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Catullus
Lived from 84 BCE – 54 BCE, so died young (we don’t know why). His birth and death dates are uncertain.
From Verona (in Gaul), but probably spent a majority of his time in Rome (we know he was friends with a lot
of Roman poets) and Suetonius even says that he had at least a casual acquaintance with Julius Caesar.
From 57-56, Catullus was on a military staff in Bithynia (tribunus laticlavius), but stopped his political career
after that.
His poetry was loved and hated (chiefly by Cicero) in his day.
Depending on which volume you read, he has about 116 poems:
- 60 polymetra (some to his friends, some erotic, some invective, and some condolences)
- 8 longer poems (seven hymns and one epillion),
- 48 epigrams
Catullus was a neoteric (a “new poet,” coined by Cicero) who reinvented Roman poetry along Greek lyric lines
(whether he meant to or not)… he’s not concerned with typically Roman virtue and manliness, but in trivialities
and love. He admired and modeled his poetry on Callimachus (3rd century BC) and Sappho.
Catullus’ Carmina are lyric poetry in various Greek meters, and thus based on Greek lyric (although Roman
poetry was written to be recited aloud and not sung). Horace is really the only Roman poet to more successfully
adapt Greek meters to Latin poetry.
Catullus’ use of obscenity is quite different from what we think. From an English/American perspective, we
relate obscenity to the low-class, and jokes to be low-brow, but in the Roman world, there was an ironic highbrow appeal to a poem describing lewd behavior. In other words, if someone writes a poem like some of
Catullus’ worst today, we would think less of the writer. Catullus’ audience thought quite more of him.
We think that the Lesbia of his poems was really Clodia, the sister of the infamous Publius Clodius Pulcher.
Clodia was married to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, and she was a political player.
Clodia is said to have cheated prolifically on her husband, murdered her husband, and had an incestuous
relationship with her brother. She is also the subject of a huge character assassination in Cicero’s Pro Caelio.
“Lesbia” = an homage to Sappho of Lesbos (7th century BC Greek writer of Love poetry).
We think the Lesbia relationship happened around 60 BC. 26 poems about her.
After Catullus, Clodia had a brief relationship with Caelius Rufus, and when he dumped her she tried to ruin
him politically. Thus, Cicero defends Rufus by slandering Clodia. It is possible, however, that Cicero at one
point had thought of leaving his wife for Clodia.