On the Latin Language, Vol. I

INTRODUCTION

He lived the remainder of his life in peace and quiet, devoted to his writings, and died in 27 B.C., in his eighty-ninth year.

Throughout his life he wrote assiduously. His works number seventy-four, amounting to about six hundred and twenty books; they cover virtually all fields of human thought: agriculture, grammar, the history and antiquities of Rome, geography, law, rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics and astronomy, education, the history of literature and the drama, satires, poems, orations, letters.

Of all these only one, his De Re Rustica Treatise on Agriculture, in three books, has reached us complete. His De Lingua Latina On the Latin Language, in twenty-five books, has come down to us as a torso; only Books V. to X. are extant, and there are serious gaps in these. The other works are represented by scattered fragments only.

VARRO'S GRAMMATICAL WORKS

The grammatical works of Varro, so far as we know them, were the following:

De Lingua Latina, in twenty-five books, a fuller account of which is given below.

De Antiquitate Litterarum On the Antiquity of Letters, in two books, addressed to the tragic poet L. Accius, who died about 86 B.C.; it was therefore one of Varro's earliest writings.

De Origine Linguae Latinae On the Origin of the Latin Language, in three books, addressed to Pompey.

Περὶ Χαρακτήρων On Character/Form, in at least three books, on the formation of words.

Quaestiones Plautinae Plautine Questions, in five books, containing