CINNA, GAIUS HELVIUS

flourished 1st century BC Roman poet who wrote a mythological epic poem Smyrna. He was a friend of the poet Catullus. The early Christian-era historians Suetonius, Valerius Maximus, Appian, and Dio Cassius all state that at Caesar's funeral (44 BC) a certain Helvius Cinna was killed by mistake for Cornelius Cinna, the conspirator. The last three writers identify him as a tribune of the people, while Plutarch states that he was a poet. On the other hand, two lines in the 9th eclogue of Virgil, supposed to have been written in 41 or 40 BC, seem to imply that Helvius Cinna was then alive. Apart from his epic the Smyrna, Cinna is credited with having written a Propempticon Pollionis, a poem in the form of a send-off to his friend Asinius Pollio. In both these poems, the language of which was so obscure that they required special commentaries, his model appears to have been Parthenius of Nicaea, the Greek poet and teacher of Virgil.