[sect. 5]
Education
[12]
12. Doubtless to the care of some friend of the family at Rome the
youth was entrusted. And there were many Transpadanes at Rome, - some
of them making great names for themselves in the literary world. With
some of these certainly a man of station prominent enough in Verona to
be later, at least, the friend of Julius Caesar, might command
interest. Under the charge of one of them he might have placed so
promising a young man as his son doubtless was. To which one the trust
fell cannot now be determined, but as Catullus later
(c. 1) addresses Cornelius Nepos as the friend and
foster-father of his earlier poems, it seems not unlikely that to his
guardianship (Cf. 63) Catullus owed his introduction
into the society of Rome.
[13]
13. The purpose of his coming thither is nowhere stated, but may
easily be divined. Rome was the school of Italy, at least to all who
could pay for her tuition. And a youth with a poet's soul burning
within him could hardly have been content with such schooling as a
Transpadane town afforded, even to her wealthiest inhabitants. But
whether Catullus did much studying of a serious sort may well be
doubted. It cannot be quite true that his 'only books were
woman's looks,' for his poems show an ardent and sympathetic
study of the Greek poets. But his attainments in rhetoric and
philosophy, if he had any at all, were certainly not of a scholastic
character, and he apparently never cared to follow the students of the
day to Athens or to Rhodes.
[14]
14. Not books, but life, exercised over him the preeminent charm. And
this life was not the life of the past, but of the present, - the
busy, delirious whirl of life in the capital of the world. Into it he
plunged with all the ardor of a lively and passionate nature. Rome
was from that first moment his home, the centre of all his beloved
activities. Verona, his Sabine villa, and even Sirmio, became to him
but hospitals or vacation haunts. Once only did he leave Italy, and
even his joy at reaching Sirmio again on his return
(c. 31) could not long detain him
from Rome. And at Rome death met him.
[15]
15. In life at Rome, then, Catullus found his full development as
a poet. Already from the donning of the toga
virilis, so he tells us (c. 68.15
ff.), he had been busied with love and love-verses. But whether
this period antedated or followed his coming to Rome cannot be
decided, since the date of publication of the Chronica
of Nepos (c. 1.8) is unknown, and on this
alone could a decision of the other point be based. Such poems as
those that concern Aufilena (cc. 100,
110, 111) may
possibly date from the Veronese period of the poet's life (though
c. 82 cannot possibly do so), and yet it is
just as possible that their scene was Rome (cf. introductory note to c. 100), and the same may
be said of the poems concerning Ameana (cc. 41, 43). Much more
likely is it, however, that of the other poems that show some
connection with Veronese affairs cc. 17 and
67 date from his residence in his native
city, while c. 35 was surely written during only a
temporary visit there (cf. Commentary)
