by Daisy Dunn
15 Pliny Natural History 35.3.
16 On the distant ancestry see Suetonius Tiberius 1.1.
17 Diodorus Siculus Library of History 20.36.1–2.
18 The change in spelling took place prior to 61 BC, as Cicero’s letters referring to her brother ‘Clodius’ reveal.
19 A few decades earlier, a Latin poet named Valerius Aedituus had written a version of the same poem, but his word order rendered his lines somewhat clumsier than Catullus’. Valerius Aedituus cit. Gellius Attic Nights 19.9.10. See Courtney (1993) p. 70.
20 Horace would later adapt the same lines to describe his own tears and frozen tongue. Horace Carmen 4.1.33–6.
21 See criticism of ‘eyes not dark’ in Catullus Poem 43; Cicero’s references to Clodia’s ‘oxen eyes’ are ubiquitous in his correspondence with Atticus, his equestrian friend.
22 Plutarch Caesar 9.4.
23 Based on the account of Juvenal Satires 6.314–45.
24 Clodius incited the mutiny when they were quartering at Nisibis (modern south-east Turkey) in winter 68–67 BC. Many were disillusioned with Lucullus’ style of leadership. Clodius proceeded to Cilicia, where he was stationed under Marcius Rex, husband of his second sister, and where he was taken prisoner. He was in Gaul in 64 BC.
25 Cicero de Haruspicum Responso 44.
26 Tatum (1999) pp. 74–5.
27 Plutarch (Caesar 9) was a biographer who believed this.
28 Suetonius Julius Caesar 74; Dio Roman History 37.45.
29 Cicero ad Atticum 2.1; Cicero ad Fam 1.9.
30 Seneca Epistle 97.
31 Plutarch Crassus 7.
32 Suetonius Caesar 10.
33 Dio Roman History 37.52–3.
34 Suetonius Caesar 7.
35 Plutarch Pompey 44. Pompey had seen how hostile Cato had been towards his fervent supporter Metellus Nepos, the brother of Metellus Celer, and clearly hoped that a wedding would soften him.
36 Even the historians were willing to record the rumours, see Suetonius Caesar 50.
37 Plutarch Pompey 45.
38 Plutarch Pompey 42.
39 Cloak: Appian Mithridatic Wars 117.
40 Diodorus Siculus Library of History 5.26.
41 One of the finest wines of the age, Falernian, a glorious, sweet, nectar-coloured liquid from Campania, superior even to Verona’s local, was a favourite among the elite. Raetian was not quite as good as Falernian – Virgil Georgics 2.95–6.
III: An elegant new little book
1 On the dedication to Cornelius Nepos see Ausonius Eclogue I, who discerns irony in Catullus’ apparent modesty.
2 A similar phrase is found in an earlier Roman comedy: Plautus Aulularia 84.
3 The episode is said to have taken place when Metellus Celer was in Gaul. See Pomponius Mela de Chorographia 3.38; Pliny Natural History 2.67.
4 Cornelius Nepos Life of Atticus 12.4.
5 Pliny Natural History 36.42.
6 A remnant of what he did not include in Cornelius’ copy read: ‘If any of you chance to become readers of my untimely ramblings …’ (Poem 14b). It was a draft dedication, or the introduction to a different poetry volume entirely.
7 It might have been modelled on Callimachus’ request in his Aetia, Fr. 7.14.
8 Propertius 2.25; 2.34; Ovid Amores 3.9.
9 In Catullus Poem 53 there is a reference to Calvus as salaputium disertum, which Seneca the Elder uses as evidence of Calvus’ short stature, erat enim parvolus statura propter quod etiam Catullus in hendecasyllabis vocat illum salaputium disertum (Controversiae 7.4). It is uncertain what salaputium means, but from Seneca and Catullus together we can say it has to do with size: Calvus was small.
10 Suetonius Caesar 45.
11 Calvus Io cit. Servius ad Verg. Eclogue 6.47.
12 Gellius Attic Nights 19.13.
13 Virgil Eclogues 9.35–6. Cinna was slightly older than Catullus and Calvus.
14 Publius Valerius Cato was said to have taught many distinguished poets, but died an old man in poverty. See Suetonius de grammaticis 11. One poet claimed that this Valerius Cato was responsible for establishing the poets. Catullus did not go so far, but clearly admired his work, which included grammar books and two (now lost) learned poems, Lydia (‘a book of great consideration to learned people’, according to an erotic poet named Ticidas), and Diana, of which Cinna said, ‘May the Dictynna [Diana] of our Cato survive down the generations.’
15 On the novelty of Catullus’ name see Wheeler (1964) p. 108.
16 Plutarch Cato the Younger 1.2.
17 Cicero ad Atticum 2.1.8.
18 Possibly the lawyer and writer Publius Alfenus Varus, of whom very little is known today, see Neudling (1955) p. 2.
19 Varus and Suffenus were probably one and the same, Nisbet (1995) p. 411.
20 Cicero used these terms after 50 BC, see for example ad Atticum 7.2. He also called them cantores Euphorionis, ‘singers of Euphorion’ (Tusculanae 3.45 (c.45 BC)). The Greek poet Euphorion perpetuated Callimachus’ legacy, and Catullus might have been familiar with his hexameter works.
21 These poets included Valerius Aedituus, Quintus Lutatius Catulus, and Laevius. On these poets and the surviving fragments see Courtney (1993). The satirist Gaius Lucilius would also have been an influence.
22 See Trimble (2012) on expurgated commentaries of Catullus.
23 In 1989 the decision to include three of Catullus’ more risqué poems on a Latin A-level syllabus inspired a heated media debate. Eventually, the board resolved to keep the poems on the syllabus, but set no questions on them.
24 Doctus: Tibullus 3.6.41; Ovid Amores 3.9.62 et ubique.
25 Catullus was more familiar with the recent history, which had seen Rome inherit the kingdom from the Ptolemies of Egypt, who themselves had assumed rule over the region in the era after Alexander the Great. Embassies and trade had passed between the Ptolemies and Rome for some time.
26 Quintus Lutatius Catulus, for example, adapted Callimachus Epigram 41.
27 Callimachus Fragment 398.
28 Cicadas over asses, from the prologue to Callimachus Aetia (Fragment 1.29–30).
29 Cicero Brutus 171.
30 Holland (1979) pp. 11–13.
IV: Sparrow
1 An erotic poet in Rome named Ticidas was also using a pseudonym, ‘Perilla’ (), for his lover Metella (), and later poets would follow suit. Ovid would study Catullus’ poems to Lesbia as he went about developing the genre of love elegy. In around 15 BC, he would publish his Amores, elegies which drew upon his relationship with his lover ‘Corinna’, the name of a real Greek female poet.
2 Cicero Pro Caelio 27.
3 Stevenson (2005) p. 35 convincingly argued that this poet, Cornificia, wife of Camerius, was part of Catullus’ circle. Cornificia was commemorated alongside her brother in a monument inscription (CIL 6.1300a) in Rome: CORNIFICIA Q. F. CAMERI Q. CORNIFICIUS Q. F. FRATER PR. AUGUR (Cornificia, daughter of Quintus, wife of Camerius; her brother Praetor and Augur, Quintus Cornificius, son of Quintus). Cornificius found success on the back of political rather than poetical ventures, though in Poem 38 Catullus requested a poem of him ‘sadder than the tears of Simonides’, a Greek poet who lived a century after Sappho. A surviving fragment of Cornificius’ work shows he admired Callimachean brevity: deducta mihi voce garrienti, perhaps, ‘My voice is reduced to mere chatter’ (cit. Macrobius Saturnalia 6.4.12).
4 I believe that Calvus’ Quintilia was synonymous with the ‘Quintia’ of Catullus Poem 86. Some later authors believed that Calvus was married to Quintilia (cf. Diomedes 376 Keil Calvus alibi ad uxorem ‘prima epistula videtur in via delita’), but he was more likely to celebrate a lover in verses as he did.
5 On Roman attitudes to disability, see Garland (1995). Many babies with disabilities were ‘exposed’, that is: left outside to die at birth. Catullus was not blind, but if he had a lazy eye it might have proved of interest to some Romans; Homer was conventionally viewed as blind, and represented as such in sculptures.
&nbs
p; 6 Cato the Elder cit. Aulus Gellius Attic Nights 10.23.4; no examples of this law being used survive.
7 Sappho Fragment 1.
8 Meleager AP 7.195.
9 Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet 2.2.182.
10 Dio Roman History 37.49.
11 Cicero ad Atticum 1.19.
12 On Lucullus’ achievements prior to his replacement by Pompey see Cicero de imperio Gn. Pompei especially 20–6.
13 Clodia served as Clodius’ go-between as she relayed his conversations to Atticus, Cicero’s friend (Cicero ad Atticum 2.9), see also Cicero ad Atticum 2.14.
14 Over a century later, the biographer Plutarch (Cicero 29.3) claimed that Cicero’s wife Terentia jealously believed that Clodia Metelli wanted to marry Cicero. This is almost certainly inaccurate, and even if true says more about Terentia’s temperament than Clodia’s ambitions.
15 Cicero ad Atticum 2.1.
16 Cicero ad Atticum 2.1; see also Dio Roman History 37.51.
17 Ovid Amores 2.12(13).3–4.
18 Virgil Aeneid 2.242–43: quarter ipso in limine portae/substitit.
19 Cicero ad Atticum 12.52; 13.7. Cicero wrote a series of letters to his friend Atticus in 45 BC expressing his desire to purchase some gardens. He found himself particularly enamoured of land a Clodia owned near the Tiber. Enquiring about its availability, he happened to mention the divorce between one of the patrician politicians whom Caesar supported, Publius Lentulus Spinther, and a certain Metella. The context of his letter implied that the Metella in question was the daughter of Metellus Celer and his wife Clodia. Metella would have an affair with Publius Cornelius Dolabella, the husband of Cicero’s daughter Tullia (see Cicero ad Atticum 11.23). The connection between Clodia Metelli, the gardens, Metella and Lentulus Spinther was discussed by Shackleton Bailey (2004) pp. 412–13, citing an earlier scholar, Münzer, and remains convincing. Metella, the daughter of Clodia, may even have been the Metella whom Ticidas, an erotic poet connected to Catullus’ set, wrote poems for under the pseudonym ‘Perilla’. Little is known of Ticidas, but see Ovid Tristia 2.433.
20 Pliny Natural History 29.27.
21 Soranus Gynaecology 1.20, writing in the first century AD.
22 Soranus Gynaecology 1.60–1. See Hopkins (1965) pp. 134–35 on ancient contraception.
V: The rumours of our elders
1 The identification of Catullus’ Furius with the poet from Cremona Marcus Furius Bibaculus is likely, especially as Tacitus wrote of both poets in the same line in reference to verses they wrote about Julius Caesar, carmina Bibaculi et Catulli … (Annals 4.34). Few fragments of Furius Bibaculus’ work survive, but Suetonius quoted him in de grammaticis 11. Among other surviving fragments of his work is a reference to Memnon, a king of Ethiopia whom Achilles was said to have killed (Horace Satires 1.10.36).
2 Theophrastus Characters 4; 25. On the concept of ‘softness’, see Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics.
3 Fragment 2, attributed to Catullus, cit. Nonius. The line may have been spoken by Priapus, and refer to another activity; there is no certainty as to its reference.
4 So Propertius (2.34.87–8) recalled how the writings of Catullus made Lesbia notorious.
5 Dupont (1992) p. 110.
6 Seneca Epistle 97.
7 Polybius Histories 6.57.
8 Horace Satires 1.1.100–01. It was Clodia’s later lover Caelius Rufus who spoke of her frigidity cit. Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 8.6.53.
9 Lucretius de Rerum Natura 4.1274.
10 Martial Epigram 11.15.
11 Scholars have observed that Catullus seems to recognise Furius as a critic, for example, Green (1940) p. 353.
12 Gutzwiller (2012) pp. 83–4.
13 Ellis (1889) p. 22.
14 Cf. Kutzko (2006) p. 408.
15 Ovid Tristia 2.427–29.
16 Skinner (2003) p. 100.
17 Furius Bibaculus cit. Suetonius de grammaticis 9 on the learned Lucius Orbilius Pupillus, who lived long but lost his memory.
VI: The power of three
1 Such was the voting system for the consuls. Even in the elections for tribunes, citizens were divided into tribes in order to vote. It was rare that men living outside Rome had a voice in these elections, since they needed to present their votes in Rome in person.
2 Q. Arrius: Cicero ad Atticum 1.17; Brutus 242–43; ad Atticum 2.5. In other letters to Atticus, Cicero mentioned an irritating man called C. Arrius, who was possibly the same character: see Cicero ad Atticum 2.14; 2.15 and Ramage (1959) pp. 44–5.
3 Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 1.5.19–20.
4 Plutarch Pompey 2.
5 Virgil Aeneid 6.830.
6 Cicero Pro Caelio 24.
7 The identification of Manlius Torquatus is not certain, but many scholars have considered it likely.
8 On Roman marriage, Williams (1958) pp. 16–29 is still a valuable overview.
9 Ovid Metamorphoses 3.353, cit. Anderson (1997) p. 375.
10 From Callimachus Epigram 27.
11 Meleager Epigram 5.8.5 cit. Gutzwiller (2012) p. 82.
VII: I hate and I love
1 Cicero Pro Caelio 7.
2 Cicero Pro Caelio 36.
3 Varro On Agriculture 2.11.10, cit. Zanker (2005), whose chapter on Hadrian’s beard is highly informative.
4 Cicero ad Fam 8.1.
5 Cicero Pro Caelio 30. Unlike Verona, Caelius’ Interamnia had Roman citizenship, which made him eligible to join a propraetor’s cohort.
6 Archilochus Fragment 23.14–16 (West); Meleager anthology AP 12.103. See discussion in Gutzwiller (2012) p. 82.
7 Suetonius Caesar 20.
8 Cicero ad Atticum 2.7.
9 The historian Beesly (1878) wrote an impassioned chapter on Catiline, whom he rightly viewed as the successor not only of the Gracchi, but of Saturninus, Drusus, Sulpicius, and Cinna, and as someone who assumed the position of figurehead of the popular cause when Pompey was in the East facing Mithridates.
10 Plutarch Pompey 46.
11 Cicero ad Quintum 1.3.
12 Cicero ad Atticum 3.10, sent from Thessalonica.
13 Thomson (1997) p. 297.
14 Caesar Gallic War, see especially I.11–30.
VIII: Farewell
1 See, for example, Hesiod Theogony 55.
2 Consul 69 BC. Cicero wrote of him as ‘Hortalus’ in ad Atticum 2.25.
3 Ptolemy would have returned sooner, but a tribune at Rome discovered an oracle that warned against the Romans helping him. On the deputation, see Chapter 12.
4 Aelian Various Histories 14.43.
5 Callimachus Fragment 110.1.
6 Alexander Pope also wove a reference to Berenice’s hair in The Rape of the Lock, Canto V.
7 Cicero might have found quite a different parallel here, between Berenice and Clodia, tempted as he was to refer to Clodius as her ‘husband’ rather than her ‘brother’ in relation to their alleged incest. Cicero maintained that Clodia had poisoned Metellus Celer. Catullus did not pursue this lead.
8 The identity of the addressees of Poem 68 is one of the most vexed issues in Catullan scholarship. In most manuscripts, Manlius is written ‘Mallius’. Were Mallius and Allius one and the same? It is unlikely. Manlius Torquatus had a brother called Aulus, but even then it is stretching it to believe that Catullus’ poem is written for two brothers. Poem 68 perhaps contains one poem and one incomplete draft, which were put together by whoever first organised the collection.
9 In the fifth century BC, Sophocles dramatised Ajax’ death. Scholars have observed that Catullus’ particular reference to the Rhoetean shore might have reflected a poem by Euphorion.
IX: A sea of mackerel
1 Suetonius Caesar 23.1.
2 Gaius Memmius also tried to indict Vatinius, the tribune, who had helped Caesar to secure his commands. Cicero in Vatinium 14.
3 Plutarch Lucullus 37. This took place in 66 BC.
4 Memmius, author of rude verse: Ovid Tristia 2.433; Gellius Attic Nights 19.9.7.
&
nbsp; 5 Cicero Brutus 247.
6 Cicero ad Fam 13.1.
7 Diogenes Laertius Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.16.
8 Some scholars have discerned traces of its language and ideas in Catullus’ poetry, including his ‘Bedspread Poem’. Jenkyns (1982) pp. 130–32.
9 Pliny the Younger Epistles 10.15–17.
10 A dense account of the Thracian origins of Bithynian peoples is given by Strabo Geography 12.3.3.
11 In a poem discovered in 2014 and attributed to Sappho. On Charaxus in the trading port of Naucratis, see Herodotus Histories 2.135.
12 Strabo Geography 12.4.2.
13 Pliny the Younger Epistles 10.49.
14 Strabo Geography 12.4.7.
15 Suetonius Caesar 2.
16 Suetonius Caesar 49.
17 Suetonius Caesar 2.
18 Caesar claimed paternal descent from Venus, see Suetonius Caesar 6; loss of virginity, Suetonius Caesar 49, quoting Cicero.
19 Pliny the Younger Epistles 10.17. Pliny examined the Bithynians’ accounts and realised that great debts were owed to Rome.
20 Pliny the Younger Epistles 10.31.
21 The picture of incomplete projects and ill-advised architectural ventures comes from the collected letters of Pliny the Younger to Trajan, Epistles Book 10.
22 Half a century later, a certain Lucius Valerius Catullus, a cousin perhaps of the poet, married a Terentia Hispulla, who is likely to have been a relative of this Terentius Hispo. It is not inconceivable that Catullus or his father struck up such a friendship with Terentius Hispo the businessman, that their families were later united in marriage. Wiseman (1987) pp. 336–40 suggests that Catullus might have travelled to Bithynia as one of the financial agents, which is a possibility. He uses Hispo as an example of a taxman who might have been in Bithynia at a similar date to Catullus, and connects his family with that of Catullus. Hispo was definitely in Bithynia in 51–50 BC, but might also have been there earlier. The letter can be found in Cicero ad Fam 13.65.
23 Oppian Fishing 626 cit. Bekker-Nielsen (2005) p. 91; translation my own.
