In this way no doubt a multitude of thick tomes might very quickly come into existence - "They are copies", wrote the author himself to a friend who wondered at his fertility; "they give me little trouble, for I supply only the words and these I have in abundance". Against this nothing further could be said; but any one who seeks classical productions in works so written can only be advised to study in literary matters a becoming silence.
Of the sciences only a single one manifested vigorous life, that of Latin philology. The scheme of linguistic and antiquarian research within the domain of the Latin race, planned by Silo, was carried out especially by his disciple Varro on the grandest scale. There appeared comprehensive elaborations of the whole stores of the language, more especially the extensive grammatical commentaries of Figulus and the great work of Varro De Lingua Latina; monographs on grammar and the history of the language, such as Varro's writings on the usage of the Latin language, on synonyms, on the age of the letters, on the origin of the Latin tongue; scholia on the older literature, especially on Plautus; works of literary history, biographies of poets, investigations into the earlier drama, into the scenic division of the comedies of Plautus, and into their genuineness. Latin archaeology, which embraced the whole older history and the ritual law apart from practical jurisprudence, was comprehended in Varro's "Antiquities of Things Human and Divine", which was and for all times remained the fundamental treatise on the subject (published between 687 and 709). The first portion, "Of Things Human" described the primeval age of Rome, the divisions of city and country, the sciences of the years, months, and days, lastly, the public transactions at home and in war; in the second half, "Of Things Divine", the state-theology, the nature and significance of the colleges of experts, of the holy places, of the religious festivals, of sacrificial and votive gifts, and lastly of the gods themselves were summarily unfolded. Moreover, besides a number of monographs - e. g. on the descent of the Roman people, on the Roman gentes descended from Troy, on the tribes - there was added, as a larger and more independent supplement, the treatise "Of the Life of the Roman People" - a remarkable attempt at a history of Roman manners, which sketched a picture of the state of domestic life, finance, and culture in the regal, the early republican, the Hannibalic, and the most recent period. These labours of Varro were based on an empiric knowledge of the Roman world and its adjacent Hellenic domain more various and greater in its kind than any other Roman either before or after him possessed - a knowledge to which living observation and the study of literature alike contributed.
The eulogy of his contemporaries was well deserved, that Varro had enabled his countrymen - strangers in their own world - to know their position in their native land, and had taught the Romans who and where they were. But criticism and system will be sought for in vain. His Greek information seems to have come from somewhat confused sources, and there are traces that even in the Roman field the writer was not free from the influence of the historical romance of his time. The matter is doubtless inserted in a convenient and symmetrical framework, but not classified or treated methodically; and with all his efforts to bring tradition and personal observation into harmony, the scientific labours of Varro are not to be acquitted of a certain implicit faith in tradition or of an unpractical scholasticism[38]. The connection with Greek philology consists in the imitation of its defects more than of its excellences; for instance, the basing of etymologies on mere similarity of sound both in Varro himself and in the other philologues of this epoch runs into pure guesswork and often into downright absurdity[39]. In its empiric confidence and copiousness as well as in its empiric inadequacy and want of method the Varronian vividly reminds us of the English national philology, and just like the latter, finds its centre in the study of the older drama. We have already observed that the monarchical literature developed the rules of language in contradistinction to this linguistic empiricism[40]. It is in a high degree significant that there stands at the head of the modern grammarians no less a man than Caesar himself, who in his treatise on Analogy (given forth between 696 and 704) first undertook to bring free language under the power of law.
Alongside of this extraordinary stir in the field of philology The small amount of activity in the other sciences is surprising. What appeared of importance in philosophy - such as Lucretius' representation of the Epicurean system in the poetical child-dress of the pre-Socratic philosophy, and the better writings of Cicero - produced its effect and found its audience not through its philosophic contents, but in spite of such contents solely through its aesthetic form; the numerous translations of Epicurean writings and the Pythagorean works, such as Varro's great treatise on the Elements of Numbers and the still more copious one of Figulus concerning the Gods, had beyond doubt neither scientific nor formal value.
Even the professional sciences were but feebly cultivated. Varro's Books on Husbandry written in the form of dialogue are no doubt more methodical than those of his predecessors Cato and Saserna - on which accordingly he drops many a side glance of censure - but have on the whole proceeded more from the study than, like those earlier works, from living experience. Of the juristic labours of Varro and of Servius Sulpicius Rufus (consul in 703) hardly aught more can be said, than that they contributed to the dialectic and philosophical embellishment of Roman jurisprudence. And there is nothing farther here to be mentioned, except perhaps the three books of Gaius Matius on cooking, pickling, and making preserves - so far as we know, the earliest Roman cookery-book, and, as the work of a man of rank, certainly a phenomenon deserving of notice.
That mathematics and physics were stimulated by the increased Hellenistic and utilitarian tendencies of the monarchy, is apparent from their growing importance in the instruction of youth[41] and from various practical applications; under which, besides the reform of the calendar[42], may perhaps be included the appearance of wall-maps at this period, the technical improvements in shipbuilding and in musical instruments, designs and buildings like the aviary specified by Varro, the bridge of piles over the Rhine executed by the engineers of Caesar, and even two semicircular stages of boards arranged for being pushed together, and employed first separately as two theatres and then jointly as an amphitheatre.
The public exhibition of foreign natural curiosities at the popular festivals was not unusual; and the descriptions of remarkable animals, which Caesar has embodied in the reports of his campaigns, show that, had an Aristotle appeared, he would have again found his patron-prince. But such literary performances as are mentioned in this department are essentially associated with Neopythagoreanism, such as the comparison of Greek and Barbarian, i. e. Egyptian, celestial observations by Figulus, and his writings concerning animals, winds, and generative organs. After Greek physical research generally had swerved from the Aristotelian effort to find amidst individual facts the law, and had more and more passed into an empiric and mostly uncritical observation of the external and surprising in nature, natural science when coming forward as a mystical philosophy of nature, instead of enlightening and stimulating, could only still more stupefy and paralyze; and in presence of such a method it was better to rest satisfied with the platitude which Cicero delivers as Socratic wisdom, that the investigation of nature either seeks after things which nobody can know, or after such things as nobody needs to know.
38. A remarkable example is the general exposition regarding cattle in the treatise on Husbandry (ii. 1) with the nine times nine subdivisions of the doctrine of cattle-rearing, with the "incredible but true" fact that the mares at Olisipo (Lisbon) become pregnant by the wind, and generally with its singular mixture of philosophical, historical, and agricultural notices.
39. Thus Varro derives