Note 37 — Chapter XV

He was attracted to one of them, Helvius Cinna, by warm admiration for his poetic accomplishment, as well as by friendship37; and the time spent by them together was probably lightened by the practice of their art, and the study of the Alexandrine poets. Although the fame of Cinna did not become so great as that of Catullus or Calvus, he seems to have been regarded by the poets of that school in the light of a master38; and it is probably owing to the example of his Zmyrna, so highly lauded in the 95th poem of Catullus, that Catullus composed his Epithalamium of Peleus and Thetis, Calvus composed his Io, and Cornificius his Glaucus. A still more remarkable poem of Catullus, the Attis, the subject of which, so remote not only from Roman but even Greek life, is identified with the Phrygian highlands and the seats of the worship of Cybele, probably owes its inspiration as well as its local colouring to the poet's sojourn in this district. It is not unlikely that it was during the leisure of the time spent in Bithynia that these poems were commenced, as it was during his retirement to Verona after his brother's death that his longer Elegiac poems were written. The mention of the 'Catagraphi Thyni' in a later poem is suggestive of the interest which he took in the novel aspects of Eastern life opened up to him in the province. But it is in the poems which are written in the year 56 b.c., that we chiefly note the happy effect of the poet's absence from Rome, and of his emancipation from his passion. Some of these poems,—more especially xlvi, ci, xxxi, and iv,—are among the happiest and purest products of his genius. They bring him before us eagerly preparing to start on his journey 'among the famous cities of Asia,'—making his pious pilgrimage to his brother's tomb in the Troad,—greeting his beloved Sirmio and the bright waters of the Lago di Garda on his first return home, and recalling sometime later to his guests by the shores of the lake the memories of the places visited, and of the gallant bearing of his pinnace, 'through so many wild seas,' on his homeward voyage. Some of the poems written from Verona—those referring to his intrigue or perhaps his disappointment with Aufilena, and the invitation to Caecilius (xxxv), were probably composed about this time, before his return to Rome. The 'Aufilena' poems belong certainly to a time later than his passion for Lesbia; and during a still later visit to Verona—probably that during which he met and was reconciled to Julius Caesar—Catullus is found engaged in love-affairs in which Mamurra was his rival. As the invitation to Caecilius was written after the foundation of Como (b.c. 59), it could not have been sent by Catullus during his earlier sojourns at Verona: and 'the ideas' which he wished to interchange with the poet who was then engaged in writing a poem on Cybele—'Dindymi domina,'—to which Catullus pointedly refers, may well have been those suggested by his Eastern sojourn, and embodied in the Attis. But soon afterwards we find him back in Rome, and the lively and most natural comedy, dramatically put before us in x—