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Marcus Terentius Varro PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK PEOPLE IN A WEEK AND IN WALDEN: 1 MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY 1. Sometimes referred to as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from a younger contemporary, Varro Atacinus. HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN WALDEN: Cato says that the profits of agriculture are particularly PEOPLE OF pious or just, (maximeque pius quæstus,) and according to Varro WALDEN the old Romans “called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and thought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and that they alone were left of the race of King Saturn.” CATO VARRO A WEEK: We sat awhile to rest us here upon the brink of the western PEOPLE OF bank, surrounded by the glossy leaves of the red variety of the A WEEK mountain laurel, just above the head of Wicasuck Island, where we could observe some scows which were loading with clay from the opposite shore, and also overlook the grounds of the farmer, of whom I have spoken, who once hospitably entertained us for a night. He had on his pleasant farm, besides an abundance of the beach-plum, or Prunus littoralis, which grew wild, the Canada plum under cultivation, fine Porter apples, some peaches, and large patches of musk and water melons, which he cultivated for the Lowell market. Elisha’s apple-tree, too, bore a native fruit, which was prized by the family. He raised the blood peach, which, as he showed us with satisfaction, was more like the oak in the color of its bark and in the setting of its branches, and was less liable to break down under the weight of the fruit, or the snow, than other varieties. It was of slower growth, and its branches strong and tough. There, also, was his nursery of native apple- trees, thickly set upon the bank, which cost but little care, and which he sold to the neighboring farmers when they were five or six years old. To see a single peach upon its stem makes an impression of paradisaical fertility and luxury. This reminded us even of an old Roman farm, as described by Varro: — “Caesar Vopiscus Aedilicius, when he pleaded before the Censors, said that the grounds of Rosea were the garden (sumen the tid-bit) of Italy, in which a pole being left would not be visible the day after, on account of the growth of the herbage.” This soil may not have been remarkably fertile, yet at this distance we thought that this anecdote might be told of the Tyngsborough farm. VARRO HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 116 BCE Marcus Terentius Varro was born in or near Reate (now Rieti) to a family we suppose to have been of equestrian rank. Despite a military misadventure under Pompey, he would always remain close to his roots, owning a large farm in the Reatine plain, probably near Lago di Ripa Sottile, into his old age. Varro would study under the Roman philologist Lucius Aelius Stilo, and later at Athens under the Academic philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon. Varro would be writing, among many other things, on the propagation of apples, and describing their storage, including the construction of an apple storehouse. A striking aspect of Varro’s work is an anticipation of microbiology and epidemiology: he suggested to his contemporaries that it would be a good idea to avoid swamps and marshland because it seemed to “breed certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, but which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and cause serious diseases.” NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT People of A Week and Walden: Marcus Terentius Varro “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 59 BCE At Pompeii in 80 BCE, the builders of the Small Theater had dug out an amphitheater at the extreme east of the city. The earth removed from the hole had been used to fashion bleachers for the crowd — this is now the oldest known such amphitheater. In this year there broke out in this arena a riot between the Pompeians and the Nocerians that was completed by a famous massacre. After a fight of gladiators organized by the Livineis Regolo who had been banished from the Senate, the incident began as rock throwing and went on to the use of metal weapons to destroy trapped spectators. In result the Roman Senate would exile those who had been prominent in the massacre and, for the following decade, ban all such exciting spectacles. THE PAX ROMANA Cato the Younger opposed Gaius Iulius Cæsar’s laws. Politically, Marcus Terentius Varro had supported Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, reaching the office of praetor after having been tribune of the people, quaestor, and curule aedile. In this year he was one of the 20-member commission that was carrying out the great agrarian scheme of Cæsar for the resettlement of Capua and Campania. THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT People of A Week and Walden: Marcus Terentius Varro “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 50 BCE Marcus Terentius Varro described Roman agriculture, including cultivation of grain (wheat, spelt, & barley — but not rye or oats), legumes, olive, and grapes. By this time Romans had well-developed systems of legume rotation (the use of legumes as a fertilizer crop to return nitrogen to the soil.) NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE People of A Week and Walden: Marcus Terentius Varro “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 48 BCE August: Yet more battles involving our favorite pushy people: at Dyrrachium in what is now Albania the legions of Gnaeus (Cneius) Pompeius Magnus defeated the legions of Gaius Julius Caesar and at Pharsalus in Thessaly the legions of Caesar (Mark Antony commanding the army’s left wing) defeated the legions of Pompey the Great, restoring the Pax Romana (Vitruvius offers us some information about these battles). During the civil war Marcus Terentius Varro had been in command of one of Pompey’s armies in the Ilerda campaign. He would escape the penalties of being on the losing side in a civil war through two pardons granted by Caesar, one prior to and the other subsequent to the Battle of Pharsalus. When Pompey was defeated, Cato the Younger fled to Africa. Afterward, Julius Caesar would dispatch Antony back to Rome with the legions he did not immediately need, to look after his interests. When Caesar would be appointed dictator Antony would become his magister equitum. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. People of A Week and Walden: Marcus Terentius Varro “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO PEOPLE MENTIONED IN A WEEK 47 BCE Mark Antony’s tactics and manner offended the senate. In his attempting to disperse a group of debtors who were protesting in the forum, unfortunately, some of the debtors had gotten themselves killed! In this year Antony divorced Antonia in order to marry Fulvia (the widow of Clodius and, subsequently, of Curio). Gaius Iulius Cæsar uttered the telegraphic Veni Vedi Veci (“Came, Saw, Conquered”) to commemorate his army’s easy victory over King Pharnaces II of Pontus, a kingdom in Asia Minor. This slogan would later be incorporated into a sign mounted on a decorated wagon, that would be paraded through Rome to remind everyone of the promptness with which Caesar might bring dismay to any who attempted to interfere with his progress (there’s no harm in reminding people). Caesar appointed Marcus Terentius Varro to oversee the public library of Rome. HDT WHAT? INDEX PEOPLE OF A WEEK AND WALDEN:MARCUS TERENTIUS VARRO PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 43 BCE Following the death of Julius Caesar, many Romans had been proscribed by Mark Antony. For instance, Marcus Terentius Varro had been proscribed, resulting in the loss of much of his property, including his library. We describe this as the 3d Period of Civil Wars (Octavian Caesar, M. Junius Brutus, Mark Antony, C. Cassius Longinus). As the Republic would give way to Empire, Varro would gain the favour of Augustus, under whose protection he would find the security and quiet to devote himself to study and writing.2 THE PAX ROMANA 2. Varro’s writings would be extensive, and have been estimated to have consisted of some 74 works in some 620 books — Quintilian would characterize him as “the most learned of the Romans.” Only one of these 74 works survives complete, the others existing only in fragments, mostly recovered from Gellius’s NOCTES ATTICAE. His compilation of a “Varronian chronology,” an attempt to establish a detailed year-by-year timeline of Roman history based on the traditional sequence of the consuls of the Roman Republic, would be of use to historians. He eked out his consular framework, where details did not fit, through the insertion of dictatorial and anarchic years. This is what would be inscribed on the Arch of Augustus in Rome, and although that arch no longer stands its substance is perpetuated under the rubric “Fasti Capitolini.” His NINE BOOKS OF DISCIPLINES, in which he wrote on grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine, and architecture, would be a model for later encyclopedists such as Pliny the Elder.
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