[sect. 7]
Journey to Bithynia.
[29]
29. But the first date in the life of Catullus that can be
definitely fixed by the aid of his own poems is that of his absence
from Italy after the final rupture with Lesbia (cf. 24). He went to Bithynia
(cc. 10.7;
31.5; 46.4)
on the staff of the governor, Memmius (c. 28.9).
Such expeditions on the part of young Romans
of that day are so familiar that it is needless to cite other
instances than those (cc. 9, etc., 28) of Veranius and
Fabullus, the poet's friends. The ordinary motive was not only a love
of adventure, but the desire for acquiring wealth at the expense of
the provincials in one of the dozen ways possible under a friendly and
not too conscientious official patron. Catullus apparently had not
been poverty-stricken, however jestingly he claimed that common
distinction of the society-man at the capital, though an increase of
income may not have been without attractions for him. He had up to
this time, too, apparently loved Rome above all other cities, and had
not cared to leave it for any considerable period of time, even that
he might visit Greece. But now there were two motives that might lead
him to look with desire upon a journey to Bithynia. In the first
place, it offered him an opportunity to visit the Troad and to pay the
final offerings of love at the grave of his brother (cf. 22). In the second place, he had been
passing through a terrible mental struggle that was perhaps not yet
over, and Rome had become painful to him. In the distraction of travel
and residence in a foreign clime he might find that absence from
himself for which he sighed.
[30]
30. How he obtained the appointment we do not know, for there is no
earlier reference to Memmius in his poems, and none but
uncomplimentary references to him later. But it is not strange that
with all his circle of literary friends at Rome he should command
influence enough to secure such a post; nor is it strange that
C. Memmius, himself a learned man and a verse-writer
(Cic. Brut. 70.247;
Ov. Trist. II.433;
Plin. Ep. V.3.5;
Gell. XIX. 9.7), was
pleased to have the company in his province of such men as Catullus
and his poet-friend, C. Helvius Cinna (c. 10. 31).
[31]
31. Memmius was praetor in 58 B.C., and
therefore in all probability ruled over Bithynia in 57-56 B.C., though this fact cannot be
substantiated from other sources. Of the journey of Catullus to
Bithynia and of his stay there we have no record up to the period of
his approaching return to Italy, save in the one poem
(c. 101) in which he commemorates the funeral-offerings
at the grave of his brother in the Troad, and speaks the last
farewell,-- a farewell of infinite sadness because spoken with no hope
of a future reunion. To make these offerings of pious affection was
one of the motives of Catullus in coming to this distant land, and
doubtless the sad duty was not long postponed after his arrival
there. What were the other occupations of his life in Bithynia we
cannot tell. No poems remain, at any rate, to mark the pleasures of
social intercourse, no squibs of raillery, no brilliant bits of fancy,
such as distinguish the Roman days of the poet. The year is a long
silence. Perhaps he was too sad to write; perhaps the irksomeness and
dulness of his official life wore hard upon his Muse; perhaps,
however, he was gathering inspiration from their native scenery and
legend for those poems of his matured genius, cc. 63 and
64, and had even then begun to block them out. When they were
published cannot be determined.
[32]
32. Life in Bithynia was surely unsatisfactory from a financial point
of view. The cobwebs in the poet's pockets were not displaced by
gold. Perhaps the shrewder men on the staff learned better how to make
hay while their brief sun was shining. Catullus, however, came back
home poor, and blamed Memmius for it. But whether Memmius really
deserved the exceedingly opprobrious epithets heaped upon him (cf.
cc. 10, 28)
may well be doubted. Virulence of language in
invective, especially in the use of terms applied to sexual impurity,
was by no means accompanied among the ancients by corresponding
intensity of feeling, and is often to be understood as formal and not
literal.
[33]
33. Yet some pleasures in his Bithynian life Catullus must have
experienced; for when on the approach of spring (56
B.C.) he bids his companions adieu, it is with a tribute to the
delight he has taken in their company (c. 46.9
dulces comitum coetus), and a reference
perhaps to the expected pleasure of a reunion with them in Italy
(c. 46. 10-11).
[34]
34. But the pain of parting was very insignificant in comparison
with the overwhelming joy of home-coming. The exquisite grace of the
two sparrow-songs of Catullus (cc. 2, 3) is matched by the most perfect delight that
breathes through the pair of poems (cc. 46,
31) that mark the beginning and the end of
his homeward voyage. They stand supreme among the poems of home that
have come down to us from antiquity, thrilling and quivering with
purest and most childlike passion. With this pair of poems probably
belongs a third (c. 4), which followed
speedily upon the two others.
[35]
35. The third of the triad (c. 4) indicates that Catullus
made this return voyage in a small vessel of Amastriac build purchased
by him for this purpose. It almost seems from his account as if it
were built to his order, and that he embarked in it at Amastris rather
than at the seaport of Nicaea. And all this, indeed, may be true, in
spite of the fact that c. 46 apparently speaks of Nicaea
as the point of his immediate departure home-ward; for various reasons
might be suggested to account for a journey to the eastern part of the
province after bidding Nicaea a final farewell.
[36]
36. In c. 46.6 the poet speaks of a plan of visiting
claras Asiae urbes on his return voyage. He
seems also to feel some joy at the prospect; but this is the only
passage in his writings that shows any susceptibility to the charm of
historic associations connected with the ancient Greek cities. The
course of the homeward voyage is but vaguely sketched in
c. 4, and the only city actually mentioned there as
visited on the journey is Rhodes (c. 4.8), though we may
infer from c. 46 that other famous sites between the
Hellespont and Rhodes were not neglected by him. He may even have
visited Athens, for his little ship probably was drawn across the
Corinthian isthmus by the famous ship-railway instead of braving the
dangers of the longer and rougher passage around the Malean cape. Yet
no such mention of Athens exists in his writings as would suggest that
he had ever visited, or cared to visit, that city. A similar doubt
besets the question of his point of debarkation in Italy. If the
expressions of c. 4 were to be taken literally, we must
understand that the phasellus carried its
master actually up the Po and the little Mincius into the Garda-lake,
even to the shores of Sirmio itself. But this is well-nigh impossible;
and even if possible, is it likely that the poet, so eager to reach
home, would have submitted to the tedium of a tow-boat's voyage (for
surely the phasellus could not
sail up the Mincius), when a few hours by post from the
mouth of the Po would have brought him to his desired haven?
Apparently both the begin-fling and the end of the voyage of the
phasellus as recounted in c. 4 are
not to be interpreted with strict literalness. But the rapturous joy
with which Sirmio is saluted in c. 31 forbids us to
suppose that the poet first visited Rome, and later made his way
northward. Even the gaiety with which the dedicatory inscription of
the model of the phasellus (c. 4)
is struck off; -a poem after an entirely new style, - shows that at
the time of its composition the first enthusiasm of delight had not
yet evaporated.