Historical person
Gaius Terentius Varro
died c. 3rd century BCE
Gaius Terentius Varro was one of the Roman consuls in 216 BC and shared command at the Battle of Cannae, where Hannibal destroyed a much larger Roman army. Ancient aristocratic sources often blamed Varro, a politician of comparatively humble background, for forcing the battle, while praising his patrician colleague Lucius Aemilius Paullus.
Varro survived, returned to Rome and continued to receive military and diplomatic responsibilities, suggesting that the senate did not treat him simply as a disgraced incompetent. Gaius Terentius Varro was born in Ancient Rome.
In Ben Kane’s Cannae, Soldiers from both sides prepare beneath the summer heat while the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro argue over how to use Rome’s overwhelming numbers. David Anthony Durham’s Hannibal brings Gaius Terentius Varro into the Roman command that confronts Hannibal at Cannae, where the consul survives one of the republic’s most catastrophic defeats.
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