Talk:Marcus Terentius Varro

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Do all the citation needed signs really need to be there?

Reciting common scholarly knowledge shouldn't have to be footnoted, university's don't require it!!

I think you'll find that the citations are needed since the detailed lives of ancient figures are not just known by common knowledge but are usually found in a later writer's works, and those works should be cited. Furthermore, those who question the accuracy of Varro's chronolgy should be cited, just as those should be who support it, since Roman historiography is a much-debated topic. Finally, universities do require it, and you'll lose marks in a paper if you don't cite sources, and can even face accusations of plagiarism. This is true of all scholarly works! ste175

An observation in passing: the article talks about how Varro found, under the rule of Augustus, the peace and security necessary to pursue his writing; but Varro's death date is cited as 27 BCE, the year that Augustus came to power. There's probably a perfectly good explanation and I haven't time to look it up, but somebody who does might address this problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.92.6.219 (talk) 11:13, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Partial fix
I came here expecting just to pop in a link to the de Re Rustica now online at LacusCurtius, then go away; but found the article a mess, so spent some time fixing it. It needs more.

I agree with the first writer above; common scholarly knowledge need not be footnoted or marked "citation needed"; it just looks very dumb.

Several things were said twice; I tightened up the article to say them only once.

One item was said three times, and the one time it was attributed, it was attributed wrong: to "Cicero and Augustine"; it was said by Quintilian, and the reference is now in the article. The danger of people who haven't read an author building an encyclopedia article on secondary works about him! In fact, not one of the secondary sources quoted was worth keeping in there, because they were either wrong, or I could insert the primary citation directly in the text, as in the case of the microbiology item. The Britannica reference I removed on different grounds: if we're building an encyclopedia, why do we then send people off to another encyclopedia? (Question answers itself: because we know this one is not very good, and that one is — but let's be optimistic, folks.)

If some really wants to fix this, they should read the literature out there; can't do any harm to start by reading the Loeb intro to the R.R., onsite at Lacus. I do plan on putting the L.L. up as well, and it has its own Loeb intro, providing Wikipedia more stuff to pillage. Those of you with access to JSTOR could use the articles in the journals there. Bill 18:28, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I would rarely disagree with Bill Thayer, whose work I admire tremendously. But on one small point I will: On Wikipedia, admittedly excessive annotation of "common" scholarly knowledge accomplishes a couple of things. One, it shows less experienced editors and (more to the point) users that knowledge does and ought to come from somewhere; moreover, there is no such thing these days as "common knowledge" on any topic pertaining to the ancient world, except within a very tiny world of professional scholars and serious amateurs. Read the introduction to the article on the "De rerum natura" of Lucretius (if you can stomach it — I couldn't make it past a few sentences); even the person who dared to write it (angels fear to tread) has no concept of what "common knowledge" of Lucretius ought in outline to consist of, let alone what the basic scholarly questions pertaining to this poem are.

Second, annotation is a form of defensiveness (I do mean "defensiveness," and not just "defense") against sprinklings of. I've noticed that thickly annotated articles are less likely to fall prey to ignorant diddling. I frequently annotate with both the ancient source and one or two modern sources who discuss the passage; many Wikipedia contributors and users lack the intellectual framework for understanding the ancient sources or even for penetrating the veil of Victorian idiom that overlays most translations available to them online. In many cases, those writing articles on Latin literature clearly have no or minimal understanding of Latin. They base their claims to competence on ... what?

On the other hand, I would agree that references to secondary material are often poorly chosen, without any awareness of which works are most significant, what the points of debate are, or what the history of the relevant scholarship might be. I would also say that "neutrality" is confused with "consensus" — on some important questions, particularly pertaining to literary questions, there is no consensus, but major strands of thought, some of them contradictory. Talk pages tend to debate (often naively) points on which consensus does not or maybe even cannot exist, instead of somebody providing a useful summary of the questions. One need not (and should not try to) resolve the question of whether Vergil was "pro-Augustan" or dared to offer the Princeps criticism via the Aeneid; but it can safely be stated that this question has often been addressed by scholars and literary critics. Instead, one is likely to find that the talk page goes on and on about which position is right, and that meanwhile the entire matter has been excised from the article on grounds that it violates the policy of "neutrality." (I offer this as a hypothetical example; I have no idea whether this has been an issue with the Aeneid article, which currently holds to the "glorification" line.) Cynwolfe (talk) 17:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hear hear- "Pro" citations of all supposed 'common knowledge'- most esp. in literate/historic topics. Well presented Cynwolfe|t. #3 in the Good article criteria, the principles of Broadness have precedence over principles of "Neutrality" at #4. "Neutrality" never prevents Broadness, but requires it. Hilarleo (talk) 23:01, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Ab Urbe Condita
I am very surprise this doesn't at all mention ab urbe condita I am trying to look for the date he determined 753 BC as Ab urbe condita and it doesn't even mention it! -- Rayqayza Dialga Weird 2210  16:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Rerum rusticarum libri III versus De re rustica
Under the Extant works subsection this work is called Rerum rusticarum libri III but in the External links section it's called De re rustica. This is confusing, I used the latter title because that's how others reference this work, but what is the real title? Or can't we settle on one title because the two are used interchangebly? To add to the confusion Brittanica uses the title Res rustica. AlexanderVanLoon (talk) 10:30, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Pronunciation
The WP:LEADSENTENCE previously had. (A) This is the English Wikipedia; the English pronunciation is entirely unambiguous (compare Gaius (jurist) where the guide is to English pronunciation that might be unclear otherwise); and the reconstructed classical Latin pronunciation will never guide correct English pronunciation of the name. (B) The "Latin" pronunciation is entirely reconstructed, specious, and unused by the few (ecclesiastical) speakers of Latin still alive. (C) The curious for what that reconstruction are should be looking at Vicipaedia or Wiktionary, not here. (D) For anyone who feels strongly to the contrary, it still should not be cluttering the which is only for the most important essential information, which imaginary pronunciations of a dead language aren't. (Caesar eg might skate on this since the actual Latin pronunciation guides how his name gets used in many other languages and in important words like Kaiser. Varro isn't in the same league.) Instead, what would be useful for our  would be a #Name section that links through to articles about Marcus (praenomen) or (given name) and the gens Terentia, which should include discussion of the family's cognomina like Varro. The classical Latin pronunciations would be appropriate on those name-focused articles, as opposed to here. — Llywelyn II   04:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Varro ap. Solin. 1.17
For anyone else hunting in vain for an explanation of this abbreviation, it doesn't refer to any work by Varro but to Varro as cited in Solinus's Polyhistor, Bk. 1, ch. 17. — Llywelyn II   10:38, 31 December 2023 (UTC)