The reference here, too, must have been to Antony.  The circle was clearly in harmony in their political views.

The two creatures of Antony attacked by Cicero and Vergil alike are Ventidius and Annius Cimber.  The epigram on the former takes the form of a parody of Catullus’ “Phasellus ille,” a poem which Vergil had good reason to remember, since Catullus’ yacht had been towed up the Mincio past Vergil’s home when he was a lad of about thirteen.  Indeed we hope he was out fishing that day and shared his catch with the home-returning travelers.  Parodies are usually not works of artistic importance, and this for all its epigrammatic neatness is no exception to the rule.  But it is not without interest to catch the poet at play for a moment, and learn his opinion on a political character of some importance.

Ventidius had had a checkered career.  After captivity, possibly slavery and manumission, Caesar had found him keeping a line of post horses and pack mules for hire on the great Aemilian way, and had drafted him into his transport service during the Gallic War.  He suddenly became an important man, and of course Caesar let him, as he let other chiefs of departments, profit by war contracts.  It was the only way he could hold men of great ability on very small official salaries.  Vergil had doubtless heard of the meteoric rise of this mulio even when he was at school, for the post-road for Caesar’s great trains of supplies led through Cremona.  After the war Caesar rewarded Ventidius further by letting him stand for magistracies and become a senator—­which of course shocked the nobility.  Muleteers in the Senate!  The man changed his cognomen to be sure, called himself Sabinus on the election posters, but Vergil remembered what name he bore at Cremona.  Caesar finally designated him for the judge’s bench, as praetor, and this high office he entered in 43.  He at once attached himself to Antony, who used him as an agent to buy the service of Caesarian veterans for his army.  It was this that stirred Cicero’s ire, and Cicero did not hesitate to expose the man’s career.  Vergil’s lampoon is interesting then not only in its connections with Catullus and the poet’s own boyhood memories, but for its reminiscences of Cicero’s speeches and the revelation of his own sympathies in the partizan struggle.  The poem of Catullus and Vergil’s parody must be read side by side to reveal the purport of Vergil’s epigram.

  Phaselus ille, quem videtis, hospites,
  Ait fuisse navium celerrimus,
  Neque ullius natantis impetum trabis
  Nequisse praeterire, sive palmulis
  Opus foret volare sive linteo. 
  Et hoc negat minacis Adriatici
  Negare litus insulasve Cycladas
  Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam
  Propontida trucemve Ponticum sinum,
  Ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit
  Comata silva:  nam Cytorio in iugo
  Loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma. 
  Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer,