All Topics  
Lucius Varius Rufus

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Lucius Varius Rufus
 
 
  Topics Lucius Varius Rufus Topic Home

Lucius Varius Rufus (ca. 74 - 14 BC), Roman poet of the Augustan age.

He was the friend of Virgil
Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
, after whose death he and Plotius Tucca
Plotius Tucca

Plotius Tucca was a ancient Rome Roman poetry and a friend of Virgil's. He was in the circle of friends with Virgil and Maecenas, as indicated by Horace ....
 prepared the Aeneid
Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
 for publication, and of Horace
Horace

This article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English language world as Horace, was the leading Roman Empire Lyric poetry during the time of Augustus....
, for whom he and Virgil obtained an introduction to Maecenas. Horace speaks of him as a master of epic and the only poet capable of celebrating the achievements of Vipsanius Agrippa
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a Roman statesman and general. He was a close friend, son-in-law, lieutenant and minister to Octavian, the future emperor Caesar Augustus....
 (Odes, i. 6); Virgil (under the name of Lycidas, Ecl.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Lucius Varius Rufus'
Start a new discussion about 'Lucius Varius Rufus'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Lucius Varius Rufus (ca. 74 - 14 BC), Roman poet of the Augustan age.

He was the friend of Virgil
Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works?the Bucolics , the Georgics and the Aeneid?although several Appendix Vergiliana are also attributed to him....
, after whose death he and Plotius Tucca
Plotius Tucca

Plotius Tucca was a ancient Rome Roman poetry and a friend of Virgil's. He was in the circle of friends with Virgil and Maecenas, as indicated by Horace ....
 prepared the Aeneid
Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin Epic poetry written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Rome....
 for publication, and of Horace
Horace

This article is about the Roman poet Horace. For other uses, see Horace .Quintus Horatius Flaccus, , known in the English language world as Horace, was the leading Roman Empire Lyric poetry during the time of Augustus....
, for whom he and Virgil obtained an introduction to Maecenas. Horace speaks of him as a master of epic and the only poet capable of celebrating the achievements of Vipsanius Agrippa
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a Roman statesman and general. He was a close friend, son-in-law, lieutenant and minister to Octavian, the future emperor Caesar Augustus....
 (Odes, i. 6); Virgil (under the name of Lycidas, Ecl. ix. 35) regrets that he had hitherto produced nothing comparable to the work of Varius or Helvius Cinna
Helvius Cinna

Gaius Helvius Cinna was a poet of the late Roman Republic.Practically nothing is known of his life except that he was the friend of Catullus, whom he accompanied to Bithynia in the suite of the praetor Gaius Memmius ....
.

From Macrobius (Saturnalia, vi. I, 39; 2, 19) we learn that Varius composed an epic poem De Morte, some lines of which are quoted as having been imitated or appropriated by Virgil; Horace (Sat. i. 10, 43) probably alludes to another epic, and, according to the scholiast on Epistles, j. 16, 2 729, these three lines are taken bodily from a panegyric
Panegyric

A panegyric is a formal public speech , or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or object , a generally highly studied and discriminating eulogy, not expected to be critical....
 of Varius on Augustus.

But his most famous literary production was the tragedy Thyestes, which Quintilian
Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman Empire rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in Middle ages schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing....
 (Inst. Orat. x. 1, 98) declares fit to rank with any of the Greek tragedies. The didascalia (which is preserved in a Paris manuscript) informs us that it was produced at the games celebrated (29 BC) by Augustus in honour of the victory at Actium
Battle of Actium

The Battle of Actium was the final engagement in the Final War of the Roman Republic. It was fought between the forces of Augustus and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII....
, and that Varius received a present of a million sesterces from the emperor.

Fragments in E. Bahrens, Frag. Poetarum Romanorum (1886); monographs by A. Weichert (1836) and R. Unger (1870, 1878, 1898); Martin Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur (1899), ii. 1; Teuffel
Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel

Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel , German classics, was born at Ludwigsburg in the kingdom of W?rttemberg. In 1849 he was appointed extraordinary, in 1857 ordinary professor in the university of T?bingen, which post he held till his death....
, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. trans., 1900), 223.