EXCURSUS I 



ON THE TIME AND PLACE OF THE DIALOGUE IN 

 BOOK II 



With regard to the place and occasion of the dialogue 

 in Book II there is great difficulty; for whereas in the 

 two other books Varro mentions these explicitly, here 

 neither is indicated, and the conversation begins so 

 abruptly that nearly all the commentators have been 

 driven to infer a large lacuna in the text. Gesner, how- 

 ever, followed by Gaston Boissier, maintains that nothing 

 is missing, and that Varro, like Homer in the Odyssey, 

 plunged at once into the heart of his subject in order to 

 quicken the curiosity of the reader. This opinion is, I 

 think, quite untenable, for save in this respect the plan 

 of all three books is the same — introduction, dedication, 

 place, and occasion, while the obvious corruption of the 

 text at the point where the dialogue begins, and the 

 fact that here fresh copyists took up the work of tran- 

 scription, make it not improbable that much has been lost, 

 especially as the place where the gap is thought to be is 

 precisely where in the two other books Varro describes 

 the circumstances in which the conversations arose — 

 namely, at the end of the introduction. Most editors, 

 assuming this loss, refuse to waste time on the attempt 

 to solve an insoluble riddle, and Pontedera (Curae Post- 

 humae) even charges Varro with self-contradiction, for 



355 



