"[2] Despite this low birth, on his father's death he used the inheritance to embark on a public career, making his name by prosecuting those of higher status and progressing through the various magistracies of the cursus honorum, holding the quaestorship and both the plebeian and curule aedileships.
[6][7] The two armies met at Cannae where the inexperienced Varro, using his day in command, pressed Paullus to attack while ordering a short battle line.
Later in the year, he was again recalled to Rome to appoint Marcus Fabius Buteo as a second dictator, specifically for the purpose of promoting senators to replace those killed at Cannae.
[14] Varro was prorogued in his position for the year 215 BCE, maintaining command of the force he had consolidated at Apulia,[15] before being sent to Picenum to levy new soldiers and guard the region.
[19][20] After leaving Picenum, Varro was next recorded as being a Propraetor, a citizen imbued with the authority of a praetor, charged with subduing a potential rebellion in the Etrurian town of Arretium.
[citation needed] For the first role, Varro was part of a three-man diplomatic legation to North Africa, tasked with visiting Carthage, and senior Numidians.
[citation needed] For the second role, Varro also returned to Venusia, serving as one of the three triumviri coloniae ducendae, charged with increasing the local population by adding new colonists after the town's losses during the Second Punic War.