INTRODUCTION xxi 



in the same place as his former works (Cic. Phil., 

 ii, 40), at his villa at Casinum, in the ^' Museum " 

 which he mentions in book iii, and close to the 

 "amous aviary which he there describes at length 



iii, 5, 9, etc.)- Remains of the villa are still to be 

 ^een extending along the bank of the Rapido for 



more than a quarter of a mile, and the inhabitants 

 of Cassino point to a piece of gray and crumbling 

 masonry which faces a little island in the Rapido 

 as being lo studio di Marco Varrone. Here, too, 

 he probably died, for according to Valerius Maximus 

 (viii, 7), **the same couch witnessed at once the 

 death of M. Varro and the conclusion of his noble 

 works." 



The work then was practical in its aim, but much 

 care was taken in its literary presentation, for the 

 time had long gone by when such an amorphous 

 mass of often unrelated facts as Cato's treatise on 

 the same subject could hope to be read. Varro, 

 therefore, adopts the mode of the day made fashion- 

 able by Cicero in his rhetorical and philosophical 

 writings, and develops the argument by means of 

 imaginary conversations between real people, taking 

 care, as Cicero did, to avoid anachronisms and im- 

 probabilities. The dialogue of each book is provided 

 with an appropriate background, a separate intro- 

 duction, a dedication, and its own little drama. The 



