Marcus Terentius Varro
116–27 BC 1 entry
Biography
Marcus Terentius Varro was a Roman scholar and writer, whom Quintilian called the most learned of the Romans. Born in 116 BC in Reate, in the Sabine country north-east of Rome, he studied in Rome and Athens, served as a soldier and an official, and in the civil war fought for Pompey against Caesar. Caesar pardoned him and in 47 BC put him in charge of founding the first great public library of Rome, a plan cut short by Caesar’s murder.
After Caesar’s death Mark Antony put him on the list of the proscribed and had his villa and library plundered, but friends saved his life. He spent his long old age writing; he is said to have written some seventy-four works in about six hundred and twenty books, on the Latin language, history, religion, law, music and the sciences. Only his book On Agriculture and part of On the Latin Language survive whole. He died in 27 BC, almost ninety years old.
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