Marcus Terentius Varro

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 2.20 §1 Varro is satisfying me.

  M. Terentius Varro of Reate, the great antiquarian and most learned Roman of the age, was an awkward, prickly character whom Cicero courted warily because of his closeness to Pompey. Cicero's repeated terse "Varro satisfies me" reflects the prudence captured in his own maxim that one must bear with the ways of the powerful.

• Ad Atticum 3.18 §1 Varro

  M. Terentius Varro of Reate, the polymath and a close associate of Pompey. Here he serves as the channel reporting Pompey's intentions toward Cicero's recall.

• Ad Atticum 4.14 §1 Varro's

  M. Terentius Varro of Reate, the polymath antiquarian; his books are in Atticus's library, and Cicero is drawing from them for a work in progress (almost certainly De Re Publica, drafted 54-51 BC).

• Ad Atticum 12.6 §1 the manner of Hegesias, which Varro commends

  Hegesias of Magnesia was the founder of the florid, choppy "Asianic" prose style that Cicero disliked; he jokes that his own clipped sentences here are in that vein, the kind the polymath Varro happened to admire. Varro is the great antiquarian and scholar M. Terentius Varro.

• Ad Atticum 13.12 §3 what you write to me about Varro

  Marcus Terentius Varro, the great polymath and antiquarian, to whom Cicero was planning to dedicate a philosophical work. The letter works out which dialogue should carry the dedication.

• Ad Atticum 13.13 §1 transferred it to our friend

  Varro, to whom Cicero has now reassigned the Academica, recasting the dialogue's speakers. He rebuilt the work from two books into four for the new dedication.

• Ad Atticum 13.14 §1 be sent to Varro

  The reworked Academica, now to be presented to Varro as dedicatee and chief speaker. Cicero asks Atticus to weigh whether the dedication should go forward.

• Ad Atticum 13.16 §1 I have transferred to Varro

  Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC), the most learned Roman of the age and a prolific scholar; Cicero now makes him the chief interlocutor and dedicatee of the recast Academica, the dominant anxiety running through these letters.

• Ad Atticum 13.17 §2 decidedly clever little things --- addressed to Varro

  The four books of the recast Academica, now dedicated to Varro. Cicero frets over the dedication --- whether Varro really wants it, and whether he will be jealous of the company he keeps among Cicero's dialogue figures.

• Ad Atticum 13.23 §2 The books for Varro

  The dialogue Cicero was dedicating to the polymath M. Terentius Varro --- the revised Academica --- in copyists' hands and nearly finished. Cicero fretted over the dedication throughout these letters.

• Ad Atticum 13.25 §3 given to Varro

  M. Terentius Varro, Rome's greatest polymath, the dedicatee of the recast Academica. Cicero's anxiety over how the prickly Varro would receive the work runs through this letter.

• Ad Atticum 13.35 §1 To Varro

  M. Terentius Varro, the great polymath and antiquarian, to whom Cicero dedicated the Academica; the two were warily negotiating the dedication in this period.

• Ad Atticum 15.5 §3 Our friend Varro

  M. Terentius Varro of Reate, the great antiquarian and the most learned Roman of the age, a friend of both Cicero and Atticus; he passed on an anonymous warning about the mood of the veterans.

• Ad Atticum 15.13 §3 Varro's dialogue

  Marcus Terentius Varro of Reate (116-27 BC), the most learned Roman of the age and a prolific author; Cicero awaits a philosophical dialogue from him and considers dedicating one of his own works to him in return.

• Ad Atticum 15.26 §5 With Varro, as I have instructed you

  Marcus Terentius Varro, the great polymath and antiquarian, a friend of Cicero's; Cicero asks Atticus to excuse to him the tardiness of his correspondence.

• Ad Atticum 16.9 §1 Varro indeed disapproves of the boy's plan

  M. Terentius Varro, the great scholar and Cicero's learned friend, thought Octavian's scheme misguided; Cicero notes that he himself does not share that view.

• Ad Atticum 16.11 §3 I am not put out that Varro's Peplography

  M. Terentius Varro, the polymath scholar; his "Peplography" (Peplographia) was a work modelled on the Greek Peplos, a collection of biographical epigrams on famous men.

• Ad Atticum 16.12 §1 of Varro

  Marcus Terentius Varro, the most learned Roman scholar of the age and a friend of Cicero, prolific author across antiquarian, linguistic, and literary subjects.

• Ad Familiares 9.1 §2 you, who held to it, were the wiser man of the two

  M. Terentius Varro (116--27 BC) was Rome's most learned scholar, author of hundreds of works; Cicero contrasts Varro's steadier devotion to study with his own deeper entanglement in politics and the failed Pompeian cause.

• Ad Familiares 9.4 §1 if you have a garden along with your library, nothing will be wanting

  Cicero alludes to the philosophical ideal of garden-and-library (echoing the Epicurean Garden and the scholarly life): with Varro's famous library plus a garden for conversation, the two friends would have everything needed for the contemplative retirement they had chosen under Caesar's rule.

• Ad Familiares 9.6 §4 you stand almost alone in port

  Cicero praises Varro --- the most learned Roman of the age --- for having withdrawn into scholarship as into a safe harbour amid the political storms, reaping the fruits of learning. The image anticipates the dedication of the Academica to Varro a year later (Fam. 9.8).

• Ad Familiares 11.10 §5 not if I had Varro's treasuries could I keep up with the expense

  M. Terentius Varro, the great scholar and reputedly very wealthy landowner, here stands proverbially for vast riches.

• Ad Familiares 13.10 §4 if you value me as much as Varro thinks you do

  M. Terentius Varro, the great polymath and Cicero's close friend, appears here as a mutual acquaintance of Cicero and Brutus whose assessment of Brutus's regard for Cicero Terentius (the quaestor) presumably relayed. The shared Terentius nomen between the recommender and the man Varro is coincidental.

• Second Philippic §103 the estate of Marcus Varro

  M. Terentius Varro, the great scholar and antiquarian, whose villa at Casinum Antony seized and turned into a scene of debauchery though it had never been put up for sale.