Rufus Varro is an agent for the Roman Emperor.
He will be a clandestine operative for Marcus Agrippa, actually. That fellow is a senator of Rome in 27BC, the year that Civil War came to an end as did the Roman Republic. The adopted son of Julius Caesar and his heir, Gaius Octavius, had just returned to Rome after the campaigns against his many rivals and renamed himself Gaiis Augustus, Princeps (first citizen) of Rome and the absolute ruler. Agrippa was the close friend and follower of Augustus whose tactics help the man defeat Marc Antony and Cleopatra and secure the win. As we meet him in the fateful year, he is helping his future father-in-law consoluate his newly earned authority which will mean rooting out the many different factions which existed in defiance of the new order. To help with that, Agrippa will need a system of spies.
Varro will become one of those spies. He will not really want to as that is hardly his chosen profession. Varro would much rather be known to the world as the poet that he is, all the more so when he has partaken of a cup or three of honeyed wine, something he is more than happy to do and does so frequently.
He is 31 years of age when we meet him in his first recorded adventure. He sports "glossy black curls hung down over a smooth brow" with "pronounced cheekbones and an aquiline nose [which] dominated his Classically Roman face". He possesses a "slim, well-proportioned figure" and "in winter, his unblemished face seemed carved from marbel and in summer forged in bronze". In addition to the fermented drink of the grape, Varro is a firm appreciator of female companionship and seems to make sure he is never long without it. When he is first approached by a very gruff Agrippa, a hung-over Varro's first thought were whether he has slept with someone he shouldn't have. Despite this seemingly addiction to women, he still has considerable love for and regret for divorcing his true love, Lucilla.
In addition to his poetry, for which Varro has already become quite well known, he is a satirist who has a very good understanding of the way things are and will become and he has the gift of finding the right words to both explain and sometimes condemn them. He often comes very close to offending those in command but has still been able to keep his head, literally. His father had been a noted military leader and it had been expected that Varro would be so as well but "he had flirted with joining the army for all of two seconds as an adolescent. Varro had no desire to die in a foreign field for a cause which he little cared for or understood".
Agrippa will choose Varro to work for him because he knows that Varro has as many inroads into high Roman society, thanks to his lineage and his growing fame as a poet, as he does the much lower in status taverns and brothels. Agrippa wants a murder looked into and he believes that Varro is the best man to get people to talk to him. "Whereas you may desire a certain clique of people to gossip about you," he tells Varro, "your brief now will be to ensure that people gossip to you". He also points out to the poet that he knows that Varro has become a bit needy in the funds department and would not appreciate having his tax situation examined too closely.
Varro is constantly accompanied by Manius, a "hulking Briton" who is a former gladiator purchased by Varro's father as a reward for the young man's prowess in the arena and then adopted. "As well as serving as a bodyguard, Manius was tasked with conditioning the statesman's son and teaching him swordsmanship. In return the poet taught his companion Latin and introduced him to Roman literature and history (as well as to the taverns and brothels of the city)". Manius is every bit as interesting a fellow as Varro.
Good Lines:
- When speaking about not wanting to leave Rome, Rufus Varro comments, "The best of the provinces, in terms of food, wine and women all come to Rome. I've no need to venture out and encounter the worst they offer too."
- Regarding his elderly attendant, Fronto, Varro vouchsafes the man's trustworthiness saying "he's so old that, whatever I tell him, he'll forget by morning".