He had his share of active life, but it was as a scholar that he distinguished himself.[4] Belonging to the aristocratic party, he became a friend and supporter of Pompey, and, after holding a naval command under him in the war against the Pirates in B.C. 67, was his legatus in Spain at the beginning of the civil wars and there surrendered to Caesar.  He was again on the losing side at the battle of Pharsalia, but was pardoned by Caesar, who selected him to be librarian of the public library he proposed to establish at Rome.[5] From this time Varro eschewed politics and devoted himself to letters, although his troubles were not yet at an end:  after the death of Caesar, the ruthless Antony despoiled his villa at Casinum (where Varro had built the aviary described in book Three), and like Cicero he was included in the proscriptions which followed the compact of the triumvirs, but in the end unlike Cicero he escaped and spent his last years peacefully at his villas at Cumae and Tusculum.

His literary activity was astonishing:  he wrote at least six hundred books covering a wide range of antiquarian research.  St. Augustine, who dearly loved to turn a balanced phrase, says that Varro had read so much that it is difficult to understand when he found time to write, while on the other hand he wrote so much that one can scarcely read all his books.  Cicero, who claimed him as an intimate friend, describes (Acad.  Ill) what Varro had written before B.C. 46, but he went on producing to the end of his long life, eighteen years later:  “For,” says Cicero, “while we are sojourners, so to speak, in our own city and wandering about like strangers, your books have conducted us, as it were, home again, so as to enable us at last to recognize who and whence we are.  You have discussed the antiquities of our country and the variety of dates and chronology relating to it.  You have explained the laws which regulate sacrifices and priests:  you have unfolded the customs of the city both in war and peace:  you have described the various quarters and districts:  you have omitted mentioning none of the names, or kinds, or functions, or causes of divine or human things:  you have thrown a flood of light on our poets and altogether on Latin literature and the Latin language:  you have yourself composed a poem of varied beauties and elegant in almost every part:  and you have in many places touched upon philosophy in a manner sufficient to excite our curiosity, though inadequate to instruct us.”

Of Varro’s works, beside the Rerum Rusticarum, there have survived only fragments, including a considerable portion of the treatise on the Latin language:  the story is that most of his books were deliberately destroyed at the procurement of the Church (something not impossible, as witness the Emperor Theodosius in Corpus Juris Civilis.  Cod.  Lib.  I, tit.  I, cap. 3, Sec.  I) to conceal St. Augustine’s plagiarism from them; yet the De Civitate Dei, which is largely devoted to refuting Varro’s pagan theology, is a perennial monument to his fame.  St. Augustine says (VI, 2):  “Although his elocution has less charm, he is so full of learning and philosophy that ... he instructs the student of facts as much as Cicero delights the student of style.”