When the civil war broke out he was one of Pompeius' lieutenants in Farther Spain, and resisted Caesar without success (Caes. _B.C._ ii. 17-20). From Spain he withdrew to Epirus, where he was coldly received by the Pompeians (Cic. _ad Fam._ ix. 6, 3, 'crudeliter otiosis minabantur, eratque eis et tua invisa voluntas et mea oratio'). We hear of him at Corcyra (_R.R._ i. 4), and at Dyrrhachium a few days before the battle of Pharsalus (Cic. _de Div._ i. 68). After Caesar's victory he lived quietly at his Tusculan villa (Cic. _ad Fam._ ix. 6, 4, 'his tempestatibus es prope solus in portu ... equidem hos tuos Tusculanenses dies instar esse vitae puto'). He was more easily reconciled than Cicero to the new government, and was made librarian by Caesar: Sueton. _Iul._ 44, 'Destinabat bibliothecas Graecas Latinasque quas maximas posset publicare, data M. Varroni cura comparandarum ac digerendarum.' This, however, did not prevent him writing a funeral oration on Cato's sister Porcia (Cic. _ad Att._ xiii. 48, 2). After Caesar's death Varro was exposed to the persecution of Antonius, whose raid on his villa at Casinum is vividly described by Cicero (_Phil._ ii. 103 _sqq._). He was proscribed, but the devotion of his friends secured his escape (Appian _B.C._ iv. 47). His old age was spent in peace, the literary activity for which his whole life was remarkable being maintained to the end. At the age of eighty-three he was still writing: Plin. _N.H._ xxix. 65, 'Cunctarer in proferendo ex his remedio, ni M. Varro lxxxiii vitae anno prodidisset,' etc. Varro's death took place in B.C. 27, in his ninetieth year. Jerome yr. Abr. 1990, 'M. Terentius Varro philosophus prope nonagenarius moritur.' (2) WORKS. Cicero (_ad Att._ xiii. 18) calls Varro 'homo πολυγραφώτατος,' and Varro himself said that he had written four hundred and ninety Books by the end of his seventy-seventh year: Gell. iii. 10, 17, 'Addit se quoque iam duodecimam annorum hebdomadam ingressum esse et ad eum diem septuaginta hebdomadas librorum conscripsisse.' A letter of Jerome[30] gives a list of thirty-nine works in four hundred and ninety Books, admitting at the same time that these were only half of the total number ('vix medium descripsi indicem'). The titles of twenty-one other works are known from various sources. 1. _Agriculture._--Of this enormous number only one has survived in a complete form, the treatise _De Re Rustica_ in three Books, in the form of a dialogue. Book i. treats of agriculture; ii. of stock-raising; iii. of poultry, game, and fish. It was written B.C. 37-6: _R.R._ i. 1, 1, 'Annus octogesimus admonet me ut sarcinas colligam ante quam proficiscar e vita.'