Note 11 — Chapter XI

While Lucretius pays the tribute of admiration to the literary accomplishment of his friend, and to the active part which he played in politics, he yet addresses him with the authority of a master. In a society constituted as that of Rome was in the last age of the Republic this tone could only be assumed to a member of the governing class by a social equal. Memmius combined the pursuits of a politician, a man of letters, and a man of pleasure; and in none of these capacities does he seem to have been worthy of the affection and admiration of Lucretius. But as he filled the office of Praetor in the year 58 b.c.11 it may be inferred that he and the poet were about the same age, and thus the original bond between them may probably have been that of early education and literary sympathies. That Memmius retained a taste for poetry amid the pursuits and pleasures of his profligate career is shown by the fact that he was the author of a volume of amatory poems, and also by his taking with him, in the year 57 b.c., the poets Helvius Cinna and Catullus, on his staff to Bithynia. The keen discernment of the younger poet, sharpened by personal animosity, formed a truer estimate of his chief, than that expressed by the philosophic enthusiast. But at the time in which the words—