Gaius Helvius Cinna was an influential neoteric

Neoteric

The Neotericoi , Neoterics or the Neoteric period refers to avant-garde poets and their poetry, specifically those Greek and Latin poets in the Hellenistic Period who propagated a new style of Greek poetry, deliberately turning away from the classical Homeric epic poetry.Their poems featured...

 poet of the late Roman Republic

Roman Republic

The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...

, a little older than the generation of Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

 and Calvus

Licinius Macer Calvus

Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus was an orator and poet of ancient Rome.Son of Licinius Macer and thus a member of the gens Licinia, he was a friend of the poet Catullus, whose style and subject matter he shared. Calvus' oratical style opposed the "Asian" school in favor of a simpler Attic model: he...

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His magnum opus Zmyrna established his literary fame; a mythological epic poem focused on the incestuous love of Smyrna (or Myrrha)

Myrrha

Myrrha , also known as Smyrna , is the mother of Adonis in Greek mythology. She was transformed into a myrrh tree after having had intercourse with her father and gave birth to Adonis as a tree...

 for her father Cinyras

Cinyras

In Greek mythology, Cinyras was a king of Cyprus. Accounts vary significantly as to his genealogy and provide a variety of stories concerning him; in many sources, however, he is associated with the cult of Aphrodite on Cyprus, and Adonis, a consort of Aphrodite, is mentioned as his son.In the...

, treated after the erudite and allusive manner of the Alexandrian poets. He was a friend of Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

 (poem 10, 29-30: meus sodalis / Cinna est Gaius). When the Zmyrna was completed in about 55 B.C. Catullus hailed it as a great achievement, nine harvests and nine winters in the making.

This is the key information to survive about his life, together with a passage in the Suda

Suda

The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Suidas. It is an encyclopedic lexicon, written in Greek, with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often...

about the Augustan period poet Parthenius of Nicaea

Parthenius of Nicaea

Parthenius of Nicaea or Myrlea in Bithynia was a Greek grammarian and poet. According to the Suda, he was the son of Heraclides and Eudora, or according to Hermippus of Berytus, his mother's name was Tetha. He was taken prisoner by Cinna in the Mithridatic Wars and carried to Rome in 72 BC. He...

:

Son of Heracleides and Eudora (but Hermippus says Tetha was his mother). From Nicaea or Myrleia. A poet writing elegies and in various metres. He was taken by Cinna as war booty, when the Romans defeated Mithridates [sc. VI Eupator] in war. Then he was freed by reason of education and lived until the time of the Emperor Tiberius. He wrote elegies, Aphrodite, the funeral elegy for his wife Arete, an Encomium of Arete in three books, and many other works. He wrote about metamorphosis.

Ovid included him in his list of celebrated erotic poets and writers (Tristia II, 425ff.).

Although not related to them, Cinna shared the surname (cognomen) of the high noble (consular) aristocratic house of Corneli Cinnae, relatives by marriage of the famous Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

. According to Suetonius

Lives of the Twelve Caesars

De vita Caesarum commonly known as The Twelve Caesars, is a set of twelve biographies of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors of the Roman Empire written by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus.The work, written in AD 121 during the reign of the emperor Hadrian, was the most popular work of Suetonius,...

, Valerius Maximus

Valerius Maximus

Valerius Maximus was a Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes. He worked during the reign of Tiberius .-Biography:...

, Appian

Appian

Appian of Alexandria was a Roman historian of Greek ethnicity who flourished during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.He was born ca. 95 in Alexandria. He tells us that, after having filled the chief offices in the province of Egypt, he went to Rome ca. 120, where he practised as...

 and Dio Cassius

Dio Cassius

Lucius Cassius Dio Cocceianus , known in English as Cassius Dio, Dio Cassius, or Dio was a Roman consul and a noted historian writing in Greek...

, at Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....

's funeral in 44 BC, a certain Helvius Cinna was killed because he was mistaken for Cornelius Cinna

Lucius Cornelius Cinna (suffect consul 32 BC)

Lucius Cornelius Cinna was the son of the consul Lucius Cornelius Cinna, who was a supporter of politician Gaius Marius. His sister, Cornelia Cinna minor, was the first wife of dictator Julius Caesar and he was the maternal uncle of their daughter Julia Caesaris...

, the conspirator. The last three writers mentioned above add that he was a tribune of the people, while Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

, referring to the affair, gives the further information that the Cinna who was killed by the mob was a poet. This points to the identity of Helvius Cinna the tribune with Helvius Cinna the poet.

Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 adopted Plutarch's version of Cinna's death in his Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar (play)

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, also known simply as Julius Caesar, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599. It portrays the 44 BC conspiracy against...

, adding the black humor in which he often expressed his distrust of the crowd:

CINNA. Truly, my name is Cinna.

FIRST CITIZEN. Tear him to pieces, he's a conspirator.

CINNA. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet.

FOURTH CITIZEN. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.

CINNA. I am not Cinna the conspirator.

FOURTH CITIZEN. It is no matter, his name's Cinna. Pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going.

(Act III, Scene 3)

The chief objection to this view is based upon two lines in the 9th Eclogue of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

, supposed to have been written in 41 or 40 B.C. Here reference is made to a certain Cinna, a poet of such importance that Virgil deprecates comparison with him; it is argued that the manner in which this Cinna, who could hardly have been anyone but Helvius Cinna, is spoken of implies that he was then alive; if so, he could not have been killed in 44. But such an interpretation of the Virgilian passage is by no means absolutely necessary; the terms used do not preclude a reference to a contemporary no longer alive. It has been suggested that it was really Cornelius, not Helvius Cinna, who was slain at Caesar's funeral, but this is not borne out by the authorities.

A Propempticon Pollionis, a send-off to Asinius Pollio

Gaius Asinius Pollio (consul 40 BC)

Gaius Asinius Pollio was a Roman soldier, politician, orator, poet, playwright, literary critic and historian, whose lost contemporary history, provided much of the material for the historians Appian and Plutarch...

, is also attributed to him. 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

Parthenius of Nicaea

Parthenius of Nicaea or Myrlea in Bithynia was a Greek grammarian and poet. According to the Suda, he was the son of Heraclides and Eudora, or according to Hermippus of Berytus, his mother's name was Tetha. He was taken prisoner by Cinna in the Mithridatic Wars and carried to Rome in 72 BC. He...

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Cultural depictions

Cinna is a character in the chamber opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 Le piccole storie - ai margini delle guerre, written in 2007 by Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero

Lorenzo Ferrero

Lorenzo Ferrero is a contemporary Italian composer with a predilection for opera, a librettist, author, and book editor. He started composing at an early age and wrote over a hundred compositions thus far, including twelve operas, three ballets, and numerous orchestral, chamber music, solo...

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