The next day all Rome knew the poem by heart. And it was a cowardly, blackguard thing to do, and I shall never speak to him again as long as I live, and I shall never, never let him come into my house again. Not being a gentleman he can’t know what one feels about those kind of things. He is thoroughly second-rate and coarse to the core, although he oughtn’t to be. Of course, I really don’t care a bit. Only if Lalage writes and tells you about it, don’t believe a word she says. I hate Catullus. I must stop now.
Your loving
Clodia.
P.S.—Lalage had the impertinence to say that I ought to make allowance for men of genius. As if Catullus was a genius! I asked Cicero (who likes him) if his poetry was really good, and he said that, to be honest, it was a bad imitation of Calvus’s and his own, only that it was very good for an amateur.
P.P.S.—Julius Caesar is coming to stay with us next Saturday, if he can get away. Don’t forget the Persian silk, the palest shade, six and a half yards.
CLEOPATRA AT ROME
Letter from Charmian, at Alexandria, to her friend Chloe, at Baiae, 44 B.C.
It all came so suddenly. I never thought that I should leave Rome without seeing you again and without being able to say farewell. Even now I cannot believe that it is true and that the whole thing is not a dream. I keep on thinking that I shall wake up and find myself once more by the banks of the Tiber, sitting in the shade of the terebinths, listening to the amusing discussions of Atticus, Cicero, and Caesar.
The suddenness with which everything happened was terrible. It all began with the dinner party which Cleopatra had arranged on the eve of the great event which was to happen on the Feast of the Lupercalia, when Caesar was to be offered the Crown. Cleopatra was in the highest spirits. Some months before this Cicero had asked her to get him from Alexandria some manuscripts and some Canopian vases, of which he had need, as such things are rare in your barbarous cities. Cleopatra had promised to do this, and she told him that she had done it. As a matter of fact she had forgotten all about it. He was invited to the dinner, and had sent her a note saying that he would be delighted to come, and reminding her of her promise with regard to the manuscripts and the vases. He had already reminded her two or three times before. As she read the note she was convulsed with laughter, and when I asked her what she would say to Cicero she answered that she would of course tell him what she had already said before, that the vases and the manuscripts were on the way. I asked her if she was going to send for them, and she answered firmly: “No, it is a great mistake to lend books to men of letters. They never give them back, or if they do there are always a lot of thumb marks on them, or notes in the margin, which are worse. I like my books to be clean.”
She took immense pains to dress herself that night for the dinner, according to the very latest Greek fashion, that is to say, in the austerest simplicity. She wore a gray silk robe made absolutely plain, and one wild flower in her fair hair. The curious thing is—which I have noticed since we got back to Alexandria—that here she is considered a real beauty, but we had not been back a week before she realized that what suited Rome does not suit Alexandria. So she has entirely changed her style of dress and of demeanour: She has had her hair dyed a dark bronzed red; she wears gold tissue, golden bracelets and chains, and she goes about fanned by Cupids with huge peacock feathers, and wearing a stiff gold train. Of course in Rome or in Greece this would be thought vulgar, but it is quite right here, and she is so clever that she divined this at once.
Well, to go on with the dinner party. It was not quite a success. Caesar, who had been anxious about politics during the last week, and in a frightfully bad temper, was preoccupied and absent-minded. When Cicero arrived he was very civil and did not mention the Greek vases directly, but we all saw he was thinking of nothing else, and he managed to get the conversation first on to Alexandria, then on to the library, and finally he said: “By the way, I can’t quite remember, but I think you were kind enough once to say that you were going to have a manuscript sent me from the library.”