Lucius Varius Rufus

Horace spoke of him as a master of epic and the only poet capable of celebrating the achievements of Vipsanius Agrippa (Odes, i.6); Virgil (under the name of Lycidas, Ecl. Ix.35) regretted that he had hitherto produced nothing comparable to the work of Varius or Helvius Cinna. Macrobius (Saturnalia, vi. I, 39; 2, 19) states 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 alluded to another epic, and, according to the scholiast on Epistles, i.16, 2 729, these three lines were taken bodily from a panegyric of Varius on Augustus. Varius's most famous literary production was the tragedy Thyestes, which Quintilian (Inst. Orat. X.1, 98) declared fit to rank with any of the Greek tragedies. A didascalia on the play, preserved in a Paris manuscript, states that it was produced at the games celebrated in 29 BC by Octavian in honour of the victory at Actium, and that Varius received a present of a million sesterces from the Roman ruler. Fragments of Varius's works are located in E. Poetarum Romanorum (1886); monographs by A. Weichert (1836) and R. Unger (1870, 1878, 1898); Martin Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Litteratur (1899), ii.1; Teuffel, Hist. Of Roman Literature (Eng. Trans, 1900), 223.

• Name — Lucius Varius Rufus • Born — c. 74 BC • Died — 14 BC (aged about 60) • Occupation — Poet • Language — Latin • Period — Augustan poetry • Notable Works — Thyestes, De Morte