Marcus Terentius Varro

He always remained close to his roots in the area, owning a large farm in the Reatine plain (reported as near Lago di Ripasottile,[3]) until his old age.

As the Republic gave way to the Empire c. 27 BC, Varro gained the favour of Augustus, under whose protection he found the security and quiet to devote himself to study and writing.

[8] Varro decided to focus on identifying[citation needed] nine of these arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, musical theory, medicine, and architecture.

Using Varro's list, mediated through Martianus Capella's early-5th century allegory, subsequent writers defined the seven classical "liberal arts" of the medieval schools.

[14] Varro was recognized as an important source by many other ancient authors, among them Cicero, Pliny the Elder, Virgil in the Georgics, Columella, Aulus Gellius, Macrobius, Augustine, and Vitruvius, who credits him (VII.Intr.14) with a book on architecture.

His only complete work extant, Rerum rusticarum libri tres ("Three Books on Agriculture"), has been described as "the well digested system of an experienced and successful farmer who has seen and practised all that he records.

Varro warned his readers to avoid swamps and marshland, since in such areas ...there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, but which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and cause serious diseases.