[Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero by W. Warde Fowler]@TWC D-Link bookSocial life at Rome in the Age of Cicero CHAPTER V 20/31
But we know how two typical young men of the time, Caelius and Catullus, flew into the candle and were singed; we know how fiercely she turned on Caelius, exposing herself and him without a moment's hesitation in a public court; and we know how cruelly she treated the poet, who hated her for it even while he still loved her:[233] Odi et amo.
Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris; Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. CATULL.
85. She was, as M.Boissier has well said,[234] the exact counterpart of her still more famous brother: "Elle apportait dans sa conduite privee, dans ses engagements d'affection, les memes emportements et les memes ardeurs que son frere dans la vie publique.
Prompte a tous les exces et ne rougissant pas de les avouer, aimant et haissant avec fureur, incapable de se gouverner et detestant toute contrainte, elle ne dementait pas cette grande et fiere famille dont elle descendait." All this is true; we need not go beyond it and believe the worst that has been said of her. We have just a glimpse of another lady of _cultus_, but only a glimpse.
This was Sempronia, the wife of an honest man and the mother of another;[235] but according to Sallust, who introduces her to us as a principal in the conspiracy of Catiline, she was one of those who found steady married life incompatible with literary and artistic tastes.
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