Varro's Writings on the Senate. A Reconstructive Hypothesis

On first becoming consul in 70 bc, Pompey asked his friend Varro to provide him with a manual on how to conduct a session of the senate. The manual was later lost. Varro returned to the subject decades later in one or more letters to Oppianus. Aulus Gellius reports on both stages of Varro’s composition, political assistance and literary composition, summarizing the contents of the letter to Oppianus. Here I will attempt to reconstruct the work, putting it in its context and discussing its implications