Marcus Terentius Varro (c. 116-27 BCE)
Satirist, historian, author of six or seven hundred volumes, nearly all lost. Surviving are six books on the Latin language (De Lingua Latina) and one treatise,
On Country Matters (De Re Rustica). These works are tedious and lacking in descriptive and dramatic power, but valuable as source material. The lost
Portraits (Imagines) (of famous Greeks and Romans) is said to be the world s first illustrated volume. About six hundred lines of
Varro was born at Reate in the Sabine country. His chief teacher was L. Aelius Stilo, the first systematic student, critic and teacher of Latin philology and literature, and of the antiquities of Rome and Italy. Varro also studied at Athens under the philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon, whose influence is clearly to be seen in many remains of Varro’s writings. After a praetorship, he served as Pompey’s legate in Spain and fought at Pharsalus, but was later reconciled with Caesar who made him director