XX INTRODUCTION 



this and published during that time one of his great 

 theoretical works, the De Lingua Latina (probably 

 in 45 B.C.), which was addressed to Cicero, and many 

 smaller ones such as the Hebdomades (32 B.C.), the 

 Disciplinae, De Vita Sua, De Vita Populi Romani, 

 etc., which were practical in aim and intended to popu- 

 larize science or to stimulate the patriotism of the 

 rising generation. The treatise on farming (Rerum 

 Rusticarum) was of the second kind. It is a practical 

 handbook written especially for his wife Fundania, 

 who had just bought a farm, and generally in the 

 interest of posterity, with the hope, possibly, of 

 persuading his fellow countrymen back to the 

 ** divine country," and to that life ''which is not 

 only the most ancient, but the best of all " (iii, i, 4). 

 But though the object may have been one with that 

 of most of the great writers of the early Augustan 

 age, there seems no evidence to support the frequent 

 statement that Varro's work was written at the 

 command of Octavius, nor does it seem at all likely 

 that the latter i n 36 b. c. , when the Rerum Rusticarum 

 was written (Euseb. Chron., Varro, R.R., i, i, i), 

 should have yet thought much about regenerating 

 by the arts of peace a country which he had first to 

 win by arms. 



The books on farming were composed when Varro 

 was eighty years old and were written most likely 



