Nevertheless, with such a difficult text, I think that every reviewer should collaborate to improve, if possible, this work highlighting all the points he thinks need some improvement. But working time can vary depending on one’s capacity. Considering how Varro’s text is difficult from every point of view, I would have thought that a couple of lustra (ten years, not less) were necessary in order to give an edition and commentary of Varro’s De lingua Latina of consistently high standard. In such a limited time he outlined the scheme of a large and important work and finished it. My suspicions were aroused as I learned ( Preface, viii) that de Melo worked on Varro De lingua Latina and produced this work in little more than five years. This is clearly a consequence of the aim I mentioned above and does not mean that de Melo’s work is bad. However, in this Edition and Commentary some questions are discussed which have little or nothing to do with Varro and some problems concerning Varro have been neglected or not thoroughly treated. This aim was easy enough, because it is only natural that the linguistic and philological levels we have reached are much higher than the level we find in Varro’s De lingua Latina. or M), has undertaken a titanic work, namely the edition and commentary of Varro’s sex books De lingua Latina, the only ones which arrived to us.ĭe Melo started from a correct, albeit evident aim, to prove that our modern grammar is better than Varro’s grammar and linguistics. De Melo, from now on I will call him de Melo (without any reduction as d.M.
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