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. "She could play and dance more elegantly than an honest woman
should .
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