"Varus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as I was idly roaming Varus took me a merry dame to visit. She a lady, methought upon the moment, Of some quality, not ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... process of years, and by no means a speedy conquest. The closing years of Augustus' reign were clouded by a general rising of the Rhine peoples. Quintilius Varus, an officer who had been entrusted with the government of the provinces beyond the Rhine, proved totally unequal to curbing the bolder spirits among the Germans, who under their chief, Arminius, boldly challenged the forces of this short-sighted officer. Arminius belonged to the Cherusci. He ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... found in the administrator of the district, Gaius Asinius Pollio, himself a distinguished critic and man of letters, a powerful and active patron. By his influence and that of his friends, Cornelius Gallus and Alfenus Varus—the former a soldier and poet, the latter an eminent jurist, who both had been fellow-students of Virgil at Rome—Virgil was compensated by an estate in Campania, and introduced to the intimate circle of Octavianus, ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... elements seemed leagued with the Russians to destroy the most formidable army ever commanded by one chief. To find a catastrophe in history comparable to that of the Beresina we must go back to the destruction of the legions of Varus. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... his horse before him, with orders to engage the enemy, and delay their march till he himself should come up. That his orders might be faithfully performed, Quintus Atius Varus, general of the horse, a man of uncommon spirit and skill, encouraged his men, and pursuing the enemy, disposed some of his troops in convenient places, and with the rest gave battle to the enemy. ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... bestow, or the imagination require in the treatment of so sublime a scene. His Lordship admitted, that in possessing so affecting an incident as the discovery of the bones of the Halkets, it was superior even to that of the search for the remains of the army of Varus; the transaction, however, being little known, and not recorded by any historian, he thought it would not be interesting to the public. Other engagements have since prevented Mr. West from attempting it on his own account. But it is necessary ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... Brutus, with his army, passed from Macedonia to join Cassius in Asia Minor, and Horace took his part in their subsequent active and brilliant campaign there. Of this we get some slight incidental glimpses in his works. Thus, for example (Odes, II. 7), we find him reminding his comrade, Pompeius Varus, how ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... with the Beowulf and Sigfred stories are evident; but no great poet has arisen to weave the dragon-slaying intimately into the lives of Frode and Frithlaf as they have been woven into the tragedy of Sigfred the wooer of Brunhild and, if Dr. Vigffisson be right the conqueror of Varus, or into the story of Beowulf, whose real engagements were with sea-monsters, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... overwhelmed and utterly destroyed by the arrows of the terrible Persian bowmen. Herodian says, no doubt with some exaggeration, that this was the greatest calamity which had ever befallen the Romans. It certainly cannot compare with Cannae, with the disaster of Varus, or even with the similar defeat of Crassus in a not very distant region. But it was (if rightly represented by Herodian) a terrible blow. It absolutely determined the campaign. A Caesar or a Trajan might have retrieved such a loss. An Alexander Severus was not likely even to ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... well done," shouted Catiline in ecstacy; "by Hercules! I never saw in all my life better skirmishing. It is all over with Titus Varus!" ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... and incautious general, Quintilius Varus, excited the freedom-loving Germans to revolt under the brave chief of the Cherusci, Arminius (or Hermann). Three Roman legions were annihilated in the Teutoburg forest, Varus taking his own life. The civil and military chiefs who were taken captive, the Germans slew as a sacrifice to their gods. The rest of the prisoners were made slaves. "Many a Roman from an equestrian or a senatorial house grew old in the service of a German farmer, as a servant in the house, or ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the very hours of Minden, has blown our rear-guard division to the winds there;—and we must move southward, one and all of us, without a moment's delay! Out of this rabbit-hole the retreat by rearward is through a difficult country, the Westphalian Gates so called; fatal to Varus's Legions long ago. Contades got under way that very night; lost most of his baggage, all his conquests, that shadow-conquest of Hanover, and more than all his glories (Versailles shrieking on him, 'Resign you; let ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... a state of anarchy, and adventurers flocked from all quarters to assert their claims in a nation that ardently looked forward to national independence, or the rise of some conqueror who should restore the predicted glory of the land now rent with civil feuds, and stained with fratricidal blood. Varus, the prefect of Syria, attempted to restore order, and crucified some two thousand ringleaders of the tumults. Five hundred Jews went to Rome to petition for the restoration of their ancient constitution, and the abolition ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... was enraged by the news that his wife, the daughter of Segestes, was a prisoner. His call to arms, his declamations in the name of liberty, roused the Cherusci, the people who had annihilated the legions of Varus a few years before. A column commanded by Caecina was enticed by Arminius into a swampy position, where it was in extreme danger, and a severe engagement took place. The scheme of Arminius was to attack the Romans on the march; fortunately, the rasher counsels of his uncle, Inguiomerus, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the Deliverer of Germany from the Romans by the defeat of Varus, the Roman general, in 9 A.D., near Detmold (where a colossal statue has been erected to his memory); killed in some family ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... present cathedral, of which only a small portion is preserved. Remains of a high-pressure aqueduct, which supplied the town with water and was constructed with other public buildings (Corp. Inscr. Lat. x., Berlin, 1883, p. 5807) by L. Betilienus Varus, may still be traced. A temple was excavated in 1889 about 1/2 m. to the north of the town and many fragments of the painted terra-cottas with which it was decorated were found. A reconstruction of it has been erected in the Museo di Villa ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Commentary of Servius. Fifteen miles of the Mantuan territory were assigned to the veterans, with a reservation, in favor of the inhabitants, of three miles round the city. Even in this favor they were cheated by Alfenus Varus, a famous lawyer, and one of the commissioners, who measured eight hundred ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... 5: Bent inwards.—Ver. 33. 'Varus,' which we here translate 'bent inwards,' according to some ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... doubt that the Roman republic would have subsided into a military despotism if Julius Caesar had never lived" (thus much was rendered practically certain by general causes); "but is it at all clear that in that case Gaul would ever have formed a province of the empire? Might not Varus have lost his three legions on the banks of the Rhone? and might not that river have become the frontier instead of the Rhine? This might well have happened if Caesar and Crassus had changed provinces; and it is surely impossible to ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... of his genius, and Washington had a similar power of selection. The generals whom he trusted were the best generals, the statesmen whom he consulted stand highest in history. He was fallible, as other mortals are fallible. He, too, had his Varus, and the time was coming when he could echo the bitter cry of the great emperor for his lost legions. But the mistakes were the exceptions. He chose with the sureness of a strong and penetrating mind, and the ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Granada, p. 301.—Compare the similar painting of Tacitus, in the scene where Germanicus pays the last sad offices to the remains of Varus and his legions. "Dein semiruto vallo, humili fossa, accisae jam reliquiae consedisse intelligebantur: medio campi albentia ossa, ut fugerant, ut restiterant, disjecta vel aggerata; adjacebant fragmina telorum, equorumque artus, simul truncis arborum antefixa ora."(Annales, ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... suitable type of that torn and trampled battlefield—the human heart—when vice and virtue, love and hate, revenge and remorse, have wrestled fiercely for the mastery—go back to your Tacitus, and study there the dismal picture of that lonely Teutoburgium, where Varus and his legions went down in the red burial of battle! You talk of 'conquering the world— holding it in bondage!' What do you know of its perils and subtle temptations—of the glistening quicksands whose smooth lips already gape to engulf you? The very ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... without opposition; and the former then passed over into Africa, which was in possession of the Pompeian party. Here, however, he encountered strong opposition, and at length was defeated, and lost his life in a battle with Juba, king of Mauretania, who supported P. Atius Varus, the Pompeian commander. C. Antonius also met with ill success in Illyricum, for his army was defeated, and he himself taken prisoner. These disasters were more than counterbalanced by Caesar's victories in ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... promoto milite varus, Quaque sub Herculeo sacratus numine Portus Urget rupe cava Pelagus, non Corus in illum Jus habet, aut Zephirus, solus sua littora turbat Circius, et tuta prohibet ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... forest in Germany, rendered famous by the slaughter of Varus and his legions. It began in the country of the Marsi, and extended to Paderborn, Osnaburg, and Munster, between the Ems ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... suffering humanity—a few diseases undoubtedly infectious have, even up to the present time, not had their microorganic causes discovered. Smallpox or variola is one of these. The term variola is from the Latin varus, ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... and claws. It is not certain that there has been much change in our intellectual and moral endowments since pithecanthropus dropped the first half of his name. I should be sorry to have to maintain that the Germans of to-day are morally superior to the army which defeated Quintilius Varus, or that the modern Turks are more humane than the hordes of Timour the Tartar. If there is to be any improvement in human nature itself we must look to the infant science of eugenics to ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... distrusting himself also, he dared initiate nothing in the conquered province. The Senate, inert as usual, gave it not a thought. So Germany remained an uncertainty, neither a province nor independent, for fifteen years, a fact wherein is perhaps to be found the real cause of the catastrophe of Varus, which ruined the whole German ...
— Characters and events of Roman History • Guglielmo Ferrero
... the Romans in the Teutoburger-Wald, and the great Caesar wailed in vain to his slain general, 'Varus, give me back my legions!' Teach your children that the Congress which sits at Washington is as much the child of Magna Charta as the Parliament which sits at Westminster; and that when you resisted the unjust demands ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley |
