Symmachus' Varro: Latin Letters in Late Antiquity
Michele Salzman2018, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London
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Symmachus opened his first book of letters by writing to his father Avianius, whom he depicted as a 'new Varro' writing learned epigrams on seven famous men in imitation of Varro's lost work, the Hebdomades. Symmachus was not alone in using Varro's work as an intertext. Based on my study of allusions to Varro and his works by late-fourth and fifth-century writers, I argue that Christian polemicists renewed their attacks on the Augustan scholar in the last decades of the fourth century. Consequently, Symmachus' choice of Varro was a forceful response in support of Roman religious as well as literary traditions in the late 380s or early 390s, the period in which I would date the dissemination of the first book of Symmachus' letters and the conceptualization of his seven-book letter collection. 7 Cameron's later date for book 1 (after 394) denies contemporary fear of Christian hostility by pagans (2016a: 94-96); Kelly (2016) has argued for an earlier date (380-381); while Sogno (2017) has questioned the influence of Varro on Symmachus' letters. All three favour a seven-book collection, but even that has been disputed. See, e.g., Bodel 2015: 21 (arguing for a nine-book collection of private letters followed by one book of public letters).
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