During
the wars with the pirates (in which he obtained the naval crown) and
with Mithridates, he held a high command, and after supporting Pompey
and the senate during the civil struggles, he was compelled to
surrender to C?sar (though he was not changed in his opinions), and
passed over to Greece, where he was finally overcome by the dictator,
and owed his subsequent opportunities for study to the clemency of his
conqueror, who gave him pardon after the battle of Pharsalia. All the
rest of his life was passed aloof from the storm that raged around him,
the circumstances of his proscription and pardon being the only
indication of his personal connection with it. He died in the year 28
B.C., after the temple of Janus had been closed the third time, when
Augustus had entered upon the enjoyment of his absolute power.
Of nearly five hundred works that Varro is said to have written, one
only has come down to our time complete, though some portions of
another are also preserved. The first is a laboriously methodical and
thorough treatise on agriculture. The other work (a treatise on Latin
grammar) is of value in its mutilated and imperfect state (it seems
never to have received its author's final revision), because it
preserves many terms and forms that would otherwise have been lost,
besides much curious information concerning ancient civil and religious
usages.
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