Valerius had answered gently, "and not only your other friends. Will
you tell me of her yourself?" "What have you heard?" Catullus asked.
Valerius paused and then gave a direct and harsh reply: "That she
was a Medea to her husband, has been a Juno to her brother's Jupiter
and is an easy mistress to many lovers."

After that, Catullus was thankful now to remember, he himself had
talked passionately as the road slipped away under their horses' feet.
He had told Valerius how cruel the world had been to Clodia. Metellus
had been sick all winter and had died as other men die. He had
belittled her by every indignity that a man of rank can put upon his
wife, but she had borne with him patiently enough. Because she was
no Alcestis need she be called a Medea or a Clytemnestra? And because
the unspeakable Clodius had played Jupiter to his youngest sister's
Juno need Clodia be considered less than a Diana to his Apollo? As
for her lovers--his voice broke upon the word--she loved him,
Catullus, strange as that seemed, and him only. Of course, like all
women of charm, she could play the harmless coquette with other men.
He hated the domestic woman--Lucretius's dun-coloured wife, for
instance--on whom no man except her mate would cast an eye.

He wanted men to fall at his Love's feet, he thanked Aphrodite that
she had the manner and the subtle fire and the grace to bring them
there. Her mind was wonderful, too, aflame, like Sappho's, with the
love of beauty. That was why he called her Lesbia. He had used
Sappho's great love poem (Valerius probably did not know it, but it
was like a purple wing from Eros's shoulder) as his first messenger
to her, when his heart had grown hot as AEtna's fire or the springs
of Thermopylae. She had finally consented to meet him at Allius's
house. Afterwards she had told him that the day was marked for her