Helvius Cinna
Gaius Helvius Cinna was a
poet of the late
Roman Republic.
Practically nothing is known of his life except that he was the friend of
Catullus, whom he accompanied to
Bithynia in the suite of the praetor
Gaius Memmius.
The circumstances of his death have given rise to some discussion.
Suetonius,
Valerius Maximus,
Appian and
Dio Cassius all state that, at
Julius Caesar's funeral, a certain Helvius Cinna was killed by mistake for
Cornelius Cinna, the conspirator. The last three writers mentioned above add that he was a
tribune of the people, while
Plutarch, referring to the affair, gives the further information that the Cinna who was killed by the mob was a poet. This points to the identity of Helvius Cinna the tribune with Helvius Cinna the poet.
Shakespeare adopted Plutarch's version of Cinna's death in his
Julius Caesar, adding the black humor in which he often expressed his distrust of the crowd:
CINNA. Truly, my name is Cinna.:FIRST CITIZEN. Tear him to pieces, he's a conspirator.:CINNA. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.:FOURTH CITIZEN. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.:CINNA. I am not Cinna the conspirator.:FOURTH CITIZEN. It is no matter, his name's Cinna. Pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going.
(Act III, Scene 3)
The chief objection to this view is based upon two lines in the 9th eclogue of
Virgil, supposed to have been written in 41 or 40 B.C. Here reference is made to a certain Cinna, a poet of such importance that Virgil deprecates comparison with him; it is argued that the manner in which this Cinna, who could hardly have been anyone but Helvius Cinna, is spoken of implies that he was then alive; if so, he could not have been killed in 44. But such an interpretation of the Virgilian passage is by no means absolutely necessary; the terms used do not preclude a reference to a contemporary no longer alive. It has been suggested that it was really Cornelius, not Helvius Cinna, who was slain at Caesar's funeral, but this is not borne out by the authorities.
Cinna's chief work was a mythological epic poem called
Smyrna, the subject of which was the incestuous love of Smyrna (or Myrrha) for her father Cinyras, treated after the manner of the Alexandrian poets. It is said by
Catullus to have taken nine years to finish. A
Propempticon Pollionis, a send-off to
Asinius Pollio, is also attributed to him. In both these poems, the language of which was so obscure that they required special commentaries, his model appears to have been
Parthenius of Nicaea.
*
A. Weichert,
Poetarum Latinorum Vitae (1830)
*
L. Muller's edition of Catullus (1870), where the remains of Cinna's poems are printed
*
A. Kiessling,
De C. Helvio Cinna Poeta in Commentationes Philologicae in honorem T. Mommsen (1878)
*
O. Ribbeck,
Geschichte der romischen Dichtung, i. (1887)
*
Teuffel-Schwabe,
History of Roman Literature (Eng. tr. 213, 2-5)
*
Plessis, Posie latine (1900).
