one of the most distinguished poets of the Augustan age, the companion and friend of Virgil and Horace. By the latter he is placed in the foremost rank among the epic bards, and Quintilian has pronounced that his tragedy of Thyestes might stand a comparison with any production of the Grecian stage.
But notwithstanding the high fame which he enjoyed among his contemporaries, and which was
confirmed by the deliberate judgment of succeeding ages, there is scarcely any ancient author
of celebrity concerning whose personal history we are more completely ignorant. We cannot
determine the date of his birth, nor of his death, nor are we acquainted with any of the
leading events of his career. This has arisen partly from the absolute silence of those from
whom we might reasonably have hoped to glean some information, partly from the circumstance
that he upon no occasion mingled in the business of public life, and partly from the confusion
which prevails in MSS. between the names Varius, Varro, and Varus, the last especially being an appellation borne by several remarkable
personages both political and literary towards the downfal of the republic, and under the
early emperors. If we dismiss mere fanciful conjectures the sum total of our actual knowledge
may be expressed in a very few words.
1. We may conclude with certainty that he was senior to Virgil. This seems to be proved by
the well-known lines of Horace (Sat. 1.10. 44),
" forte epos acer
Ut nemo Varius ducit : molle atque facetum
Virgilio adnuerunt
gaudentes rure Camoenae,"
for from these we may at once infer that Varius had already established his reputation in heroic song while Virgil was known only as a pastoral bard.
2. He enjoyed the friendship of Maecenas from a very early period, since it was to the
recommendation of Varius in conjunction with that of Virgil, that Horace was indebted for an
introduction to the minister, an event which took place not later than
3. He was alive subsequent to Chron. Euseb. Olymp.
exe. 4) and Donatus (Vit. Virg. 14.53, 57), who assert that Virgil on his
death bed appointed Plotius Tucca and Varius his literary executors, and that they revised the
Aeneid, but in obedience to the strict injunctions of its author made no additions.
It has been supposed from a passage of Horace in the Epistle to Augustus (
The only works by Varius of which any record has been preserved are :--
Macrobius (
From this Horace, according to the Scholiasts, borrowed the lines inserted by him in the
sixteenth Epistle of his first book (27, foll.):
No other specimen has been preserved.
The admiration excited by this drama, the last probably of the works of Varius, was so
intense that it seems to have overshadowed the renown which he had previously acquired in
epic poetry, and this may account for the omission of his name by Quintilian when
enumerating those who had excelled in this department. A strange story grew up and was
circulated among the mediaeval scholiasts, that Varius was not really the author of the
Thyestes, but that he stole it, according to one account (Schol. ad Hor.
Ep. 1.4. 4), from Cassius of Parma, according to another from Virgil. (Serv. (ad Virg. Ecl. 3.20; comp. Schol. ad Virg. Ecl. 6.3;
Donat. Vit. Virg. 20.81.) Weichert has with much ingenuity devised a
theory to account for the manner in which the mistake arose, but it is scarcely worth while
to refute a fable which has ever been regarded as ridiculous. No portion of the tragedy has
descended to us except a few words, and one sentence quoted by Marius Victorinus (A. G. p.
2503, ed. Putsch.), which critics have in vain endeavoured to mould into verse. It appears
from a Codex rescriptus in the royal library of Paris, of which Schneidewin Rheinisches Museum, vol. i. p. 106, fol. Neue
Folge, 1842), that a MS. of the
Weichert has collected with much industry, and combined with much ingenuity all that can be fixed with certainty, or surmised with probability concerning Varius, but he is obliged to acknowledge that with the exception of the few facts detailed above everything which has been advanced, rests upon simple conjecture. See his essay, " De Lucii Varii et Cassii Parmensis Vita et Carminibus," 8vo. Grim. 1836.