[Sidenote: Varro’s extant works.] The _Menippean Satires_ were written in prose interspersed with verses, in imitation of the works of the Cynic Menippus, who lived about 300 B. C., and probably belong to Varro’s earlier years. They treat of almost all the relations of human life in a satirical vein. The extant verses show some ability in metrical composition and no little humor. It is evident, however, that Varro was not a great poet, and the loss of his other poems is little to be regretted. The three books _On Agriculture_ give, in the form of a dialogue, a systematic treatment of agriculture proper, of stock-raising, and of poultry, game, and fish. The dialogue is stiff, and the arrangement of the different parts of the subject artificial. The work is valuable for the information it contains, but its literary form is unattractive. The extant books of the treatise _On the Latin Language_ are chiefly concerned with the derivation of words and with inflections. Syntax was treated in books xiv-xxv. Varro’s etymologies are often incorrect, and his ideas concerning inflections unscientific; but the work contains much that is of value to the student of the Latin language and of Roman antiquities. The style is dry and often dull. In fact, this is hardly a work of literature, but rather a technical treatise. Varro was a man of great learning and prodigious industry, but not a literary artist. [Sidenote: The Antiquitates and the Imagines.] Among his lost works the most important were probably the _Human and Divine Antiquities_ (_Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum Humanarumque_), in forty-one books, and the _Portraits_ (_Hebdomades_, or _Imagines_), in fifteen books. The latter work contained brief accounts in prose and verse of seven hundred famous Greeks and Romans, with their portraits. Varro’s works were vast treasure-houses of information, but there is no reason to suppose that they possessed any great literary qualities. The remaining prose writers of this period may be passed over with a brief mention. Many of them are little more than names to us, and the works of all are lost. [Sidenote: Atticus.] One of the most interesting is Titus Pomponius Atticus (109-32 B. C.), whose biography was written by Cornelius Nepos. He was a wealthy man, who abstained from public life and devoted himself to literature by publishing the works of others and giving friendly aid to literary men as well as by writing. His friendship with Cicero has already been mentioned. His works were historical, the most important being the _Annals_ (_Liber Annalis_), a chronological sketch of Roman history from the foundation of the city to the year 49 B. C. His other works were biographies or genealogies, and descriptive verses written to accompany portraits of distinguished men.