Note 32 — Chapter XV

clearly imply that these meetings occurred after the return of Metellus to Rome. The earlier love poems to Lesbia—those on her pet sparrow, the 'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,' and the 'Quaeris quot mihi basiationes,'—in all of which the feeling expressed is one at once of passionate admiration and of perfect security,—belong probably to the year 60, or to the latter part of the year 61 b.c. To this period may, in all probability, be assigned some of the poet's brightest and happiest efforts,—the Epithalamium in honour of the marriage of Manlius and Vinia Aurunculeia32, and the poems ix, xii, xiii, commemorative of his friendship with Veranius and Fabullus. The words in the last of these—