group of poets comprising Catullus, Calvus, Cinna, and others. These are men of the provincial or Roman upper classes who
take the profession of poetry with utmost seriousness. They at least think that it well befits an upper-class Roman simply to
be a poet. Catullus, of course, we know most about. After a brief brush with active life he devoted his whole energies to
poetry-and love. Symptomatic of his poetical professionalism is his interest in and knowledge of the professional poet and
scholar of Alexandria, Callimachus (above, pp. 361 ff.). Catullus is probably best known for his love poetry and for his
lampoons and invectives; but arguably most indicative of him as an artist and certainly as a Neoteric are his intricate and
highly wrought longer poems, such as 64 (the Peleus and Thetis), 68, and his translation of Callimachus, 66. But these poems
are also indicative of something which went hand in glove, perhaps inevitably, with this new interest in the business of
poetry: aestheticism, an interest in technique for technique's sake. This tendency was probably more pronounced in Cinna.
His 'miniature epic' Zmyrna took nine years to write and attracted a scholarly commentary in the next generation.
Our period sees the final shift in attitude towards poetry and poets. Not only can poetry now appear a reputable full-time
occupation for Romans of good class. Poets relinquish aestheticism, engage themselves with society, discover or profess
commitment-or have to defend non-commitment. In short, the classical Greek view of poetry is again in play: it is the work of
important people and may serve the citizens of the state in a moral and educative fashion. Virgil and his poetry will be
glanced at below and discussed in another chapter. Of the elegiac poets (the term refers to their metre, cf. above p. 100, and
does not have the mournful overtones of the English 'elegy'), Tibullus is a knight, well off in Horace's eyes, though less so in
his own; Ovid and Propertius were knights (equites), and Propertius had relations of senatorial rank and friends of consular
standing. The attitude of these poets towards society will be discussed below. Horace is less grand than Propertius or
Tibullus: he is the son of a freedman, but a freedman with enough cash to put him through the equivalent of a university
education at Athens. Eventually Horace gained the status of a kind of poet laureate. He not only performs, with some
intermission, the function of moral and educative poet; he expresses it in theory.
Given that poets were traditionally of low social status, and given that no system of royalties or the like existed in the Roman
world (except for dramatists), how did poets live? The answer basically is: patronage. Poets attached themselves to, or were
collected by, wealthy Roman aristocrats. The great epic poet Ennius, for example (above, pp. 450 ff.), was patronized by,
among others, M. Fulvius Nobilior, and a catalogue of other poets could be adduced who wrote epics celebrating aristocratic
generals and thereby gained their sustenance. Poets fitted into the general Roman client-patron system whereby great men
were attended, cultivated, and in humble matters assisted by the humble, and in return bestowed their bounty and their
protection. But even in early days there was a difference between poet-clients and ordinary clients. For what the patron got
from the poet was something that was rather more estimable than that which other clients could offer: the perpetuation of
their fame and glory. More than that: memoria sempi-terna, 'being remembered for ever', was the way in which many
Romans, including Cicero, viewed how they might 'live' after death; so what a poet might offer was in effect a chance of
immortality. This is the keynote of Cicero's defence of Archias, mentioned above: Archias had provided immortality for
Marius and Lucullus and, through them, for the Roman People. This aspect of the poet's function in Rome is a vital one,
continuing into our period.
As the status of poet changes, so does the nature of patronage. Catullus, whose family is friendly with Julius Caesar and soon
to become senatorial, has no economic need of a patron and does not have one. His circle is a coterie, a grouping of equals,
and his address to Cornelius Nepos in his first poem is to be construed as a friendly or polite gesture, no more. Similarly
Propertius, in his first book. But patronage does persist, even among the socially enhanced poets of the Augustan period.
The circle of the great orator, soldier, and statesman, M. Valerius Messalla, consul with Octavian in 31 B.C., is indicative,
exhibiting both continuity and change. There are in fact points of resemblance between his circle and a coterie such as that of
Catullus. Pliny tells us that Messalla interested himself in the writing of erotic versicles, and we can observe him surrounded
by other love poets and poetasters (coterie fashion), who include his aristocratic niece Sulpicia. On the other hand, if the
author of the Panegyricus Messallae in the Tibullan corpus belongs to the circle and is talking of our Messalla (as is likely),
then here is continuity in the role of poet as client: the client-poet immortalizes the great man. But it is the relation of the
elegist Tibullus to Messalla that is most interesting.
Although Tibullus is vastly the social inferior of the noble Messalla, he is a knight, he does reflect the change in status of
poets-and yet his relationship to Messalla resembles the old one of client and patron. He writes poems that, while not being