the wealthiest of which in this age were the Spains. There was so little opening at this time in Rome itself for needy men of family—and it would seem from what Catullus says in the 47th in the 47th poem that these youths were needy that they flocked to the provinces, and to Spain as much as any, since it was both wealthy and easily reached from Rome. A few years after this, in B.C. 57, at the very same time that Catullus was with his propraetor Memmius in Bithynia, they were again together on the staff of L. Piso Caesoninus proconsul of Macedonia, so well known to us by the embittered invective of Cicero. At least I had believed that Schwabe had triumphantly demonstrated that this Piso and no other could be the one in question, so precisely do times and circumstances fit together, so exactly do the few lines in which Catullus depicts him agree with the more elaborate portrait which Cicero draws. But Ellis has broached a novel theory, which is one of the oddest instances I know of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel; a theory which carries havock into many of the facts and dates in Catullus' life which Schwabe has established and to which Ellis himself apparently gives credit. I shall here be brief, as I feel certain that Ellis will not find one scholar to back him up in his argument. His sole difficulty in accepting Schwabe's statement arises from the fact that Veranius and Fabullus would in that case have made two journeys together; to my mind the simplest thing in the world. He argues therefore for the following combination. There was a Gnaeus Piso, an accomplice of Catiline, whom the senate, to rid themselves of a very dangerous man, sent out to Hispania Citerior in 65 with the unusual title of Quaestor pro Praetore. He was murdered there by his native escort before the summer of 64'. This man Schwabe just mentions, to point out that he could not be the Piso in question. But Ellis maintains on the contrary that Veranius and Fabullus went with him as members of his cohort. Yes, but they were with their Piso at the same time that Catullus was in Bithynia with his praetor Memmius. And as Memmius was Praetor in 58, he must have gone to his province as Propraetor in 57, at the time Piso Caesoninus went as Proconsul to Macedonia. No, Ellis argues, at the same time that Cn. Piso was specially sent by the senate as Quaestor pro Praetore, Memmius may have been sent with the same extraordinary title to Bithynia. But it was a most unusual thing for the senate or people to send any one out with this exceptional title. The strange case of Cato who was dispatched to Cyprus in 58 through Clodius' intrigues, and the earlier one of Lentulus Marcellinus commissioned to settle the affairs of the Cyrenaica, are the only two instances besides that of Cn. Piso which Marquardt (Handb. 2d ed. 1 p. 390) can cite during the existence of the Republic. Why then should Memmius be selected for such a distinction? why, if he had been so selected, should we never hear of it? how could such an appointment be made at the very time when Pompey was exercising supreme power over all the East by virtue of the Manilian law? But Ellis (p. L) has another hypothesis at command: 'Or again he may have been appointed directly by Pompeius, as Marius left his quaestor Sulla "pro praetore" (Iug. 103), as Trebonius', etc. But in the 1 See Mommsen in Hermes I p. 47. 2 C. Memmius L. f. Galeria had no cognomen; yet Ellis persists in calling him G. Memmius Gemellus. Again C. not G. is the symbol of Gaius, as Cn. is of Gnaeus. three instances mentioned here by Ellis, as well as in that of Albinus (Sall. Iug. 36) who goes off to Rome 'Aulo fratre in castris pro praetore relicto', the governor or general having died in office or being called away by a sudden emergency, by the necessity of the case his quaestor for the time being takes his place. But this cannot apply to Memmius; for Catullus (28 7) distinctly states that he went out in his suite from Rome: 'qui meum secutus Praetorem': secutus, like the prose prosecutus, has this meaning: Mart. vII 45 5' Hunc tu per Siculas secutus undas' is the same as ib. 44 5 'Aequora per Scyllae magnus comes exulis isti, Qui modo nolueras consulis ire comes'. And it would have been absurd for Catullus to assail as he does a mere subordinate, and not their common chief Pompeius, on whom the blame would rest, if blame there was. But if we adopt Ellis' theory, what results do we obtain? The Pollio of our poem would be a child of eleven or twelve years of age, to whom such an appeal as Catullus here makes could not possibly be addressed. But, more than this, the whole fabric which Schwabe has built up with so much pains and learning, is shaken to its foundations, in portions of it too which Ellis appears to accept. In his later volume, tho' he had doubted it in his earlier, he admits the theory, which I too firmly believe in, that Lesbia is the notorious Clodia. One of the main props of this theory is the assumption that the fierce invectives, launched at Rufus for pretending to be the poet's intimate friend and then robbing him of what was dearer to him than life, must have reference to the intrigue of M. Caelius Rufus with Clodia 59 and 58 B.C. about which Cicero in his speech for Caelius gives us such copious information. In 59 therefore and perhaps later Catullus, tho' he had lost his esteem for Lesbia, was still inflamed with the full fervour of his consuming passion. Turn now to the 65th and to both parts of the 68th poem. In these we find Catullus bitterly lamenting the recent death of his brother; and from both divisions of 68 we learn that he had not yet lost his passion for Lesbia, tho' he was fully aware of her inconstancy to him. Some time, probably a year or two, after this, either on his way to Bithynia, as Ellis argues; or on his return from it, as Schwabe holds-and I am disposed to agree with the latter, because, as I observed above, I believe that Catullus went from Rome to Bithynia in the praetor's suite the poet stopped at Rhoeteum to perform the last offices for his dead brother. Before his journey to Bithynia he had utterly renounced Lesbia as a common harlot and streetwalker: Nunc in quadriuiis et angiportis cet. If therefore he went to his province at the beginning of 65, he must have assailed his dearest friend with insult and outrage for robbing him of his life's happiness at least six years after the time when he had finally cast her off as an abandoned strumpet. I will say no more on these questions, as I regret the length to which my remarks have already run; but I could not make my meaning clear in fewer words. Of the six poems between the 12th and the 22nd I have not much to say. The industry of the latest editor Ellis has anticipated me in most of the illustrations which I had jotted down, especially from the old scenic writers, from Cicero and Martial. 13 14 Totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum: with reference to Ellis' notes I would observe that this adverbial use of totum, which belongs equally to te and nasum, 'to make you wholly' 'nothing but' 'nose', is exceedingly common in Latin. Above at 8 14 rogaberis nulla I have referred to my note on Lucr. 1 377 where I have given abundant examples. I might give here as many more; such as Cic. (Caelius) epist. VIII 8 10 Curio se contra eum totum parat; Ix 16 8 neque est quod in promulside spei ponas aliquid, quam totam sustuli; XI 29 2 totum te ad amicitiam meam contulisti; XVI 12 6 ut...totum te susciperet et tueretur; ad Q. fr. II 10 (12) 3 multa dixi in ignobilem regem quibus totus est explosus. quo genere commotus, ut dixi, Appius totum me amplexatur...sed ille scripsit ad Balbum fasciculum illum...totum sibi aqua madidum redditum esse; Suet. Caes. 46 uillam...quia non tota ad animum ei responderat, totam diruisse: very like Catullus is Martial XII 84 3 Talis eras, modo tonse Pelops, positisque nitebas Crinibus, ut totum sponsa uideret ebur. 14 12-20 Di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum, 15 Saturnalibus optimo dierum! เ 14 continuo can only have the sense it so often has in the old idiomatic writers: at once without an interval, straight on end': Cic. Verr. Iv 48 ille continuo ut uidit non dubitauit illud...tollere. Calvus sent it |