Helvius Cinna

Gaius Helvius Cinna (died 20 March 44 BC) was an influential neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic, a little older than the generation of Catullus and Calvus. He was lynched at the funeral of Julius Caesar after being mistaken for an unrelated Cornelius Cinna who had spoken out in support of the dictator's assassins.

Quotes

• Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous,
  et flentem paulo vidit post Hesperus idem.
  • Thee in tears the star of morn beheld, thee in tears the same star, anon at even, saw.
  • Zmyrna, quoted by Servius, ad Vergili Georgica, I, 288 (Eclogue 9, 35); J. C. Collins, Illustrations of Tennyson (1891), p. 27; J. C. Carr (Cornhill Magazine, vol. 41. p. 47) compares Alfred Tennyson, "Mariana", 13:
    Her tears fell with the dews at even,
    Her tears fell ere the dews were dried.

• At scelus incesto Zmyrnae crescebat in alvo.
  • The heinous design was gaining strength in Zmyrna's incestuous bosom.
    • Zmyrna, quoted by Priscian, I, 268; Norbert Gutterman, A Book of Latin Quotations (1966), p. 107