Publius Terentius Varro Atacinus (82 BC – ca. 35 BC) was an early Roman poet

Latin poetry

The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus are the earliest Latin literature that has survived, composed around 205-184 BC, yet the start of Latin literature is conventionally dated to the first performance of a play in verse by a...

, more polished than the more famous and learned Varro Reatinus

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...

, his contemporary, and more widely read by the Augustans, who apparently dared not mention the other Varro's name. He was born in the province of Gallia Narbonensis

Gallia Narbonensis

Gallia Narbonensis was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. It was also known as Gallia Transalpina , which was originally a designation for that part of Gaul lying across the Alps from Italia and it contained a western region known as Septimania...

, the southern part of Gaul

Gaul

Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...

 with its capital at Narbonne

Narbonne

Narbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...

, on the river Atax (now the Aude

Aude River

The Aude River is a river of southwestern France. Its source is in the Pyrenees mountains and it then runs to Carcassonne and turns, reaching the Mediterranean Sea near Narbonne...

), for his cognomen

Cognomen

The cognomen nōmen "name") was the third name of a citizen of Ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. The cognomen started as a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name in order to identify a particular branch within...

 Atacinus indicates his birthplace.

Only fragments of his works survive. His first known works are Bellum Sequanicum, a poem on Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

's campaign against Ariovistus

Ariovistus

Ariovistus was a leader of the Suebi and other allied Germanic peoples in the second quarter of the 1st century BC. He and his followers took part in a war in Gaul, assisting the Arverni and Sequani to defeat their rivals the Aedui, after which they settled in large numbers in conquered Gallic...

, and some satires; these should not be confused with the Menippean Satires of the other Varro, of which some 600 fragments survive. He translated the Alexandrian poet Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica into Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

.

Of Varro's fragments, the epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

 on "The Tombs of the Great" is well-known; whether or not it is truly Varro's it has the terse and skeptical Roman note, the equivalent of a haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

:

Marmoreo Licinus tumulo iacet, at Cato

Cato the Younger

Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis , commonly known as Cato the Younger to distinguish him from his great-grandfather , was a politician and statesman in the late Roman Republic, and a follower of the Stoic philosophy...

 nullo,

Pompeius

Pompey

Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...

paruo: credimus esse deos?

("In a marble tomb [the freedman] Licinus lies; yet Cato lies in none

and Pompey in but a small one: Do we believe there are gods?")