"
(_conterraneus_), and the poet speaks of Verona as his home, or at least
his temporary residence, in more than one place. His occasional
residence in his native place is further attested by the statement of
Suetonius (_Julius Caesar_, 73), that "Julius Caesar accepted the poet's
apology for his scurrilous verses upon him, invited him to dine with him
on the same day, and continued his intimacy with his father as before."
As this incident could only have happened during the time that Julius
Caesar was pro-consul, the scene of it must have been in the Cisalpine
province, and at the house of the poet's father, in or near Verona. The
verses apologized for were those contained in poems xxix. and lvii., the
former of which must have been written after Caesar's invasion of
Britain, so that this interview probably took place in the winter of
55-54 B.C. The fact that his father was the host of the great
pro-consul, and lived on terms of intimacy with him, justifies the
inference, that he was, in wealth and rank, one of the principal men of
the province. The only other important statement concerning the poet's
life which rests on external authority is that of Apuleius, that the
real name of the Lesbia of the poems was Clodia. Another, which concerns
the reputation which he enjoyed after his death, is given in the _Life
of Atticus_ by Cornelius Nepos (12. 4). It is to the effect that he
regarded Lucretius and Catullus as the two greatest poets of his own
time.

The poems of Catullus consist of 116 pieces, varying in length from 2 to
408 lines, the great mass of them being, however, short pieces, written
in lyric, iambic or elegiac metre. The arrangement cannot be the poet's;
it is neither chronological nor in accordance with the character of the
topics. The shorter poems, lyric or iambic, are placed first, next the
longer epithalamia, (most being written in hexameters) amongst which the
_Attis_ is inserted and then those written in the elegiac metre. But,
though no chronological order is observed, yet internal evidence enables
us to determine the occasions on which many of the poems were written,
and the order in which they followed one another. They give a very vivid
image of various phases of the poet's life, and of the strong feelings
with which persons and things affected him. They throw much light also
on the social life of Rome and of the provincial towns of Italy in the
years preceding the outbreak of the second civil war