Reviewed by: Varro, De Lingua Latina: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary ed. by W.D.C. De Melo Dániel Kiss De Melo, W.D.C. (ed.) 2019. Varro, De Lingua Latina: Introduction, Text, Translation and Commentary. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. xvi + 1322. ISBN 978-0-19-965973-9. £262.50/US$340.00.* A new edition with commentary of the six surviving books of Varro's De lingua Latina is not likely to be awaited by large crowds of impatient readers, yet this intriguing text deserves attention. It discusses matters of etymology (Books 5–7) and morphology (Books 8–10), quotes from a range of earlier texts including many that no longer survive, and is an invaluable source on the customs, religion, and topography of late Republican Rome. Its style, chunky and functional, stands in a strange counterpoint to the elegant prose of Varro's contemporaries Cicero and Caesar. The most recent critical edition has been that of G. Goetz and F. Schoell in the Bibliotheca Teubneriana (1910), which was followed by a bilingual edition by R. G. Kent in the Loeb Classical Library (2 vols., 1938). Since then, only new editions of individual books have appeared. Wolfgang De Melo has done Classical scholarship a great service by publishing a new critical edition of this rare text with a facing translation, introduction, and commentary. What makes his work especially valuable is the focus on linguistics: in the introduction and the commentary he not only explains Varro's ideas about the Latin language and its origins, but also evaluates them in the light of our current knowledge of the subject. The introduction (pp. 1–253) starts with a short Section 1 on 'Varro's Life and Works' (pp. 1–5), which includes a discussion of the date of the De lingua Latina. Section 2, 'The transmission of the De lingua Latina' (pp. 5–25), also takes in past editions and matters of spelling. Section 3, 'An overview of Greek and Roman grammatical studies' (pp. 25–35), gives a brief account of linguistic scholarship in the Classical world, from the beginnings to late antiquity. The long Section 4, 'Etymology' (pp. 35–126), sets out Varro's approach to the subject and the structure of Books 5–7 as well as our current knowledge of Indo-European etymology. Section 5, 'Morphology' (pp. 126–236), once again expounds Varro's treatment of this subject in Books 8–10 as well as the views of modern linguists on this subject. The introduction closes with an insightful Section 6 on 'Varro's language and style' (pp. 236–53). The Latin text of the six surviving books of De lingua Latina is accompanied by a translation on the right-hand pages (pp. 255–633). There follows an edition with facing translation of the fragments of the nineteen lost books of the De lingua Latina (pp. 635–50). The second volume, which has continuous page numbering, contains the commentary (pp. 651–1271), followed by a bibliography (pp. 1273–97) and a valuable set of indices (pp. 1299–322). Mention has already been made of the strong focus on linguistics, on which De Melo is an authority. For example, Sections 4.3–4.4 of the introduction provide a lucid and detailed outline of our current knowledge of [End Page 330] Indo-European etymology, from the basic principles to the most recent research on key issues. The commentary examines in detail the individual claims made by Varro in each paragraph, and compares it to modern views where appropriate. De Melo makes an eloquent plea that we should take a favourable view of the achievements of the Roman scholar: 'remarkably often, Varro's pre-scientific methods led to results that are still valid today' (p. 68). From the point of view of textual criticism, which is the home turf of this reviewer, this edition is a mixed success. The problems are apparent in the short Section 2 of the introduction on the transmission of the text, which relies mainly on the work of Goetz and Schoell and of earlier scholars; it only makes partial use of an important paper from 2000 by Giorgio Piras.3 De...