Works
Varro's literary output was very large; Ritschl estimated it at 74 works in some 620 books, of which only one work survives complete, although we possess many fragments of the others, mostly in Gellius' Attic Nights.
Called "the most learned of the Romans" by Quintilian (Inst. Or. X.1.95), Varro was recognized as an important source by many other ancient authors, among them Cicero, Pliny the Elder, Virgil in the Georgics, Columella, Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, Augustine, and Vitruvius, who credits him (VII.Intr.14) with a book on architecture.
His only complete work extant, Rerum Rusticarum Libri Tres, has been described as "the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and practised all that he records." One noteworthy aspect of the work is his anticipation of microbiology and epidemiology. Varro warned his contemporaries to avoid swamps and marshland, since such areas "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." (R.R. I.12.2)
Read more about this topic: Marcus Terentius Varro
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“The difference between de jure and de facto segregation is the difference open, forthright bigotry and the shamefaced kind that works through unwritten agreements between real estate dealers, school officials, and local politicians.”
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“The works of women are symbolical.
We sew, sew, prick our fingers, dull our sight,
Producing what? A pair of slippers, sir,
To put on when you’re weary or a stool
To stumble over and vex you ... “curse that stool!”
Or else at best, a cushion, where you lean
And sleep, and dream of something we are not,
But would be for your sake. Alas, alas!
This hurts most, this ... that, after all, we are paid
The worth of our work, perhaps.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)