I don't really know where to start, but I suppose I'm really only going to be the sole person who ever reads this; so who cares, -crawling self pity over with, (accompanied by ironic statement trying to mask the deep pit of self consciousness which I've now burrowed into). That miserable Caulfield-esque greeting established where better to begin than with the Ancients.  Iupiter solam scit (Jupiter alone knows) when I started reading the real classics- I am loathe to this idea that anything written post the fall of Rome, i.e. post Classical civilization, can be a classic, so we'll create an alternative when we get to that point. A little Thucydides, Herodotus, the Labours of Heracles and this and that, but in more recent times I've been indulged by Cicero. Now most people has heard of the Catiline speeches, and very good they are, such lines as "What need we fear his guards? Ay, a veritable Praetorian Guard of rent boys!" and "Oh the times! Oh the customs!" give a canape of Cicero's abilities, but I much preferred the Philippics which are essentially libel and which ensured that Cicero had to be assassinated. In the age of the clipped sound-bite and the spineless spin-doctored politician, these orations are refreshing and brilliant. Moreover his defense of the liberties of the people of Rome has become increasingly apt in these revolutionary times.

Also writing at this time was the great poet Catullus. The sex scandals and what-not of the detestable pages of Hello! etc. are not new. Nothing is ever really new, it must be said. Catullus is best known for his love poetry (I should like to point out that those words were typed amidst eye-rolling), certainly his words have been used to lure many lambs to slaughter, but really his 'love' poetry charts the ups and downs of his stormy relationship with Lesbia, perhaps summed up in  "Odi et amo" (I hate and I love);

I hate and I love,
Why do I do this,
You might ask?

I do no know,
But I feel it and
It is agony.

And Love poetry is all well and good but cynical git as I am, I rather more preferred the raw emotional torment that is expressed in "Ave atque Vale".

Having travelled through many
Nations and over many
Seas, I come my Brother to
These sad funeral rites to
Give you the last gift of the
Dead and to in vain address
Your silent ashes since ill-
Fortune has taken away
You from me, alas, my poor
Poor brother, unworthily.
Now, meanwhile take from me these
Offerings which in the long
Ancient customs of our fore-
Fathers have been bound by and
Fixed so that by way of a
Sad gift to the dead made wet
By the tears of a brother
Forever and ever.
Hail and Goodbye.

Editions of Catullus' poetry are easily procured and frankly worth reading. Yet his work can be a little grave and emotionally over-charged or occasionally just bitchy as in the infamous Catullus 16. But my favourite Latin poet (if we are dealing with the Romans it seems apt to have a grouping of three) is Martial. Pope, Wilde, Thribb are really much the inferior to these most stinging and simple of epigrams. There is no arguing with the likes of ;

You Beg me Quintus,
To give you my books,
But Tryphone the book
Seller has them. You ask
"Am I to pay money
For these Little trifles?"
And "Am I to buy
Your poems if I am
sane? I shan't act
So stupidly!" You say.
Nor will I.
 
And as such I really do find myself enjoying his bile concerning his fellow Romans. His poems are easily accessible and thoroughly enjoyable. I recommend them highly as an anecdote to the self-absorbed and corrupt society we inhabit.