[95]
There is, however, another
and even older type of satire which derives its
variety not merely from verse, but from an admixture of prose as well. Such were the satires
composed by Terentius Varro,1 the most learned
of all Romans. He composed a vast number of
erudite works, and possessed an extraordinary knowledge of the Latin language, of all antiquity and
of the history of Greece and Rome. But he is
an author likely to contribute more to the knowledge of the student than to his eloquence.
1 His Menippean Satires, of which only fragments survive. Although ostensibly an imitation of the work of the Greek Menippus of Gadara, they can still be said to belong to the older type of satire, the “medley” or “hotch-potch.”
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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