Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/26

14 friend and his chère amie than flirting on his own account; and there is nothing in Catullus that betrays the almost certainty that his mistress has justification in his infidelity for any number of her own lâches and transgressions, such as is always peeping out in the elegies of Propertius. On the contrary, it is fair to believe that in his case "the heart that once truly loved ne'er could forget," however unfortunate and direful its choice and the issue of it. He was true to the ideal and stanch to the championship of Lesbia's resplendent beauty, long after he had proved that it was not for him; and however disastrous to his peace of mind, health, and even life, the results of her coldness and fickleness, the spell clung to his heart, even after his mind was cured; and so Lesbia asserts foremost mention when we call up the surroundings of Catullus.

Who, then, was this potent enchantress? The elder sister, it is pretty well agreed, of that notorious P. Clodius who was slain by Milo, and a member of the great Claudian house at Rome. Like brother, like sister! The former had added a grave sacrilege to unheard-of profligacy, and outraged even the lax standard of Roman society in his day by the versatility of his shamelessness. To the character of an unbridled libertine he added that of an unscrupulous political incendiary, with whom poison and assassination were wonted modes of removing a rival from his path. The Clodia whom we identify by almost common consent with the Lesbia of Catullus was the second of his three sisters, and unequally yoked with Metellus Celer, who was consul in 60, and on frequent occa-