Cinaede Romule, omnia urbis perdidisti.

Catullus 29 is neither my favorite nor the most interesting Catullian poem I've translated, but I do believe that it is the epitome of Catullus's overt political commentaries, mixed with a subtle wittiness and his usual sass.

I. Latin

Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,

Nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo,

Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia

Habebat ante et ultima Britannia?

Cinaede Romule, haec videbis et feres?

Et ille nunc superbus et superfluens

Perambulabit omnium cubilia

Ut albulus columbus aut Adoneus?

Cinaede Romule, haec videbis et feres?

Es impudicus et vorax et aleo.

Eone nomine, imperator unice,

Fuisti in ultima occidentis insula,

Ut ista vestra diffututa mentula

Ducenties comesset aut trecenties?

Quid est alid sinistra liberalitas?

Parum expatravit an parum elluatus est?

Paterna prima lancinata sunt bona;

Secunda praeda Pontica; inde tertia

Hibera, quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus.

Nunc Galliae timetur et Britanniae.

Quid hunc malum fovetis? aut quid hic potest

Nisi uncta devorare patrimonia?

Eone nomine urbis o piisimi,

Socer generque, perdidistis omnia?

II. English

Who is able to see this? Who is able to tolerate (this), 

If not a shameless and a greedy man and a gambler,

That Mamurra has what hairy Gaul

Used to have before and the furthest Britain (used to have before)?

Slutty Romulus, will you see and bear these things?

And that man, now prideful and self-indulgent, 

Will ramble through the bedrooms of all, 

Like a little white dove or an Adonis?

Slutty Romulus, will you see and bear these things?

You are a shameless and a greedy man and a gambler.

For this name, one and only emperor,

You have been in the furthest island of the west, 

With the result that your damned penis, having been fucked out, 

Was devouring two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand dollars?

If not this, what else is this perverse generosity?

Has he not squandered enough and not wasted enough?

First, his inheritance was wasted;

Second, his loot from Pontus; third,

(his loot) from Spain, which the gold-bearing Tagus River knows.

Now, there is fear for Gaul and for Britain. 

What bad man do you all coddle now? And, what is this man able to devour 

besides anointed/fat patrimonies?

For this name, o most pious father-in-law and son-in-law, 

You have destroyed everything of the city?

Mamurra was a military general who led several campaigns in Gaul and Britain under Caesar's command. Catullus, along with many other middle or middle-high class Romans, bitterly despised him---not because they morally opposed the idea of genocide, but rather, they felt petty that Mamurra was getting hundreds of thousands of spoils by stabbing barbarians and by sucking-up to Caesar while the rest of them elites, who were lounging inside the city’s walls, gained nothing. Catullus even goes as far as to call Mamurra a “damned penis,” referencing his nickname in Roman social circles, Mr. Penis. In modern lingo, Catullus essentially accuses Mamurra of thinking with "his dick instead of his head."

Catullus then shifts the blame to Caesar and Pompey. In lines 2 and 10, he calls Caesar a “shameless and greedy…gambler.” The “shameless” part of Catullus’s accusation possibly alludes to both Caesar’s obvious bias toward the incompetent Mamurra, as well as his rumored homosexual relationships. The latter is manifested in the infamous epithet “[c]inaede Romule,” or “slutty Romulus.” However, “slutty” is actually a much tamer translation. It would be more accurate to cinaede as (forgive me for my crude language) ‘bottom bitch.' 

In Ancient Rome, sexual relationships weren’t judged by whether the people involved were of the same sex but by who was dominant and who was submissive, and being called cinaede undoubtedly extremely embarrassing to an ancient Roman man. Pairing cinaede with “Romulus,” the first king of Rome, Catullus creates an ironic paradox where, although Caesar presents himself as a powerful figure, he is actually effeminate and weak. According to classicist Alan Cameron, by using this term, Catullus wasn’t trying to attack Caesar for his alleged homosexuality, but was simply “ma[king] use of this most offensive of accusations out of a general dissatisfaction with his behavior.” 

The words “greedy” and “gambler” are directed toward Caesar and Pompey’s apparent thirst and wastefulness for money, which are showcased through their superfluous campaigns. In lines 23 and 24, Catullus sarcastically addresses Caesar and Pompey as “most pious father-in-law and son-in-law,” and accuses them of “destroy[ing] everything of the city.” Not only does he make a subtle dig at their awkward familial relationship, as although Caesar is significantly younger than Pompey, Pompey is married to Caesar’s daughter, Julia, he essentially states that they have squandered all of Rome’s honor and resources just to lavish them on Mamurra’s useless campaigns.

Although scholars typically attribute the phrases “cinaede Romule,” “imperator unice,” and “impudicus et vorax et aleo” to Caesar, they could also allude to Pompey. In reference to the former two, Cameron argues that the “two apostrophes are so different in tone that…they cannot very happily be applied to the same man at the same moment. cinaede Romule, with its explicit sexual reference, is straightforwardly contemptuous, whereas imperator unice is ‘ironically polite.’” He theorizes that, because imperator unice has such a strong correlation with Caesar, cinaede Romule would have to be, by this reasoning, about Pompey. Moreover, while writing Catullus 55, Pompey had a much greater presence in Rome’s social-political scene than Caesar, who was away in the Alps, and was considered the “Romulus” of the time. Regardless of the specificity of these accusations, the poem itself is undisputedly addressed to both Caesar and Pompey.