There is a parody on this piece of Catullus by the celebrated Huet, Bishop of Avranches—
“Bocharti comites cohors inanis.” &c.
In his youth, Huet had accompanied Bochart to Sweden, on the invitation of Queen Christina, and appears to have been as little gratified by his northern expedition, as Catullus by his voyage to Bithynia.
29. In Cæsarem. Julius Cæsar, while yet but the general of the Roman republic, had been accustomed, during his stay in the north of Italy, to lodge at the house of the father of Catullus in Verona. Notwithstanding the intimacy which in consequence subsisted between Cæsar and his father, Catullus lampooned the former on more than one occasion. In the present epigram, he pours on him an unmeasured abuse, chiefly for having bestowed the plunder of Britain and Gaul on his favourite, the infamous Mamurra, who appropriated the public money, and the spoils of whole nations, to support his boundless extravagance. There is a story which has become very common on the authority of Suetonius, that Cæsar invited Catullus to supper on the day on which he first read some satirical verses of the poet against himself and Mamurra, and that he continued to lodge with his father as before[481]. It appears that on one occasion, when some scurrilous verses by Catullus were shown to him, he supped with Cicero at his villa near Puteoli. On the 19th, he staid at the house of Philippus till one in the afternoon, but saw nobody; he then walked on the shore across to Cicero’s villa—bathed after two o’clock, and heard the verses on Mamurra read, at which he never changed countenance[482]. Now, this was in the year 708, after the civil war had been ended, by the defeat and death of the younger Pompey in Spain. It is most likely that this 29th epigram was the one which was read to him at Cicero’s villa; and the 57th epigram, also directed against Cæsar and Mamurra, is probably that concerning which the above anecdote is related by Suetonius. Though it stands last of the two in the works of Catullus, it was evidently written before the 29th. He talks in it of Cæsar and Mamurra, as of persons who were still on a footing of equality—in the other, he speaks of their dividing the spoils of the provinces, Gaul, Britain, Pontus, and Spain. The coolness and indifference which Cæsar showed with regard to the first epigram written against him, and the forgiveness he extended to its author, encouraged Cicero, who was a gossip and newsmonger, or those who attended him, to read to him another of the same description while bathing at the Puteolan Villa.
31. Ad Sirmionem Peninsulam. This heart-soothing invocation, which is perhaps the most pleasing of all the productions of Catullus, is addressed to the peninsula of Sirmio, in [pg 287]the territory of Verona, on which the principal and favourite villa of our poet was situated. Sirmio was a peninsular promontory, of about two miles circumference, projecting into the Benacus, now the Lago di Garda—a lake celebrated by Virgil as one of the noblest ornaments of Italy, and the praises of which have been loudly re-echoed by the modern Latin poets of that country, particularly by Fracastoro, who dwelt in its vicinity, and who, while lamenting the untimely death of his poetical friend, Marc Antonio del Torri, beautifully represents the shade of Catullus, as still nightly wandering amidst these favourite scenes—
“Te ripæ flevere Athesis; te voce vocare
Auditæ per noctem umbræ, manesque Catulli,
Et patrios mulcere novâ dulcedine lucos[483].”
Vestiges of the magnificent house supposed to have belonged to Catullus, are yet shown on this peninsula. Its ruins, which lie near the borders of the lake, still give the idea of an extensive palace. There are even now, as we are informed by travellers[484], sufficient remains of mason-work, pilasters, vaults, walls, and subterraneous passages, to assist the imagination in representing to itself what the building was when entire, at least in point of extent and situation. The length of the whole construction, from north to south, is about 700 feet, and the breadth upwards of 300. The ground on which it stood does not appear to have been level, and the fall to the west was supplied by rows of vaults, placed on each other, the top of which formed a terrace. On the east, the structure had been raised on those steep and solid rocks which lined the shore; on the front, which was to the north, and commanded a magnificent view of the lake, an immense portico seems to have projected from the building: under the ruins, there are a number of subterraneous vaults, one of which ran through the middle of the edifice, and along its whole length[485].
The peninsula on which the villa of Catullus was situated, is not surpassed in beauty or fertility by any spot in Italy. “Sirmione,” says Eustace[486], “appears as an island, so low and so narrow is the bank that unites it to the mainland. The promontory spreads behind the town, and rises into a hill entirely covered with olives. Catullus,” he continues, “undoubtedly inhabited this spot, and certainly he could not have chosen a more delightful retreat. In the centre of a magni[pg 288]ficent lake, surrounded with scenery of the greatest variety and majesty, secluded from the world, yet beholding from his garden the villas of his Veronese friends, he might have enjoyed alternately the pleasures of retirement, and society; and daily, without the sacrifice of his connexions, which Horace seemed inclined to make in a moment of despondency, he might have contemplated the grandeur and agitation of the ocean, without its terrors and immensity. Besides, the soil is fertile, and its surface varied; sometimes shelving in a gentle declivity, at other times breaking in craggy magnificence, and thus furnishing every requisite for delightful walks and luxurious baths; while the views vary at every step, presenting rich coasts or barren mountains, sometimes confined to the cultivated scenes of the neighbouring shore, and at other times bewildered and lost in the windings of the lake, or in the recesses of the Alps. In short, more convenience and more beauty are seldom united[487].” No wonder, then, that Catullus, jaded and disappointed by his expedition to Bithynia, should, on his return, have exclaimed with transport, that the spot was not to be matched in the wide range of the world of waters; or that he should have unloaded his mind of its cares, in language so perfect, yet simple, that it could only have flowed from a real and exquisite feeling. No poem in the Latin language expresses tender feelings more tenderly, and home feelings more naturally, than the Invocation to Sirmio, in which the verses soothe and refresh us somewhat [pg 289]in the manner we suppose Catullus himself to have been, by the trees that shaded the promontory, and by the waters of the lake below—