10. Yet there was apparently wealth enough in the family to enable even the younger brother to enjoy the advantages that wealth brought to the young Italian of that day. He was able early in his young manhood to go to Rome, and to make that city thenceforth his abiding-place (c. 68.34 ff.). He owned a villa at Sirmio (c. 31), and another on the edge of the Sabine hills (c. 44). And there is no indication that while at Rome he was busy with any pursuit that could fill his purse, although, like many another young Roman, he later obtained a provincial appointment, and went to Bithynia on the staff of the governor Memmius in the hope of wealth (cf. § 29 ff.). The hope, he tells us (cc. 10, 28), proved abortive, but Catullus had yet money enough -- perhaps even to purchase a yacht for his homeward journey like any millionaire (cf. § 35 and introductory note to c. 4) - at any rate to continue his merry life at Rome, apparently without great pecuniary embarrassment. All these indications point to no financial inability or niggardliness on the part of his father. Possibly the villas, and an increase of income, came to him upon the death of his brother.
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Catullus. Catullus. E. T. Merrill. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1893.
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