subject, formerly mentioned. It is not a journal, but a book; and instead
of the loose and unconnected manner in which the brief precepts of the
Censor are delivered, it is composed on a plan not merely regular, but
perhaps somewhat too stiff and formal. Its exact and methodical
arrangement has particularly attracted the notice of Scaliger.—“Unicum
Varronem inter Latinos habemus, libris tribus de Re Rustica, qui vere ac
μεθοδικως philosophatus sit. Immo nullus est Græcorum qui tam bene, inter
eos saltem qui ad nos pervenerunt(61).” Instead, too, of that directness
and simplicity which never deviate from the plainest precepts of
agriculture, the work of Varro is embellished and illustrated by much of
the erudition which might be expected from the learning of its author, and
of one acquainted with fifty Greek writers who had treated of the subject
before him. “Cato, the famous Censor,” says Martyne, “writes like an
ancient country gentleman of much experience: He abounds in short pithy
sentences, intersperses his book with moral precepts, and was esteemed a
sort of oracle. Varro writes more like a scholar than a man of much
practice: He is fond of research into antiquity, and inquires into the
etymology of the names of persons and things. Cato, too, speaks of a
country life, and of farming, merely as it may be conducive to gain. Varro
also speaks of it as of a wise and happy state, inclining to justice,
temperance, sincerity, and all the virtues, which shelters from evil
passions, by affording that constant employment, which leaves little
leisure for those vices which prevail in cities, where the means and
occasions for them are created and supplied.”
There were other Latin works on agriculture, besides those of Cato and
Varro, but they were subsequent to the time which the present volumes are
intended to embrace. Strictly speaking, indeed, even the work of Varro was
written after the battle of Actium: the knowledge, however, on which its
precepts were founded, was acquired long before. The style, too, is that
of the Roman republic, not of the Augustan age. I have therefore
considered Varro as belonging to the period on which we are at present
engaged.
Indeed, the history of his life and writings is almost identified with the
literary history of Rome, during the long period through which his
existence was protracted. But the treatise on agriculture is the only one
of his multifarious works which has descended to us entire. The other
writings of this celebrated polygraph, as Cicero calls him(62), may be
divided into philological, critical, historical, mythological,
philosophic, and satiric; and, after all, it would probably be necessary,
in order to form a complete catalogue, to add the convenient and
comprehensive class of miscellaneous.
The work _De Lingua Latina_, though it has descended to us incomplete, is
by much the most entire of Varro’s writings, except the Treatise on
Agriculture. It is on account of this philological production, that Aulus
Gellius ranks him among the grammarians, who form a numerous and important
class in the History of Latin Literature. They were called _grammatici_ by
the Romans—a word which would be better rendered philologers than
grammarians. The grammatic science, among the Romans, was not confined to
the inflections of words or rules of syntax. It formed one of the great
divisions of the art of criticism, and was understood to comprehend all
those different inquiries which philology includes—embracing not only
grammar, properly so called, but verbal and literal criticism, etymology,
the explication and just interpretation of authors, and emendation of
corrupted passages. Indeed the name of grammarian (grammaticus) is
frequently applied by ancient authors(63) to those whom we should now term
critics and commentators, rather than grammarians.
It will be readily conceived that a people, who, like the first Romans,
were chiefly occupied with war, and whose relaxation was agriculture, did
not attach much importance to a science, of which the professed object
was, teaching how to speak and write with propriety. Accordingly, almost
six hundred years elapsed before they formed any idea of such a study(64).
Crates Mallotes, who was a contemporary of Aristarchus, and was sent as
ambassador to Rome, by Attalus, King of Pergamus, towards the end of the
sixth century(65), was the first who excited a taste for grammatical
inquiries. Having accidentally broken his leg in the course of his
embassy, he employed the period of his convalescence in receiving
visitors, to whom he delivered lectures, containing grammatic
disquisitions: and he also read and commented on poets hitherto unknown in
Rome(66). These discussions, however, probably turned solely on Greek
words, and the interpretation of Greek authors. It is not likely that
Crates had such a knowledge of the Latin tongue, as to give lectures on a
subject which requires minute and extensive acquaintance with the
language. His instructions, however, had the effect of fixing the
attention of the Romans on their own language, and on their infant
literature. Men sprung up who commented on, and explained, the few Latin
poems which at that time existed. C. Octavius Lampadius illustrated the
Punic War of Nævius; and also divided that poem into seven books. About
the same time, Q. Vargunteius lectured on the Annals of Ennius, on certain
fixed days, to crowded audiences. Q. Philocomus soon afterwards performed
a similar service for the Satires of his friend Lucilius. Among these
early grammarians, Suetonius particularly mentions Ælius Preconinus and
Servius Clodius. The former was the master of Varro and Cicero; he was
also a rhetorician of eminence, and composed a number of orations for the
Patricians, to whose cause he was so ardently attached, that, when
Metellus Numidicus was banished in 654, he accompanied him into exile.
Serv. Clodius was the son-in-law of Lælius, and fraudulently appropriated,
it is said, a grammatical work, written by his distinguished relative,
which shows the honour and credit by this time attached to such pursuits
at Rome. Clodius was a Roman knight; and, from his example, men of rank
did not disdain to write concerning grammar, and even to teach its
principles. Still, however, the greater number of grammarians, at least of
the verbal grammarians, were slaves. If well versed in the science, they
brought, as we learn from Suetonius, exorbitant prices. Luctatius Daphnis
was purchased by Quintus Catulus for 200,000 pieces of money, and shortly
afterwards set at liberty. This was a strong encouragement for masters to
instruct their slaves in grammar, and for them to acquire its rules.
Sævius Nicanor, and Aurelius Opilius, who wrote a commentary, in nine
books, on different writers, were freedmen, as was also Antonius Gnipho, a
Gaul, who had been taught Greek at Alexandria, whither he was carried in
his youth, and was subsequently instructed in Latin literature at Rome.
Though a man of great learning in the science he professed, he left only
two small volumes on the Latin language—his time having been principally
occupied in teaching. He taught first in the house of the father of Julius
Cæsar, and afterwards lectured at home to those who chose to attend him.
The greatest men of Rome, when far advanced in age and dignity, did not
disdain to frequent his school. Many of his precepts, indeed, extended to
rhetoric and declamation, the arts, of all others, in which the Romans
were most anxious to be initiated. These were now taught in the schools of
almost all grammarians, of whom there were, at one time, upwards of twenty
in Rome. For a long while, only the Greek poets were publicly explained,
but at length the Latin poets were likewise commented on and illustrated.
About the same period, the etymology of Latin words began to be
investigated: Ælius Gallus, a jurisconsult quoted by Varro, wrote a work
on the origin and proper signification of terms of jurisprudence, which in
most languages remain unvaried, till they have become nearly
unintelligible; and Ælius Stilo attempted, though not with perfect
success, to explain the proper meaning of the words of the Salian verses,
by ascertaining their derivations(67).
The science of grammar and etymology was in this stage of progress and in
this degree of repute at the time when Varro wrote his celebrated treatise
_De Lingua Latina_. That work originally consisted of twenty-four
books—the first three being dedicated to Publius Septimius, who had been
his quæstor in the war with the pirates, and the remainder to Cicero. This
last dedication, with that of Cicero’s _Academica_ to Varro, has rendered
their friendship immortal. The importance attached to such dedications by
the great men of Rome, and the value, in particular, placed by Cicero on a
compliment of this nature from Varro, is established by a letter of the
orator to Atticus—“You know,” says he, “that, till lately, I composed
nothing but orations, or some such works, into which I could not introduce
Varro’s name with propriety. Afterwards, when I engaged in a work of more
general erudition, Varro informed me, that his intention was, to address
to me a work of considerable extent and importance. Two years, however,
have passed away without his making any progress. Meanwhile, I have been
making preparations for returning him the compliment(68).” Again, “I am
anxious to know how you came to be informed that a man like Varro, who has
written so much, without addressing anything to me, should wish me to pay
him a compliment(69).” The _Academica_ were dedicated to Varro before he
fulfilled his promise of addressing a work to Cicero; and it appears, from
Cicero’s letter to Varro, sent along with the _Academica_, how impatiently
he expected its performance, and how much he importuned him for its
execution.—“To exact the fulfilment of a promise,” says he, “is a sort of
ill manners, of which the populace themselves are seldom guilty. I cannot,
however, forbear—I will not say, to demand, but remind you, of a favour,
which you long since gave me reason to expect. To this end, I have sent
you four admonitors, (the four books of the Academica,) whom, perhaps, you
will not consider as extremely modest(70).” It is curious, that, when
Varro did at length come forth with his dedication, although he had been
highly extolled in the _Academica_, he introduced not a single word of
compliment to Cicero—whether it was that Varro dealt not in compliment,
that he was disgusted with his friend’s insatiable appetite for praise, or
that Cicero was considered as so exalted that he could not be elevated
higher by panegyric.
We find in the work _De Lingua Latina_, which was written during the
winter preceding Cæsar’s death, the same methodical arrangement that marks
the treatise _De Re Rustica_. The twenty-four books of which it consisted,
were divided into three great parts. The first six books were devoted to
etymological researches, or, as Varro himself expresses it, _quemadmodum
vocabula essent imposita rebus in lingua Latina_. In the first, second,
and third books, of this division of his work, all of which have perished,
the author had brought forward what an admirer of etymological science
could advance in its favour—what a depreciator might say against it; and
what might be pronounced concerning it without enthusiasm or
prejudice.—“Quæ contra eam dicentur, quæ pro ea, quæ de ea.” The fragments
remaining of this great work of Varro, commence at the fourth book, which,
with the two succeeding books, is occupied with the origin of Latin terms
and the poetical licenses that have been taken in their use: He first
considers the origin of the names of places, and of those things which are
in them. His great division of places is, into heaven and earth—_Cœlum_ he
derives from _cavum_, and that, from _chaos_; _terra_ is so called _quia
teritur_. The derivation of the names of many terrestrial regions is
equally whimsical. The most rational are those of the different spots in
Rome, which are chiefly named after individuals, as the Tarpeian rock,
from Tarpeia, a vestal virgin slain by the Sabines—the Cœlian Mount, from
Cœlius, an Etrurian chief, who assisted Romulus in one of his contests
with his neighbours. Following the same arrangement with regard to those
things which _are in_ places, he first treats of the immortals, or gods of
heaven and earth. Descending to mortal things, he treats of animals, whom
he considers as in three places—air, water, and earth. The creatures
inhabiting earth he divides into men, cattle, and wild beasts. Of the
appellations proper to mankind, he speaks first of public honours, as the
office of Prætor, who was so called, “quod præiret exercitui.” We have
then the derivations both of the generic and special names of animals.
Thus, _Armenta_ (quasi _aramenta_) is from _aro_, because oxen are used
for ploughing; _Lepus_ is _quasi Levipes_. The remainder of the book is
occupied with those words which relate to food, clothing, and various
sorts of utensils. Of these, the derivation is given, and it is generally
far-fetched. But of all his etymologies, the most whimsical is that
contained in his book of Divine Things, where he deduces _fur_ from
_furvus_, (dusky,) because thieves usually steal during the darkness of
night(71).
The fifth book relates to words expressive of time and its divisions, and
to those things which are done in the course of time. He begins with the
months and days consecrated to the service of the gods, or performance of
accustomed rites. Things which happen during the lapse of time, are
divided into three classes, according to the three great human functions
of thought, speech, and act. The third class, or actions, are performed by
means of the external senses; the mention of which introduces the
explication of those terms which express the various operations of the
senses; and the book terminates with a list of vocables derived from the
Greek. These two books relate the common employment of words. In the
sixth, the author treats of poetic words, and the poetic or metaphoric use
of ordinary terms, of which he gives examples. Here he follows the same
arrangement already adopted—speaking first of places, and then of time,
and showing, as he proceeds, the manner in which poets have changed or
corrupted the original signification of words.
Such is the first division of the work of Varro, forming what he himself
calls the etymological part. He admits that it was a subject of much
difficulty and obscurity, since many original words had become obsolete in
course of time, and of those which survived, the meaning had been changed
or had never been imposed with exactness. The second division, which
extended from the commencement of the seventh to the end of the twelfth
book, comprehended the accidents of words, and the different changes which
they undergo from declension, conjugation, and comparison. The author
admits but of two kinds of words—nouns and verbs, to which he refers all
the other parts of speech. He distinguishes two sorts of declensions, of
which he calls one arbitrary, and the other natural or necessary; and he
is thenceforth alternately occupied with analogy and anomaly. In the
seventh book he discusses the subject of analogy in general, and gives the
arguments which may be adduced against its existence in nouns proper: In
the eighth, he reasons like those who find analogies everywhere. Book
ninth treats of the analogy and anomaly of verbs, and with it the fragment
we possess of Varro’s treatise terminates. The three other books, which
completed the second part, were of course occupied with comparison and the
various inflections of words.
The third part of the work, which contained twelve books, treated of
syntax, or the junction of words, so as to form a phrase or sentence. It
also contained a sort of glossary, which explained the true meaning of
Latin vocables.
This, which may be considered as one of the chief works of Varro, was
certainly a laborious and ingenious production; but the author is
evidently too fond of deriving words from the ancient dialects of Italy,
instead of recurring to the Greek, which, after the capture of Tarentum,
became a great source of Latin terms. In general, the Romans, like the
Greeks before them, have been very unfortunate in their etymologies, being
but indifferent critics, and inadequately informed of everything that did
not relate to their own country. Blackwell, in his _Court of Augustus_,
while he admits that the sagacity of Varro is surprising in the use which
he has made of the knowledge he possessed of the Sabine and Tuscan
dialects, remarks, that his work, _De Lingua Latina_, is faulty in two
particulars; the first, arising from the author having recourse to
far-fetched allusions and metaphors in his own language, to illustrate his
etymology of words, instead of going at once to the Greek. The second,
proceeding from his ignorance of the eastern and northern languages,
particularly the Aramean and Celtic(72); the former of which, in
Blackwell’s opinion, had given names to the greater number of the gods,
and the latter, to matters occurring in war and rustic life.
It is not certain whether the _Libri De Similitudine Verborum_, and those
_De Utilitate Sermonis_, cited by Priscian and Charisius as philological
works of Varro, were parts of his great production, _De Lingua Latina_, or
separate compositions. There was a distinct treatise, however, _De Sermone
Latino_, addressed to Marcellus, of which a very few fragments are
preserved by Aulus Gellius.
The _critical_ works of this universal scholar, were entitled, _De
Proprietate Scriptorum_—_De Poetis_—_De Poematis_—_Theatrales__, sive de
Actionibus Scenicis_—_De Scenicis Originibus_—_De Plautinis Comœdiis_—_De
Plautinis Quæstionibus_—_De Compositione Satirarum_—_Rhetoricorum Libri_.
These works are praised or mentioned by Gellius, Nonius Marcellus, and
Diomedes; but almost nothing is known of their contents.
Somewhat more may be gathered concerning Varro’s _mythological_ or
_theological_ works, as they were much studied, and very frequently cited
by the early fathers, particularly St Augustine and Lactantius. Of these
the chief is the treatise _De Cultu Deorum_, noticed by St Augustine in
his seventh book, _De Civitate Dei_, where he says that Varro considers
God to be not only the soul of the world, but the world itself. In this
work he also treated of the origin of hydromancy, and other superstitious
divinations. Sixteen books of the treatise _De Rerum Humanarum et
Divinarum Antiquitatibus_, addressed to Julius Cæsar, as Pontifex Maximus,
related to theological, or at least what we might call ecclesiastical
subjects. He divides theology into three sorts—mythic, physical, and
civil. The first is chiefly employed by poets, who have feigned many
things contrary to the nature and dignity of the immortals, as that they
sprung from the head, or thigh, or from drops of blood—that they committed
thefts and impure actions, and were the servants of men. The second
species of theology is that which we meet with in the books of
philosophers, in which it is discussed, whether the gods have been from
all eternity, and what is their essence, whether of fire, or numbers, or
atoms. Civil, or the third kind of theology, relates to the institutions
devised by men, for the worship of the Gods. The first sort is most
appropriate to the stage; the second to the world; the third to the city.
Varro was a zealous advocate for the physical explication of the
mythological fables, to which he always had recourse, when pressed by the
difficulties of their literal meaning(73). He also seems to have been of
opinion that the images of the gods were originally intended to direct
such as were acquainted with the secret doctrines, to the contemplation of
the real gods, and of the immortal soul with its constituent parts(74).
The first book of this work, as we learn from St Augustine, was
introductory. The three following treated of the ministers of religion,
the Pontiffs, Augurs, and Sibyls; in mentioning whom, he relates the
well-known story of her who offered her volumes for sale to Tarquinius
Priscus. In the next ternary of chapters, he discoursed concerning places
appointed for religious worship, and the celebration of sacred rites. The
third ternary related to holidays; the fourth to consecrations, and to
private as well as public sacrifices; and the fifth contained an
enumeration of all the deities who watch over man, from the moment when
Janus opens to him the gates of life, till the dirges of Nænia conduct him
to the tomb. The whole universe, he says, in conclusion, is divided into
heaven and earth; the heavens, again, into æther and air; earth, into the
ground and water. All these are full of souls, mortal in earth and water,
but immortal in air and æther. Between the highest circle of heaven and
the orbit of the moon, are the ethereal souls of the stars and planets,
which are understood, and in fact seem, to be celestial deities; between
the sphere of the moon and the highest region of tempests, dwell those
aerial spirits, which are conceived by the mind though not seen by the
eye—departed heroes, Lares, and Genii.
This work, which is said to have chiefly contributed to the splendid
reputation of Varro, was extant as late as the beginning of the fourteenth
century. Petrarch, to whom the world has been under such infinite
obligations for his ardent zeal in discovering the learned works of the
Romans, had seen it in his youth. It continued ever after to be the object
of his diligent search, and his bad success was a source to him of
constant mortification. Of this we are informed in one of the letters,
which that enthusiastic admirer of the ancients addressed to them as if
they been alive, and his contemporaries. “Nullæ tamen exstant,” says he to
Varro, “vel admodum laceræ, tuorum operum reliquiæ; licet divinarum et
humanarum rerum libros, ex quibus sonantius nomen habes, puerum me vidisse
meminerim, et recordatione torqueor, summis, ut aiunt, labiis gustatæ
dulcedinis. Hos alicubi forsitan latitare suspicor, eaque, multos jam per
annos, me fatigat cura, quoniam longâ quidem ac sollicitâ spe nihil est
laboriosius in vitâ.”
Plutarch, in his life of Romulus, speaks of Varro as a man of all the
Romans most versed in history. The _historical_ and political works are
the _Annales Libri_—_Belli Punici Secundi Liber_—_De Initiis Urbis
Romanæ_—_De Gente Populi Romani_—_Libri de Familiis Trojanis_, which last
treated of the families that followed Æneas into Italy. With this class we
may rank the _Hebdomadum, sive de Imaginibus Libri_, containing the
panegyrics of 700 illustrious men. There was a picture of each, with a
legend or verse under it, like those in the children’s histories of the
Kings of England. That annexed to the portrait of Demetrius Phalereus, who
had upwards of 300 brazen statues erected to him by the Athenians, is
still preserved:—
“Hic Demetrius æneis tot aptus est
Quot luces habet annus absolutus.”
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 concerning 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:—
“Forsan et insignes hominumque operumque labores
Hic habuit decimo celebrata volumine Marci
Hebdomas.” ——