“Multas per gentes, et multa per æquora vectus,
Adveni has miseras, frater, ad inferias,”
in order to show that the poet was at a distance at the time of his brother’s death, and celebration of his funeral rites. It is possible, however, that these lines may refer to some subsequent pilgrimage to his tomb, or, what is most probable, his brother may have died at Troy, while Catullus was in Bithynia.
None of the remaining poems of Catullus, though written in elegiac verse, are at all of the description to which we now give the name of elegy. They are usually termed epigrams, and contain the most violent invectives on living characters, for the vices in which they indulged, and satire the most unrestrained on their personal deformities; but few of them are epigrams in the modern acceptation of the word. An epigram, as is well known, was originally what we now call a device or inscription, and the term remained, though the thing itself was changed[511]. A Greek anthology consisting of poems which expressed a simple idea—a sentiment, regret, or wish, without point or double meaning, had been compiled by Meleager before the time of Catullus; and hence he had an opportunity of imitating the style of the Greek epigrams, and occasionally borrowing their expressions, though generally with application to some of his enemies at Rome, whom he wished to hold up to the derision or hatred of his countrymen. Most of these poems were called forth by real occurrences, and express, without disguise, his genuine feelings at the time: His contempt, dislike, and resentment, all burst out in poetry. So little is known concerning the circumstances of his life, or the history of his enmities or friendships, that some of the lighter productions of Catullus are nearly unintelligible, while others appear flat and obscure; and in none can we fully relish the felicity of expression or allusion.
These epigrams of Catullus are chiefly curious and valuable, when considered as occasional or extemporary productions, which paint the manners, as well as echo the tone of thought and feeling, which at the time prevailed in fashionable society at Rome. What chiefly obtrudes itself on our attention, is the gross personal invective, and indecency of these compositions, so foreign from anything that would be tolerated in modern times. The art of rendering others satisfied with themselves, and consequently with us—the practice of dissembling our feelings, at first to please, and then by habit,—the custom, if not of flattering our foes, at least of meeting those we dislike, without reviling them, were talents unknown in the ancient [pg 316]republic of Rome. The freedom of the times was accompanied by a frankness and sincerity of language, which we would consider as rude. Even the best friends attacked each other in the Senate, and before the various tribunals of justice, in the harshest and most unmeasured terms of abuse. Philip of Macedon, in an amicable interview with the Roman general Flaminius, who was accounted the most polite man of his day, apologized for not having returned an immediate answer to some proposition which had been made to him, on the ground that none of those friends, with whom he was in the habit of consulting, were at hand when he received it; to which Flaminius replied, that the reason he had no friends near him was, that he had assassinated them all. Matters were little better in the days of Catullus. At the time he flourished, everything was made subservient to political advancement; and what we should consider as the most inexpiable offences, were forgotten, or at least forgiven, as soon as the interests of ambition required. Accordingly, no person seems to have blamed the bitter invectives of Catullus; and none of his contemporaries were surprised or shocked at the unbridled freedom with which he reviled his enemies. He was merely considered as availing himself of a privilege, which every one was entitled to exercise. In his days, ridicule and raillery were oftener directed by malice than by wit: But the Romans thought no terms unseemly, which expressed the utmost bitterness of private or political animosity, and an excess of malevolence was received as sufficient compensation for deficiency in liveliness or humour. As little were the Romans offended by the obscene images and expressions which Catullus so frequently employed. Such had not yet been proscribed in the conversation of the best company. “Among the ancients,” says Porson, in his review of Brunck’s Aristophanes[512], “plain speaking was the fashion; nor was that ceremonious delicacy introduced, which has taught men to abuse each other with the utmost politeness, and express the most indecent ideas in the most modest language. The ancients had little of this: They were accustomed to call a spade, a spade—to give everything its proper name. There is another sort of indecency which is infinitely more dangerous, which corrupts the heart without offending the ear.” Hence the Muse of light poetry thought not of having recourse to the circumlocutions or suggestions of modern times. Nor did Catullus suffer in his reputation, either as an author or man of fashion, from the impurities by which his poems [pg 317]were poisoned. All this would have been less remarkable in the first age of Roman literature, as indelicacy of expression is characteristic of the early poetry of almost every nation. The French epigrams of Regnier, and his contemporaries Motin and Berthelot, are nearly as gross as those of Catullus; but at the close of the Roman republic, literature was far advanced; and if it be true, that as a nation grows corrupted its language becomes pure, the words and expressions of the Romans, in these last days of liberty, should have been sufficiently chaste. The obscenities of Catullus, however, it must be admitted, are oftener the sport of satire, than the ebullitions of a voluptuous imagination. His sarcastic account of the debaucheries of Lesbia, is more impure than the pictures of his enjoyment of her love.
No subject connected with the works of Catullus is more curious than the different sentiments, which, as we have seen, he expresses with regard to this woman. His conflict of mind breathes into his poetry every variety of passion. We behold him now transported with love, now reviling and despising her as sunk in the lowest abyss of shame, and yet, with this full knowledge of her abandoned character, her blandishments preserve undiminished sway over his affections. “At one time,” says a late translator of Catullus, “we find him upbraiding Lesbia bitterly with her licentiousness, then bidding her farewell for ever; then beseeching from the gods resolution to cast her off; then weakly confessing utter impotence of mind, and submission to hopeless slavery; then, in the epistle to Manlius, persuading himself, by reason and example, into a contented acquiescence in her falsehoods, and yet at last accepting with eagerness, and relying with hope, on her proffered vow of constancy. Nothing can be more genuine than the rapture with which he depicts his happiness in her hours of affection; nor than the gloomy despair with which he is overwhelmed, when he believes himself resolved to quit her for ever.” And all this, he wrote and circulated concerning a Roman lady, belonging, it is believed, to one of the first and most powerful families of the state!
Lesbia, as formerly mentioned, is universally allowed to be Clodia, the sister of the turbulent Clodius; but there has been a great deal of discussion and dispute, with regard to the identity of the other individuals against whom the epigrams are directed. Justus Lipsius[513] has written a dissertation with regard to Vettius and Cominius. The former he supposes to be the person mentioned in Cicero’s Letters to Atticus, and [pg 318]by Suetonius, as having been suborned by Cæsar, to allow himself to be seized with a weapon on his person, and to confess that he had been employed by the Chiefs of the Senate to assassinate Pompey—a device contrived by Cæsar, in order to set Pompey and the Senate at variance. Cominius was an accuser by profession, and impeached C. Cornelius, whom Cicero defended[514]. Lipsius believes Alphenus to be Pompey, and thinks that the epigram, directed against him, is supposed to be written in the person of Cicero. He is of opinion that the poet durst not venture to mention Pompey’s name, and therefore designed him by an assumed one; but the epigrams on Julius Cæsar prove that Catullus was neither so scrupulous nor timid. The greatest number, however, and the most cutting of the epigrams, are aimed at Gellius, his successful rival in the affections of Lesbia—
—— “Quem Lesbia malit,
Quam te cum totâ gente, Catulle, tuâ.”
There were two persons of this name at Rome in the time of Catullus—an uncle and nephew. The first was a notorious profligate, who had wasted his patrimony, and afterwards headed mobs in the Forum for hire[515]. The nephew was equally dissolute. After the death of Cæsar, he conspired to assassinate Cassius in the midst of his army, and, having been pardoned, deserted to Antony. One of the various crimes of which he was suspected, identifies him as the Gellius branded by our poet, and whose vices were so great—