66. The Varus of c. 10 is apparently identical with the Varus of c. 22, who is a friend of Catullus and a critic of poetry, if not a poet himself. This may well be the distinguished Quintilius Varus, the Augustan critic (Hor. AP. 438 ff.) and poet (Acro and Comm. Cruq. on l.c.). He is called a native of Cremona; and his death in 23 B.C. (according to Jerome) drew from Horace a touching address of sympathy to Vergil (Carm. 1.24). Judged from the tone of the passage in the Ars Poetica , Quintilius must have been somewhat older than Horace, while yet he could hardly have been born long, if at all, before Catullus. The attempt to identify the Varus of c. 10 and c. 2 with Alfenus Varus of c. 30 is unsatisfactory.
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Catullus. Catullus. E. T. Merrill. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1893.
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