Virgil and Varus?

[Epictetus]

I’ve been reading Virgil’s Eclogues (brilliant, by the way) and noticed that Eclogue VI addresses a Varus. In the notes of my very old copy the translator / commentator wonders if this is Publius Quinctilius Varus who famously lost the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

I can’t quite figure out why this Varus would be the one mentioned in the poem, but evidently a fourth-century commentator on Virgil also considered the possibility.

Virgil would have been over 20 years older than this Varus, I think, and the Eclogues were an early work (that linked page suggests it was written in 37 BC!) so I’m doubtful. Does anyone know any more about this?

[Jona Lendering]

I think that the identification is based on the elimination of other possibilities. The man or woman who commented the text, must have thought that because Varus' father Sextus Quinctilius Varus had committed suicide at Philippi, his son was the only possible alternative.

As far as I know, our sources mention that Publius Quinctilius Varus had a sister; he may have had brothers as well, but we do not know them.

[john roberts]

Likely an otherwise forgotten Varus, or possibly a pseudonym for someone else entirely. Many of the poems of Catullus are addressed to Cato, not the famous Marcus Porcius Cato who was contemporary with Catullus, but a Veronese poet of the same name.

[Epictetus]

And I've discovered another theory. A Publius Alfenus Varus was one of the three land commissioners who redistributed land to veterans. Virgil’s father probably lost the family farm this way, and some of Virgil’s poems specifically detail the heartache of those who lost their ancestral land to soldiers.

[Vindex]

And I've discovered another theory. A Publius Alfenus Varus was one of the three land commissioners who redistributed land to veterans. Virgil’s father probably lost the family farm this way, and some of Virgil’s poems specifically detail the heartache of those who lost their ancestral land to soldiers.

That sounds reasonable enough to me. As Varus of the disaster had risen to such a high Army rank he must have been from a politically active "genus". I've a book somewhere on patronage and families from the Late Republic, must go and dig it out.