But Cornelia's life at Rome was rendered unhappy by many other things
besides these occasional brutal stabs from her uncle. Her mother, as
has been hinted, was a woman of the world, and had an intense desire
to draw her daughter into her own circle of society. Claudia cared for
Cornelia in a manner, and believed it was a real kindness to tear the
poor girl away from her solitary broodings and plunge her into the
whirl of the world of Roman fashion. Claudia had become an intimate of
Clodia, the widow of Quintus Metellus, a woman of remarkable gifts and
a notoriously profligate character. "The Medea of the Palatine Hill,"
Cicero had bitingly styled her. Nearly all the youth of parts and
social distinction enjoyed the wild pleasures of Clodia's garden by
the Tiber. Catullus the poet, Cælius the brilliant young politician,
and many another had figured as lovers of this soulless and enchanting
woman. And into Clodia's gilded circle Claudia tried desperately to
drag her daughter. The Lentuli had a handsome palace on the Carinæ,
one of the most fashionable quarters of the capital; and here there
were many gay gatherings and dinner parties. Cornelia was well born
enough, by reputation wealthy enough, and in feature handsome enough,
to have a goodly proportion of the young men of this coterie her
devoted admirers and slaves. Claudia observed her daughter's social
triumphs with glee, and did all she could to give Cornelia plenty of
this kind of company. Cornelia would not have been a mortal woman if
she had not taken a certain amount of pleasure in noticing and
exercising her power. The first occasion when she appeared at a formal
banquet in the splendid Apollo dinner hall of the Luculli, where the
outlay on the feast was fixed by a regular scale at two hundred
thousand sesterces, she gathered no little satisfaction by the
consciousness that all the young men were admiring her, and all the
women were fuming with jealousy. But this life was unspeakably