the orator in the _Philippics_ charges Antony with having used Caesar's
seal ring for lucrative forgeries in state documents. It is interesting
to find that Vergil's school friend, Varius, in his poem on Caesar's
death, called _De Morte_[3] first put Cicero's charges into effective
verse:

Vendidit hic Latium populis agrosque Quiritum
Eripuit: fixit leges pretio atque refixit.

[Footnote 3: Some recent critics have suggested that the poem may have
been a general discussion of the fear of death, but Varius is constantly
referred to as an epic poet (Horace, _Sat_. I. 10, 43; _Carm_. I. 6
and Porphyrio _ad loc_). His poem was written before Vergil's eighth
_Eclogue_ which we place in 41 B.C. (Macrobius, _Sat_. VI. 2. 20) and
probably before the ninth (see I.36).]

The reference here, too, must have been to Antony. The circle was clearly
in harmony in their political views.

The two creatures of Antony attacked by Cicero and Vergil alike are
Ventidius and Annius Cimber. The epigram on the former takes the form
of a parody of Catullus' "Phasellus ille," a poem which Vergil had good
reason to remember, since Catullus' yacht had been towed up the Mincio
past Vergil's home when he was a lad of about thirteen. Indeed we hope
he was out fishing that day and shared his catch with the home-returning
travelers. Parodies are usually not works of artistic importance, and
this for all its epigrammatic neatness is no exception to the rule. But
it is not without interest to catch the poet at play for a moment, and
learn his opinion on a political character of some importance.