Page 88 "What's going on, Catullus?"

From page 88 of the book:  "..."What's going on, Catullus?" he asked, kicking off his shoes.  "Reading dirting poems?  Thinking about unnatural acts?"
"No," I smiled, avoiding his eyes, drinking my wine."

[Gaius Catullus (84 BC to 54 BC), Latin poet of the Roman Republic.  His poems have been preserved in an anthology of 116 carmina, which can be divided into three formal parts: short poems in varying metres, longer poems, and epigrams.

    The short poems and the epigrams can be divided into four major thematic groups (ignoring a rather large number of poems eluding such categorization):

a.  poems to and about his friends (e.g., an invitation like poem 13).

b.  erotic poems: some of them indicate homosexual penchants (50 and 99), but most are about women, especially about one he calls "Lesbia" (in honour of the poetess Sappho of Lesbos, source and inspiration of many of his poems).

c.  invectives: often rude and sometimes downright obscene poems targeted at friends-turned-traitors (e.g., poem 30), other lovers of Lesbia, well known poets, politicians (e.g., Julius Caesar) and rhetors, including Cicero.

d.  condolences: some poems of Catullus are solemn in nature. 96 comforts a friend in the death of a loved one; several others, most famously 101, lament the death of his brother.

    All these poems describe the lifestyle of Catullus and his friends, who, despite Catullus's temporary political post in Bithynia, lived their lives withdrawn from politics. They were interested mainly in poetry and love. Above all other qualities, Catullus seems to have sought venustas, or charm, in his acquaintances, a theme which he explores in a number of his poems. The ancient Roman concept of virtus (i.e. of virtue that had to be proved by a political or military career), which Cicero suggested as the solution to the societal problems of the late Republic, meant little to them.]