“It needs must be
That he fears many, whom so many fear.”
Cæsar, however, took no further notice of these caustic sallies than to assign the prize to Syrus.
POETRY
In poetry, the long period from the death of Lucilius to the appearance of Virgil and Horace—a period of about sixty years—is broken only by two names worthy of mention. But it must be admitted that these names take a place in the first ranks of Roman literature. It is sufficient to mention Lucretius and Catullus.
T. Lucretius Carus was a Roman of good descent, as his name shows. All we know of him is that he was born about 95 B.C., and died by his own hand in the forty-fourth year of his age. But if little is related of his life, his great poem on The Nature of the Universe is known by name at least to all. It is dedicated to C. Memmius Gemellus, a profligate man and an unscrupulous politician, who sided now with the senatorial party, now with Cæsar, and ended his days in exile at Mytilene. But Memmius had a fine sense in literature, as is evinced by his patronage of Lucretius and of Catullus.
The poem of Lucretius seems to have been published about the time when Clodius was lord of misrule in the Roman Forum, that is, about 58 B.C. Memmius took part against the demagogue, and to this the poet probably alludes in the introduction to the first book, where he regrets the necessity which involved his friend in political struggles.
Roman Terra-cotta Statuette of a Comedian