The roads and the strikers are allowed to fight out a private war in our midst as thoroughly and precisely a private war as any we despise the Middle Ages for having tolerated-as any street war in Florence or verona-and to fight it out at our pains and expense, and we stand by like sheep and wait till they get tired.
"A Hazard of New Fortunes, Part Fifth"
William Dean Howells
Catullus had retired to verona on hearing of the death of his brother, and he was for a time so overwhelmed with grief as to become indifferent both to poetry and love.
"The Roman Poets of the Republic"
W. Y. Sellar
One or two of the poems which we still possess may have been written before Catullus settled in Rome, and before his genius was fully awakened by his passion for Lesbia: but the great majority belong to a later date; and if he did write many love poems before leaving verona, 'in the pleasant spring-time of his life,' nearly all, if not all, of them were omitted from the final collection.
"The Roman Poets of the Republic"
W. Y. Sellar