Page:Cicero And The Fall Of The Roman Republic.djvu/361

50 B.C.] him with the passion which has made his verse immortal, and of the bitter and tearful reproaches which Catullus addresses to the friend who has supplanted him; then of Cælius' deadly quarrel with this terrible mistress, of the charge of poisoning which Lesbia brought against him, and of Cicero's tremendous onslaught on her, while he defended Cælius at the bar, and took revenge at the same time for her share in the wrong, which her brother, Publius Clodius, had inflicted on Cicero himself. "It would seem," writes Mr. Tyrrell, "that Cælius ultimately escaped both from her love and her hatred after a long struggle; but we question if he ever forgot her." We might dwell on Cælius' daring but unchastened eloquence, his keenness of political insight, his able administration as ædile, his charming letters to Cicero, his recklessness, his unscrupulous cynicism, and finally on his insane attempts at revolution and his miserable end during the Civil War; all these make up together one of the most interesting episodes of the last age of the Roman Republic. But another biography, or better still a historical romance, would be needed to do justice to Cælius, Clodia, and Catullus. We have here to do with the stern realities of politics and of war, which underlay the genius and the wantonness of that brilliant society.

The situation of Cicero on his return to Italy in