The bitter attack upon Cæsar and his parasite Mamurra was not withdrawn, but remains to us as No. 29 of the
Poems
of Catullus. The doubtful authority for Cæsar's answer to it is the statement in the
Life of Julius Cæsar
by Suetonius that, on the day of its appearance, Catullus apologized and was invited to supper; Cæsar abiding also by his old familiar friendship with the poet's father. This is the attack said to be referred to in one of Cicero's
letters
to Atticus (the last of Bk. XIII), in which he tells how Cæsar was
'after the eighth hour in the bath; then he heard De Mamurrâ; did not change countenance; was anointed; lay down; took an emetic.'