A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

VARRO. VARRO. 1225
fashion of many of his contemporaries in all cases ronis ad Atheniensenz auditoreni, and the inscription
of difficulty and doubt, is in itself sound; and if of one of the Paduanl codices, Proverbia Varronis
not pushed to extravagant excess ought to have led ad Paxianum (or rather P. Axianum, as Devit into most important results. But when he proceeds genionsly conjectures), it is manifest that these
to the actual work of determining roots, that spirit proverbs were not strung together by Varro himof folly which seems to have taken possession of self, but are scraps gleaned out of various works,
his countrymen whenever they approached the probably at different times and by different hands.
subject of etymology, asserts its dominion over him, They appear, however, to have been gathered toand we find a farrago of absurd derivations. Thus, gether and divided in'to regular sections at an
within the compass of a few lines, we are told that early period, for we find a sixth and a seventh
canis is taken from cano because dogs give signals book quoted in the Liler Mi/osalitaStui of Matthiias
at night and in the chase, as horns and trumpets Farinator, 2 vols. fol. Aug. Vindel. 1477. There
give signals (canunt) in the field of battle; that is no ground whatever for the theory maintained
agnaus is so called because it is ayncatus to a sheep; by Orelli and others that they are fabrications of
that cervi comes from ges-o (changing g into c) be- the fifth or sixth century -all internal evidence
cause stags carry (gerunt) great horns; that vis- is against this supposition —we know that the
gultzua is from,irsidis and oviridis from vis, because style of Varro was distinguished by its sententious
if the strength (vis) of the sap is dried up the green gravity (Augustin. de Civ. Dei, vi. 2), and his voleaf perishes; that dives is from divus because the luminous works would in all probability supply
rich man, like a god, is in want of nothing - and ample stores to those who desired to make a colexamples equally ridiculous abound in every page. lection of apophthegms.
The Editio Princeps of the books De Linyua (See the preface and commentary attached to
Latina appeared in quarto without date or name of the publication of Devit; also Spangenberg in the
place; but bibliographers have determined that it Bibliotheca Critica, vol. i. p. 89, Hildes. 1819
was printed at Rome in 1471. The editor was and Oehler, M. Tercntii Varrsonis ScturarawL
Polnponius Laetus, and the MS. which he em- Arenippearum Reliquiae, p. 5, foll. 8vo. Quedling.
ployed was full of interpolations. The text how- 1844.)
ever retained some semblance of its true form until IV'. AntiquitatumLilri, divided into two sections,
Antonius Augustinus, following a MS. which em- Antiqauitates Rerum hzmcanaraom, in twenty-five
bodied the innumerable changes foisted in by the books, and Asitiquitates RerzsL divinarum in sixteen
Italians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, books. This was the magnum optus of Varro; and
presented Varro under an aspect totally fictitious upon this chiefly his reputation for profound learning
(8vo. Rom. 1557). This edition, however, re- was based.
mained the standard until Spengel (8vo. Berol. In the Human Antiquities he discussed the cre1826) and Ottfried Miiller (8vo. Lips. 1833) by a ation of man, his bodily frame, and all matters
careful examination of the most ancient and trust- connected with his physical constitution. He then
worthy codices laboriously separated the genuine passed on to take a survey of ancient Italy, the
matter from the spurious, and gave the scholar snfe geographical distribution of the country, the difaccess to the treasures stored up in this curious re- ferent tribes by which it was inhabited, their
pository. origin and fortunes. The legends regarding the
III. Sententiae. Vincentius of Beauvais, who arrival of Aeneas served as an introduction to the
flourished durinlg the first half of the thirteenth early history and chronology of Rome, in which
century, quotes several pithy sayings which he as- he determined the era for the foundation of the
cribes to Varro; and in his 8peculum Historiale city (B.c. 753), which usually passes by his name,
(vii. 58) introduces a collection of these with the and as he advanced gave a view of the political
words " Exstant igitur sententiae Varronis ad institutions and social habits of his countrymen
Atheniensem auditoremr morales atque notabiles de froni the earliest times.
quibus has paucas quae sequuntur excerpsi." Bar- The Divine Antiquities, with whose general plan
thius, who seems to have been altogether unac- and contents we are, comparatively speaking, fiquainted with the previous researches of Vin- miliar, since Augustinle drew very largely from this
centius, published in his Adversaria (xv. 19) source in his " City of God," comprehended a comeighteen " sententiae " which he found ascribed to plete account of the mythology and rites of the
Varro in a MS. of no very ancient date, but written inhabitants of Italy fromn the most remote epoch,
before the invention of printing, and these were re- including a description of the ministers of things
printed by Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Latina, lib. holy, of temples, victims, offerings of every kind,
i. c. vii. ~ 4. Schneider picked out forty-seven of festivals, and all other matters appertaining to the
these sententiae from the works of Vincentius, of worship of the gods.
which sixteen coincided with those of Barthius, Of all the didactic treatises of the classical ages
and appended the whole to the life of Varro con- there is not one whose loss excites more lively retained in the first volume of the Scriptores Rei gret, and our sorrow is increased the more we
Rusticae Latini veteres (8vo. Lips. 1794). Finally, reflect upon the deep interest attached to the topics
Professor Devit of Padua greatly increased the of which it treated, the impossibility of obtaining
number from two MSS. in the library of the senli- satisfactory information foino any works now acnary to which he belongs, and gave them to the cessible, the remarkable taste evinced by Varro for
world, together with those formerly known, and these pursuits, and the singular facilities and adsome others derived from different sources, making vantages which he enjoyed for prosecuting such
up in all one hundred and sixty-five, in a little researches. It has been concluded from solme
volume entitled Sententias HIl. Terentii Varronis expressions in one of Petrarch's letters, expressions
sacaiori ex parte ineditas, &c. edidit, &c. Vincentius which appear under different forms in different
Devit, 8vo. Patav. 1843. Notwithstanding the ex- editions, that the Antiquities were extant in his
Iuession of Vincentius of Beauvais, Sententiae Va — youtll, and that he had actually seen them, al