he prose groundwork of which was inlaid
with various poetical effusions. The former were the "philosophico-
historical dissertations" (-logistorici-), the latter the Menippean
Satires. In neither case did he follow Latin models,
and the -Satura- of Varro in particular was by no means based
on that of Lucilius. In fact the Roman -Satura- in general
was not properly a fixed species of art, but only indicated negatively
the fact that the "multifarious poem" was not to be included
under any of the recognized forms of art; and accordingly the -Satura-
poetry assumed in the hands of every gifted poet a different and peculiar
character. It was rather in the pre-Alexandrian Greek philosophy
that Varro found the models for his more severe as well as
for his lighter aesthetic works; for the graver dissertations,
in the dialogues of Heraclides of Heraclea on the Black Sea
(d. about 450), for the satires, in the writings of Menippus of Gadara
in Syria (flourishing about 475). The choice was significant.
Heraclides, stimulated as an author by Plato's philosophic
dialogues, had amidst the brilliance of their form totally
lost sight of the scientific contents and made the poetico-fabulistic
dress the main matter; he was an agreeable and largely-read author,
but far from a philosopher. Menippus was quite as little
a philosopher, but the most genuine literary representative
of that philosophy whose wisdom consisted in denying philosophy
and ridiculing philosophers the cynical wisdom of Diogenes;
a comic teacher of serious wisdom, he proved by examples
and merry sayings that except an upright life everything is vain
in earth and heaven, and nothing more vain than the disputes
of so-called sages. These were the true models for Varro,
a man full of old Roman indignation at the pitiful times and full
of old Roman humour, by no means destitute withal of plastic talent
but as to everything which presented the appearance not of palpable fact
but of idea or even of system, utterly stupid, and perhaps
the most unphilosophical among the unphilosophical Romans.(23)
But Varro was no slavish pupil. The impulse and in general
the form he derived from Heraclides and Menippus; but his was a nature
too individual and too decidedly Roman not to keep his imitative
creations essentially independent and national.

Varro's Philosophico-Historical Essays

For his grave dissertations, in which a moral maxim
or other subject of general interest is h