Varro Atacinus

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Publius Terentius Varro Atacinus (82 BC - ca. 35 BC) was an early Roman poet, more polished than the more famous and learned Varro Reatinus, his contemporary, and more widely read by the Augustans, who apparently dared not mention the other Varro's name. He was born in the province of Gallia Narbonensis, the southern part of Gaul with its capital at Narbonne, on the river Atax (now the Aude), for his cognomen Atacinus indicates his birthplace.

Only fragments of his works survive. His first known works are Bellum Sequanicum, a poem on Julius Caesar's campaign against Ariovistus, and Satires. He translated the Alexandrian poet Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica into Latin.

Of Varro's fragments, the epigram on "The Tombs of the Great" is well-known; whether or not it is truly Varro's it has the terse and skeptical Roman note, the equivalent of a haiku:

''Marmoreo Licinus tumulo iacet, at Cato nullo,

Pompeius paruo: credimus esse deos?

("In a marble tomb [the freedman] Licinus lies; yet for Cato, nothing:

For Pompey a little one: what? think we to be gods?")

Notes

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Last updated on Tuesday May 20, 2008 at 04:46:43 PDT (GMT -0700)
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