Besides spending his early youth there, we find him, on three different occasions, retiring thither from Rome, and making a considerable stay there; first, at the time of his brother's death, apparently at the very height of his liaison with Clodia; next, immediately after his return from Bithynia; and again in the winter of 55-54 B.C., when his interview and reconciliation with Julius Caesar took place. We find him inviting his friend, the poet Caecilius, to come and visit him from the newly established colony of Como. He had his friends and confidants among the youth of Verona, and he records his intrigues both with the married women and courtesans of the place[560]. He took a lively interest in the humorous scandals of the Province, and he has made them the subjects of several of his poems,—e.g. xvii and lxvii. Although his life was too full of social excitement and human relations to make him dwell much on natural beauty, yet the pure feeling expressed in the Sirmio—
Salve, o venusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude;
Gaudete vosque o vividae[561] lacus undae—
shows that he derived keen enjoyment from the familiar loveliness of that 'ocellus' of 'all isles and capes': and in the illustrative imagery of his more artistic poems we seem to find traces of the impression made unconsciously on his imagination by the mountain scenery of Northern Italy[562].
His native district afforded scope for the culture, which was the serious charm of his life, as well as for the pleasures which formed a large part of it. It was in the youth of Catullus that the power of Greek studies was first felt by the impressionable race, half-Italian, half-Celtic, of Cisalpine Gaul, which still remained outside of Italy, and is called by him 'Provincia.' Among the men of letters belonging to the last age of the Republic, Cornelius Nepos, Quintilius Varus, Furius Bibaculus, Cornificius, and Caecilius, most of whom were among the intimate friends of Catullus, came from, or resided in, the North of Italy. In the poem already mentioned he speaks of the mistress of Caecilius as being—
Sapphica puella
Musa doctior,—
an indication that, not only in Rome but even in the northern province, the finest literary taste and culture was shared by women. Catullus shows in the earlier stage of his poetic career his familiarity both with the 'Muse of Sappho,' and with the more laboured art of Callimachus. His special literary butt, Tanusius Geminus, whose poems are ridiculed under the title of 'Annales Volusi,' was also his 'Conterraneus.' The strength of the impulse first given to literary study in this age is marked also by the eminent names from the North of Italy, which belong to the next generation, those of Virgil, Cornelius Gallus, Aemilius Macer, Livy, etc. There is no indication that Catullus left his native district in order to complete his education, nor have we any sure sign of his presence at Rome before the year 61 B.C.[563]. He tells us that he began his career both as an amatory poet and as a man of pleasure in his earliest youth,—