A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

CINNA.
dinia, he went with M. Perperna to join Sertorius
in Spain. (Suet. Caes. 5; Plut. Sert. 15.) Caesar,
his brother-in-law, wishing to make use of him
against the party of the senate, procured his recall
from exile. But his father had been proscribed by
Sulla, and young Cinna was by the laws of proscription unable to hold office, till Caesar, when
dictator, had them repealed. He was not elected
praetor till B. c. 44. By that time he had become
discontented with Caesar's government; and
though he would not join the conspirators, he approved of their act. And so great was the rage of
the mob against him, that notwithstanding he was
praetor, they nearly murdered him; nay, they
did murder Helvius Cinna, tribune of the plebs,
whom they mistook for the praetor, though he was
at the time walking in Caesar's funeral procession.
(Plut. Brut. 18, Caes. 68; Suet. Caes. 52, 85, &c.;
Val. Max. ix. 9. ~ 1.) Cicero praises him for not
taking any province (Philipp. iii. 10); but it may
be doubted whether the conspirators gave him the
choice, for the praetor does not seem to have been
a very disinterested person. He married a daughter of Pompeius Magnus.
4. CINNA, probably brother of the last, served
as quaestor under Dolabella against Brutus. (Plut.
Brut. 25; Cic. Philipp. x. 6.)
5. CN. CORNELIUS CINNA MAGNUS, son of No.
3, and therefore grandson of Pompey, whence he
received the surname of Magnus. Though he sided
with Antony against Octavius, he was preferred
to a priesthood by the conqueror, and became consul in A. D. 5. (Senec. de Clem. i. 9; Dion Cass.
lv. 14. 22.) [H. G. L.]
The name of Cinna occurs, in the form of Cinc4,
on asses, semisses, and trientes. A specimen of one
is given below: the obverse represents the head of
Janus, the reverse the prow of a ship.
CINNA, C. HE'LVIUS, a poet of considerable
renown, was the contemporary, companion, and
friend of Catullus. (Catull. x., xcv., cxiii.) The
year of his birth is totally unknown, but the day
of his death is generally supposed to be a matter
of common notoriety-; for Suetonius (Caes. 85) informs us, that immediately after the funeral of
Julius Caesar the rabble rushed with fire-brands to
the houses of Brutus and Cassius, but having been
with difficulty driven back, chanced to encounter
Helvius Cinna, and mistaking him, from the resemblance of name, for Cornelius Cinna, who but
the day before had delivered a violent harangue
against the late dictator, they killed him on the
spot, and bore about his head stuck on a spear.
The same story is repeated almost in the same
words by Valerius Maximus (ix. 9. ~ 1), by Appian (B. C. ii. 147), and by Dion Cassius (xliv.
50), with this addition, that they all three call
Helvius Cinna a tribune of the plebeians, and
Suetonius himself in a previous chapter (50) had
spoken of Helvius Cinna as a tribune, who was to

CINNA. 755
have brought forward a law authorizing Caesar to
marry whom he pleased and as many as he pleased,
in order to make sure of an heir. Plutarch likewise
(Caes. 68) tells us that Cinna, a friend of Caesar,
was torn to pieces under the supposition that he
was Cinna, one of the conspirators. None of the
above authorities take any notice of Cinna being
a poet; but Plutarch, as if to supply the omission,
when relating the circumstances over again in the
life of Brutus (c. 20), expressly describes the
victim of this unhappy blunder as roriTriIKos dv4p
(v 84 risK Klvvas, rol+fcrIKos dvripp-the reading
WroAhrLsds visp being a conjectural emendation of
Xylander). The chain of evidence thus appearing
complete, scholars have, with few exceptions, concluded that Helvius Cinna, the tribune, who perished thus, was the same with Helvius Cinna the
poet; and the story of his dream, as narrated by
Plutarch (Caes. 1. c.) has been embodied by Shakspeare in his Julius Caesar.
Weichert, however, following in the track of
Reiske and J. H. Voss, refuses to admit the identity of these personages, on the ground that chronological difficulties render the position untenable.
He builds almost entirely upon two lines in Virgil's
ninth eclogue, which is commonly assigned to. c.
40 or 41.
Nam neque adhuc Vario videor, nec dicere Cinna
Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser alores,
arguing that, since Varius was alive at this epbch,
Cinna must have been alive also; that the Cinna
here celebrated can be no other than Helvius Cinna;
and that inasmuch as Helvius Cinna was alive in
B. C. 40, he could not have been murdered in B. c.
44. But, although the conclusion is undeniable if
we admit the premises, it will be at once seen that
these form a chain, each separate link of which is a
pure hypothesis. Allowing that the date of the pastoral has been correctly fixed, although this cannot
be proved, we must bear in mind-1. That Varo
and not Vario is the reading in every MS. 2.
That even if Vario be adopted, the expression in
the above verses might have been used with perfect propriety in reference to any bard who had
been a contemporary of Virgil, although recently
dead. 3. That we have no right to assert dogmatically that the Cinna of Virgil must be C. Helvius
Cinna, the friend of Catullus. Hence, although
we may grant that it is not absolutely certain that
Helvius Cinna the tribune and Helvius Cinna the
poet were one and the same, at all events this opinion rests upon much stronger evidence than the
other.
The great work of C. Helvius Cinna was his
Smyrna; but neither Catullus, by whom it is
highly extolled (xcv.), nor any other ancient writer
gives us a hint with regard to the subject, and
hence the various speculations in which critics
have indulged rest upon no basis whatsoever.
Some believe that it contained a history of the
adventures of Smyrna the Amazon, to whom the
famous city of lonia ascribed its origin; others
that it was connected with the myth of Adonis
and with the legend of Myrrha, otherwise named
Smyrna, the incestuous daughter of Cinyras; at
all events, it certainly was not a drama, as a commentator upon Quintilian has dreamed; for the
fragments, short and unsatisfactory as they are,
suffice to demonstrate that it belonged to the epic
style. These consist of two disjointed hexameters
3c2