Publius Terentius Varro Atacinus (Latin: [ˈpuːbliʊs tɛˈrɛntiʊs ˈwarːoː atakiːnʊs]; 82 – c. 35 BC) was a Roman poet, more polished in his style than the more famous and learned Varro Reatinus, his contemporary, and therefore more widely read by the Augustan writers. [1] He was born in the province of Gallia Narbonensis, the southern part of Gaul with its capital at Narbonne, on the river Atax [2] (now the Aude), for his cognomen Atacinus indicates his birthplace.
Only fragments of his works survive. His first known works are Bellum sequanicum, [3] a poem on Julius Caesar's campaign against Ariovistus, and some satires; these should not be confused with the Menippean Satires of the other Varro, of which some 600 fragments survive. He also wrote a geographical poem, Chorographia; [2] Ephemeris, a hexameter poem on weather-signs after Aratus, from which Virgil has borrowed [2] and (late in life) elegies to Leucadia. [3]
His translation of the Alexandrian poet Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica into Latin has some fine surviving lines; [3] and was singled out for praise by Ovid: “Of Varro too what age will not be told/And Jason’s Argo and the fleece of gold?”. [4] Oskar Seyffert considered that the poem to have been “the most remarkable production in the domain of narrative epic poetry between the time of Ennius and that of Vergil”. [5]
Of Varro's fragments, the epigram on "The Tombs of the Great" is well-known; whether or not it is truly Varro's is debatable:
In a marble tomb [the freedman] Licinus lies; yet Cato lies in none |
Cicero as well as Caesar have been suggested as possible patrons of Varro's writings. [6]