Note 55 — Chapter XV

Catullus in these poems expresses the animosity which the 'boni' generally entertained towards the chiefs of the popular party: and his intimacy at this time with Calvus, who was a member of the Senatorian party, and who lampooned Caesar and Pompey in the same spirit, may have given some political edge to his Satire. He was moved also by a feeling of disgust towards the habits and manners of some of Caesar's instruments and creatures,—such as Vatinius, Libo, Mamurra, etc. But the chief motive both of the 29th and the 57th,—the two poems which Suetonius regarded as attaching an 'everlasting stigma' to the name of Caesar—is the jealousy of Mamurra,—the object also of many separate satires,—who, through the favour of the Proconsul and the fortune which he thereby acquired, was a successful rival of Catullus in his provincial love affairs. The indignation of Cicero was roused against the riches of Mamurra on political grounds55: that of Catullus on the ground that they gave their possessor an unfair advantage in the race of pleasure:—