On the Latin Language

Varro (M. Terentius), 11627 BCE, of Reate, renowned for his vast learning, was an antiquarian, historian, philologist, student of science, agriculturist, and poet. He was a republican who was reconciled to Julius Caesar and was marked out by him to supervise an intended national library. Of Varro's more than seventy works involving hundreds of volumes we have only his treatise On Agriculture (in Loeb number 283) and part of his monumental achievement "De Lingua Latina," On the Latin Language, a work typical of its author's interest not only in antiquarian matters but also in the collection of scientific facts. Originally it consisted of twenty-five books in three parts: etymology of Latin words (books 17); their inflexions and other changes (books 813); and syntax (books 1425). Of the whole work survive (somewhat imperfectly) books 5 to 10. These are from the section (books 46) which applied etymology to words of time and place and to poetic expressions; the section (books 79) on analogy as it occurs in word formation; and the section (books 1012) which applied analogy to word derivation. Varro's work contains much that is of very great value to the study of the Latin language. The Loeb Classical Library edition of "On the Latin Language" is in two volumes.