The poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus was written towards the end of the Roman Republic in the period between 62 and 54 BC.
The collection of approximately 113 poems includes a large number of shorter epigrams, lampoons, and occasional pieces, as well as nine long poems mostly concerned with marriage. Among the most famous poems are those in which Catullus expresses his love for the woman he calls Lesbia.
Dates of the poems If Catullus's girlfriend Lesbia is, as is usually assumed, a pseudonym for Clodia, the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, it may be that he first met her in 62 BC, when her husband was governor of Cisalpine Gaul.Fordyce (1961), pp. xv, xvii. In poem 83 Metellus is spoken of as being still alive (he died in early 59 BC). It is thought that the earliest poems were written in this period.Quinn (1973), p. xiv.
In 57 BC Catullus went abroad for a year as part of the entourage of the governor of Bithynia, Gaius Memmius. Poem 10 was evidently written after his return, as well as 28, in which he reports in obscene language how badly he was treated by Memmius.
Poem 113 mentions that Pompey has become consul for the second time, dating it to 55 BC.Quinn (1983), p. 452. Poems 11 and 29, mentioning the potential invasion of Britain, are also thought to date to 55 BC.Quinn (1973), p. 175. Poem 55 mentions the colonnade attached to Pompey's theatre (dedicated 55 BC).Quinn (1973), p. 252. None of the poems can be dated later than this.Quinn (1973), p. xiv.
It is often thought that Catullus may have died not long after this. If so he would have been about 28.Quinn (1973), p. xv. Suetonius reports that even after Catullus's death, Julius Caesar maintained his friendship with Catullus's father and continued to accept his hospitality.Suetonius, Divus Iulius, 73; Quinn (1973), p. 256.
Sources of the poems
Apart from a 9th-century manuscript containing poem 62 (the Codex Thuaneus), Catullus's poems are believed to have survived from antiquity in a single manuscript kept in the cathedral library in Catullus's home town of Verona. This manuscript was apparently read by Bishop Ratherius, who mentioned the poems in a sermon of 965 AD.Fordyce (1961), pp. xxv–xxvi. The manuscript has now been lost, but three copies derived from it were made in the 14th century. These three surviving manuscript copies are stored at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the Vatican Library in Rome. They contain approximately 113 of Catullus's carmina. However, a few fragments quoted by later Roman editors but not found in the manuscripts indicate that there are some additional poems that have been lost.
The poems of Catullus in modern editions follow the numbering used by Muretus in his edition of 1554 (see the illustration). Three of the poems, however—18, 19 and 20—are excluded from most modern editions because they are now considered not to have been written by Catullus, having been added by Muretus (which identified 113 poems existing in the Catullan manuscripts). Some modern editors (and commentators),E.g., however, retain Poem 18 as genuine Catullan. Furthermore, some editors have considered that, in some cases, two poems have been brought together by previous editors, and, by dividing these, add 2b, 14b, 58b, 68b, 78b, and 95b as separate poems. Conversely, poem 58b is considered by some editors to be a fragment accidentally detached from 55, which is in the same rare metre; it has been suggested that it should be placed after line 13 or 14 of that poem.Dettmer (1997), pp. 109–110. However, different editors disagree about these divisions in some cases.For example, Fordyce believes 2b is separate from 2a, and 58b is separate from 55, whereas Dettmer in both cases joins the poems.
Structure of the collection Catullus's carmina can be divided into three formal parts: short poems in varying metres, called polymetra (1–60); nine (if 68 is split into two) longer poems (61–68b), of which the last five are in elegiac couplets; and forty-eight epigrams (69–116), all in elegiac couplets. Since a scroll usually contained between 800 and 1100 verses, these three parts – approximately 860 (or more), 1138, and 330 lines respectively – would not easily fit onto a single scroll.Dettmer (1997), p. 2.
Scholars disagree as to whether the collection of poems as it is now was arranged by Catullus himself and what Catullus means by the 'little book' () which he says he is dedicating to Cornelius Nepos in poem 1. One theory (Quinn 1973, p. xxi) is that Catullus published all the polymetric poems (1–60) himself, and presented this to Cornelius Nepos, but that the others were put together in haphazard order by an editor after Catullus's death. According to another theory (Hubbard 1983), the () consisted simply of poems 1–14 (15 poems in all, if 2b is a separate poem); 14b would then start a second collection.Hubbard, T. K. (1983). "The Catullan Libellus". Philologus, 127(1-2), 218-237.
Helena Dettmer, on the other hand, assuming that the arrangement as it now stands is more or less as published by Catullus himself, sees the poems as divided into nine cycles or groups (1–14, 14a–24 (possibly incomplete), 25–33, 34–44, 45–60, 61–68b, 69–78, 78b–99, and 100–111) plus an epilogue of five poems (112–116). She argues that each of these cycles has its own internal structure, and that in several cases poems in the first half of a cycle are balanced chiastically by poems in the second half.
Thus in the first cycle poems 1 and 14 balance each other, since both describe the gift of a new book of poetry. Within this frame, poems 2 and 3, both describing Lesbia's pet bird, are balanced by the two dinner-party poems (12 and 13) both mentioning a gift from or to Fabullus. Another balancing pair is 6 and 10, which contrast the mistresses () of Flavius and Varus.Dettmer (1997), pp. 267–269.
In some cases, Dettmer argues, two corresponding poems are linked not only thematically but also by verbal echoes. Thus in the first cycle poems 3 and 13 are linked by the phrases 'Venuses and Cupids' and 'of (or to) my girl'; in the 4th cycle, 38 and 40 are linked not only by the theme of anger, but by the phrase 'my love' in each.Dettmer (1997), pp. 79–81. In the fifth cycle, the first and last poems (45 and 60), on the contrasting themes of love promised and love spurned, are linked by the mention of Libyan lions. In the same cycle, 47 (the shabby treatment of Veranius and Fabullus by Piso) is linked to 58 and 59 (the moral degradation of Lesbia) by the theme of cadging for dinner and the words for street corners ( 'three ways' in 47, 'four ways' in 58).Dettmer (1997), pp. 94–97.
In the eighth cycle, the famous 'I hate and I love' epigram (85), even though thematically different from the Caesar epigram (93), is paired with it by the structural similarity: both poems contain an indirect question, a contrast of opposites (hate vs love, white vs black), and the words 'I do not know' at the beginning of the second line of each. The two epigrams are also symmetrically positioned within the cycle, 8th from the beginning and 7th or 8th from the end of the cycle respectively.Dettmer (1997), p. 191.
The last of the elegiac poems (116) is linked to the first elegiac poem (65) by the phrase 'songs of Callimachus', which occurs only in these two poems. Both poems concern the sending of poems.Dettmer (1997), p. 223.
Dettmer also notes that the total length of the five long elegiac poems (65, 66, 67, 68a, 68b) (326 lines, or a little more if the missing lines are added) is almost exactly equal to the length of all the remaining fifty shorter elegiac poems (330 lines). She believes this is not a coincidence.Dettmer (1997), p. 246.
Reviewing Dettmer's work on the polymetra, Phyllis Forsyth finds that the thematic links Dettmer finds between poems are sometimes strained and not firmly based; but adds "Patterns and parallels, however, do exist in the poems of Catullus, as many recent studies have shown".Forsyth, P. Y. (1993). "The Fearful Symmetry of Catullus' Polymetrics". The Classical World, Vol. 86, No. 6, pp. 492-495.
Themes Polymetra and epigrams The polymetra and the epigrams can be divided into four major thematic groups (ignoring a rather large number of poems eluding such categorization):
poems to and about his friends (e.g., an invitation such as Poem 13). erotic poems: some of them indicate homosexual penchants (48, 50, and 99), but most are about women, especially about one he calls "Lesbia" (in honour of the poet Sappho of Lesbos). Catullus displays a wide range of highly emotional and seemingly contradictory responses to Lesbia, ranging from tender love poems to sadness, disappointment, and bitter sarcasm. invectives: some of these often rude and sometimes downright obscene poems are targeted at friends-turned-traitors (e.g., Poem 16) and other lovers of Lesbia, but many well-known poets, politicians (e.g. Julius Caesar) and orators, including Cicero, are thrashed as well. However, many of these poems are humorous and craftily veil the sting of the attack. For example, in poem 84 Catullus makes fun of the pronunciation of a less well educated man who adds "h" to words which shouldn't have it. condolences: some poems of Catullus are serious in nature. One poem, 96, comforts a friend for the death of his wife, while several others, most famously 101, lament the death of his brother.
Long poems The longer poems (61–68b) differ from the polymetra not only in length but also in their subjects and their metre: they include two wedding songs and one mini-epic, or epyllion, the most highly prized form for the "new poets".Cf. Wikipedia s.v. "Latin Neoterics, the New Poets". Although they differ in style from each other, there is a common theme to most of them, namely marriage. Even the Attis poem (63) has been interpreted by some scholars as reflecting Catullus's relationship with Lesbia.Dettmer (1997), pp. 124–126.
Poem 61 is a marriage song of 235 short lines organised in five-line stanzas. It celebrates the marriage of a certain Manlius Torquatus, almost certainly Lucius Manlius Torquatus, who appears as one of the characters in Cicero's philosophical work , championing Epicureanism.Fordyce (1997), p. 237. The poet first calls on Hymenaeus, the god of weddings, to come, dressed in yellow like a bride. Then he addresses the bride as she approaches in a procession, and he bids the master's favourite slave-boy () to throw nuts, and the bridegroom to abstain from such pleasures in future. He orders the attendants to escort the bride to the bridal chamber and her husband to join her. He wishes the pair countless joys and predicts the birth of a little Torquatus. He ends by telling the girls to close the doors. Poem 62 is another marriage song, but in a different style, this time in hexameters, with a chorus of young men competing with a chorus of young women while they await the arrival of a bride. The young men are outside, watching out for the appearance of Hesperus, the Evening Star, while the girls sit inside. The young men encourage the girls to do their duty to their parents to get married, while the girls feign their reluctance.
Poem 63, in the rare and excitable Galliambic metre, is about a young Greek man called Attis who travels to Phrygia and castrates himself out of devotion for the goddess Cybele. He later repents what he has done; but in the end Cybele drives him to a frenzy once again.