the attitude of putting socks on her paws, and others in the act of binding her. The same writer acquaints us, that, in the year 692, Varro, who was then Curule Ædile, caused a piece of painting, in fresco, to be brought from Sparta to Rome, in order to adorn the Comitium—the whole having been cut out entire, and enclosed in cases of wood. The painting was excellent, and much admired; but what chiefly excited astonishment, was that it should have been taken from the wall without injury, and transported safe to Italy97.

I fear I have too long detained the reader with this account of the life and writings of Varro; yet it is not unpleasing to dwell on such a character. He was the contemporary of Marius and Sylla, of Cæsar and Pompey, of Antony and Octavius, these men of contention and massacre; and amid the convulsions into which they threw their country, it is not ungrateful to trace the Secretum Iter, which he silently pursued through a period unparalleled in anarchy and crimes. Uninterrupted, save for a moment, by strife and ambition, he [pg 54]prosecuted his literary labours till the extreme term of his prolonged existence. “In eodem enim lectulo,” says Valerius Maximus, with a spirit and eloquence beyond his usual strain of composition—“In eodem enim lectulo, et spiritus ejus, et egregiorum operum cursus extinctus est.”