148 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



was plundered, this event entailing the loss of not a few of his 

 own writings. And all the while his own tastes and preferences were 

 for the life of quiet study, with rural avocations for his pastime. 



Varro was more than seventy years of age when Julius Caesar, 

 returning to Rome as the great victor, recognized him as the most 

 learned man of his time, and charged him with the work of collecting 

 and arranging a great library; a noble scheme which Caesar's 

 assassination a year or two later brought to naught. After that, 

 under the triumvirate of Antony, Augustus, and Lepidus, 

 Varro's name was placed on the list of the proscribed; but by help 

 of his friend Calinus, who concealed him in his own villa, his life 

 was saved until this storm was past. The remainder of his life 

 was given undisturbedly to literary work. His industry as an 

 author has made Varro a wonder to succeeding generations. He 

 wrote long treatises on Antiquities, a History of Literature, another 

 of Philosophy, another of primitive Rome, a History of Religion, 

 a volume on Education, a Latin Grammar, a book on Navigation, 

 and unnumbered other treatises, all, or nearly all, long since lost, 

 though referred to by many contemporaries. His treatise on 

 Agriculture, in three books, almost alone of all his writings, has 

 survived. He tells us in the first chapter of the work that he 

 begins the writing of it in his eightieth year. It is replete with 

 learning of all kinds, and is still a practical treatise ; yet also evincing 

 the author's familiarity with those Greek authors who, like Aris- 

 totle and Theophrastus, wrote on the theories of plant life and form. 

 As compared with Cato, the list of Varro's cultivated plants is 

 not as long, and he does not enumerate as many varieties of Brassica, 

 Pirus, Myrtus, and other genera. The choice varieties of cultivated 

 cherries, long known in Pontus, Varro adds to the list of Roman 

 fruits. 



He is first among Roman authors to take note of certain phenom- 

 ena of plant life, such as the growth and development of leaves 

 and flowers, and also certain movements. The leaves of the 

 olive, white poplar, and willow, whitened underneath, are apt to 

 become inverted so as to show the lower face, and this at about 

 midsummer, which phenomenon they take for a sign of the arrival 

 of the solstice. The flowers of heliotrope follow the course of the 

 sun from morning until nightfall; and there are other kindred 

 observations, with even a hint that there is a physiology of such 

 things that it might be interesting to know something of. In 

 a passage on cattle raising one of Varro's interlocutors is represented 

 as saying: "The thing is so, but why it is so, that is your affair, you 



