178 The setting of Varro's work 



XXV. VARRO. 



M Terentius Varro wrote his treatise de re rustica in 37-6 BC at 

 the age of 80. The subject was only one of an immense number to 

 which he devoted his talents and wide learning when not actively 

 engaged in public duties. The last republican rally under Brutus 

 and Cassius had failed at Philippi in 42, and the Roman world was 

 shared out between the Triumvirs. In 36 the suppression of Lepidus 

 declared what was already obvious, that Antony and Octavian were 

 the real holders of power and probable rivals. Proscriptions, confis- 

 cations, land-allotments to soldiers, the wars with Antony's brother 

 Lucius and the great Pompey's son Sextus, had added to the un- 

 settlement and exhaustion of Italy. If it appeared to Varro that a 

 treatise on farming would be opportune (and we may fairly conjecture 

 that it did), there was surely much to justify his opinion in the 

 distressful state of many parts of the country. But at this point we 

 are met by a passage 1 in the work itself which seems to prove that 

 he took a very different view of present agricultural conditions in 

 Italy. Some of the speakers (the book is in form a dialogue) declare 

 that no country is better cultivated than Italy, that no other country 

 is so fully cultivated all through (tota), that Italian crops are in 

 general the best of their several kinds, and in particular that Italy is 

 one great orchard. Instances in point are given. That Varro, like 

 Cicero, took great care 2 to avoid anachronisms and improbabilities, 

 that his characters are real persons, and that he tries hard to fit the 

 several topics to the several characters, is not to be denied. But it is 

 perhaps too much to assume that such general remarks as those just 

 cited are meant to represent the known personal opinions of the 

 speakers. If we could be sure of the date at which the dialogue is 

 supposed to be held, we might have a more satisfactory standard for 

 estimating the significance and historical value of these utterances. 

 Unluckily we have no convincing evidence as to the intended date. 

 The scene of the second book can be laid in 67 BC with reasonable 

 certainty, and that of the third in 54 BC. But no passage occurs in 

 the first book sufficient to furnish material for a like inference. When 

 Stolo refers 3 to Varro's presence with the fleet and army at Corcyra, 

 some have thought that he has in mind the time of the civil war in 

 49 BC. It is much more likely that the reference is to Varro's service 4 



1 Varro RR I 2 3, 6. I find since writing this that Heisterbergk Entstehung des 

 Colonats p 57 treats this utterance, rightly, as rhetorical. 



2 See Mr Storr-Best's translation, Introduction pp xxvii-xxx. 



3 RR I 4 5. Surely in 49 Varro was in Spain. 



4 Asin^ upraef%6. 



