Gāius Valerius Catullus was born to a leading equestrian family of Verona, in Cisalpine Gaul. The social prominence of the Catullus family allowed the father of Gaius Valerius to entertain Julius Caesar when he was the Promagistrate (proconsul) of both Gallicprovinces.[3] In a poem, Catullus describes his happy homecoming to the family villa at Sirmio, on Lake Garda, near Verona; he also owned a villa near the resort of Tibur (modern Tivoli).[3]
Catullus appears to have spent most of his young adult years in Rome. His friends there included the poets Licinius Calvus and Helvius Cinna, Quintus Hortensius (son of the orator and rival of Cicero), and the biographer Cornelius Nepos, to whom Catullus dedicated a libellus of poems,[3] the relation of which to the extant collection remains a matter of debate.[4] He appears to have been acquainted with the poet Marcus Furius Bibaculus. A number of prominent contemporaries appear in his poetry, including Cicero, Caesar and Pompey. According to an anecdote preserved by Suetonius, Caesar did not deny that Catullus's lampoons left an indelible stain on his reputation, but when Catullus apologized, he invited the poet for dinner the very same day.[5]
The "Lesbia" of his poems is usually identified with Clodia Metelli, a sophisticated woman from the aristocratic house of patrician family Claudii Pulchri, sister of the infamous Publius Clodius Pulcher, and wife to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer (consul of 60 BC). In his poems Catullus describes several stages of their relationship: initial euphoria, doubts, separation, and his wrenching feelings of loss. Clodia had several other partners; "From the poems one can adduce no fewer than five lovers in addition to Catullus: Egnatius (poem 37), Gellius (poem 91), Quintius (poem 82), Rufus (poem 77), and Lesbius (poem 79)." There is also some question surrounding her husband's mysterious death in 59 BC: in his speech Pro Caelio Cicero hints that he may have been poisoned. However, a sensitive and passionate Catullus could not relinquish his flame for Clodia, regardless of her obvious indifference to his desire for a deep and permanent relationship. In his poems, Catullus wavers between devout, sweltering love and bitter, scornful insults that he directs at her blatant infidelity (as demonstrated in poems 11 and 58). His passion for her is unrelenting—yet it is unclear when exactly the couple split up for good. Catullus's poems about the relationship display striking depth and psychological insight.[6]
He spent the year from summer 57 to summer 56 BC in Bithynia on the staff of the commander Gaius Memmius. While in the East, he traveled to the Troad to perform rites at his brother's tomb, an event recorded in a moving poem (101).[3]
No ancient biography of Catullus has survived. His life has to be pieced together from scattered references to him in other ancient authors and from his poems. Thus it is uncertain when he was born and when he died. Jerome stated that he was born in 87 BC and died in Rome in his 30th year.[7] However, Catullus' poems include references to events of 55 BC. Since the Roman consular fasti make it somewhat easy to confuse 87–57 BC with 84–54 BC, many scholars accept the dates 84 BC–54 BC,[3] supposing that his latest poems and the publication of his libellus coincided with the year of his death. Other authors suggest 52 or 51 BC as the year of the poet's death.[8] Though upon his elder brother's death Catullus lamented that their "whole house was buried along" with the deceased, the existence (and prominence) of Valerii Catulli is attested in the following centuries. T. P. Wiseman argues that after the brother's death Catullus could have married, and that, in this case, the later Valerii Catulli may have been his descendants.[9]
Catullus's poems have been preserved in an anthology of 116 carmina (the actual number of poems may slightly vary in various editions), which can be divided into three parts according to their form: approximately sixty short poems in varying meters, called polymetra, nine longer poems, and forty-eight epigrams in elegiac couplets. Each of these three parts – approximately 860 (or more), 1136, and 330 lines respectively – would fit onto a single scroll.[10]
There is no scholarly consensus on whether Catullus himself arranged the order of the poems. The longer poems differ from the polymetra and the epigrams not only in length but also in their subjects: several of them are based on the theme of marriage. The longest (64) of 408 lines, contains two myths (the abandonment of Ariadne and the marriage of Peleus and Thetis), one story included inside the other.
The polymetra and the epigrams can be divided into four major thematic groups (ignoring a rather large number of poems that elude such categorization):
poems to and about his friends (e.g., an invitation like poem 13).
erotic poems: some of them about his attraction for a boy named Juventius, but others about women, especially about one he calls "Lesbia" (which served as a false name for his married girlfriend, Clodia, source and inspiration of many of his poems).
invectives: often rude and sometimes downright obscene poems targeted at friends-turned-traitors (e.g., poem 16), other lovers of Lesbia, well-known poets, and politicians (e.g., Julius Caesar and Cicero).
condolences: some poems of Catullus are solemn in nature. 96 comforts a friend in the death of a loved one; several others, most famously 101, lament the death of his brother.
Above all other qualities, Catullus seems to have valued venustas, or charm, in his acquaintances, a theme which he explores in a number of his poems.
Catullus's poetry was influenced by the innovative poetry of the Hellenistic Age, and especially by Callimachus and the Alexandrian school, which had propagated a new style of poetry that deliberately turned away from the classical epic poetry in the tradition of Homer. Cicero called these local innovators neoteroi (νεώτεροι) or "moderns" (in Latin poetae novi or 'new poets'), in that they cast off the heroic model handed down from Ennius in order to strike new ground and ring a contemporary note. Catullus and Callimachus did not describe the feats of ancient heroes and gods (except perhaps in re-evaluating and predominantly artistic circumstances, e.g. poem 64), focusing instead on small-scale personal themes. Although these poems sometimes seem quite superficial and their subjects often are mere everyday concerns, they are accomplished works of art. Catullus described his work as expolitum, or polished, to show that the language he used was very carefully and artistically composed.
Catullus was also an admirer of Sappho, a female poet of the seventh century BC. Catullus 51 partly translates, partly imitates, and transforms Sappho 31. Some hypothesize that 61 and 62 were perhaps inspired by lost works of Sappho but this is purely speculative. Both of the latter are epithalamia, a form of laudatory or erotic wedding-poetry that Sappho was famous for. Catullus twice used a meter that Sappho was known for, called the Sapphic stanza, in poems 11 and 51, perhaps prompting his successor Horace's interest in the form.
Catullus, as was common to his era, was greatly influenced by stories from Greek and Roman myth. His longer poems—such as 63, 64, 65, 66, and 68—allude to mythology in various ways. Some stories he refers to are the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, the departure of the Argonauts, Theseus and the Minotaur, Ariadne's abandonment, Tereus and Procne, as well as Protesilaus and Laodamia.
Style
Catullus wrote in many different meters including hendecasyllabic verse and elegiac couplets (common in love poetry). A great part of his poetry shows strong and occasionally wild emotions, especially in regard to Lesbia (e.g., poems 5 and 7). His love poems are very emotional and ardent, and are relatable to this day. Catullus describes his Lesbia as having multiple suitors and often showing little affection towards him. He also demonstrates a great sense of humour such as in Catullus 13.
The Hungarian-born British composer Matyas Seiber set poem 31 for unaccompanied mixed chorus Sirmio in 1957.[citation needed] The American composer Ned Rorem set Catullus 101 to music for voice and piano; the song, "Catullus: On the Burial of His Brother", was originally published in 1969.[citation needed]
Catullus Dreams (2011) is a song cycle by David Glaser set to texts of Catullus, scored for soprano and eight instruments; it premiered at Symphony Space in New York by soprano Linda Larson and Sequitur Ensemble.[11]Carmina Catulli is a song cycle arranged from 17 of Catullus's poems by American composer Michael Linton. The cycle was recorded in December 2013 and premiered at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall in March 2014 by French baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer and pianist Jason Paul Peterson.[12][13][14]
The 1888 play Lesbia by Richard Davey depicts the relationship between Catullus and Lesbia, based on incidents from Catullus's poems.[23][24]
Catullus was the main protagonist of the historical novel Farewell, Catullus (1953) by Pierson Dixon. The novel shows the corruption of Roman society.[25][26]
W. G. Hardy's novel The City of Libertines (1957) tells the fictionalized story of Catullus and a love affair during the time of Julius Caesar. The Financial Post described the book as "an authentic story of an absorbing era".[28]
A poem by Catullus is being recited to Cleopatra in the eponymous 1963 film when Julius Caesar comes to visit her; they talk about him (Cleopatra: 'Catullus doesn't approve of you. Why haven't you had him killed?' Caesar: 'Because I approve of him.') and Caesar then recites other poems by him.
The American poet Louis Zukofsky in 1969 wrote a set of homophonic translations of Catullus that attempted in English to replicate the sound as primary emphasis, rather than the more common emphasis on sense of the originals (although the relationship between sound and sense there is often misrepresented and has been clarified by careful study); his Catullus versions have had extensive influence on contemporary innovative poetry and homophonic translation, including the work of poets Robert Duncan, Robert Kelly, and Charles Bernstein.
Robert de Maria wrote a fictional account of Catullus’s life in his 1965 novel “Clodia”.
Catullus is the protagonist of Tom Holland's 1995 novel Attis.
Catullus appears in Steven Saylor's 1995 novel The Venus Throw as the embittered ex-lover of Clodia, sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, whom he calls Lesbia.
^The bust was commissioned in 1935 by Sirmione's mayor, Luigi Trojani, and produced by the Milanese foundry Clodoveo Barzaghi with the assistance of the sculptor Villarubbia Norri (N. Criniti & M. Arduino (eds.), Catullo e Sirmione. Società e cultura della Cisalpina alle soglie dell'impero (Brescia: Grafo, 1994), p. 4).
^Reine Rimón and her Hot Papas jazz band; Gregg Stafford; Tuomo Pekkanen; Gaius Valerius Catullus, Variationes iazzicae Catullianae (in Latin), retrieved 7 October 2013
Balme, M.; Morwood, J (1997). Oxford Latin Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Balmer, J. (2004). Catullus: Poems of Love and Hate. Hexham: Bloodaxe.
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Harrington, Karl Pomeroy (1963). Catullus and His Influence. New York: Cooper Square Publishers.
Havelock, E.A. (1939). The Lyric Genius of Catullus. Oxford: B. Blackwell.
Hild, Christian (2013). Liebesgedichte als Wagnis. Emotionen und generationelle Prozesse in Catulls Lesbiagedichten. St. Ingbert: Röhrig. ISBN978-3-86110-517-6.
Kaggelaris, N. (2015), "Wedding Cry: Sappho (Fr. 109 LP, Fr. 104(a) LP)- Catullus (c. 62. 20-5)- modern greek folk songs" [in Greek] in Avdikos, E.- Koziou-Kolofotia, B. (ed.) Modern Greek folk songs and history, Karditsa, pp. 260–70 [1]
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Quinn, Kenneth (1959). The Catullan Revolution. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
Quinn, Kenneth (1973). Catullus: The Poems (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan.
Radici Colace, P., Il poeta si diverte. Orazio, Catullo e due esempi di poesia non seria, Giornale Italiano di Filologia XVI [XXXVII] 1, 1985, pp. 53–71.
Radici Colace, P., Parodie catulliane, ovvero "quando il poeta si diverte", Giornale Italiano di Filologia, XXXIX - 1, 1987, 39–57.
Radici Colace, P., Tra ripetizione, struttura e ri-uso: il C. 30 di Catullo, in Atti 175° anniversario Liceo Ginnasio Statale "T. Campanella", Reggio Calabria 1989, 137–142.
Radici Colace, P., Mittente-messaggio-destinatario in Catullo tra autobiografia e problematica dell'interpretazione, in AA.VV., Atti del Convegno—La componente autobiografica nella poesia greca e latina fra realtà e artificio letterario - Pisa 16-17 maggio 1991, Pisa 1992, 1–13.
Radici Colace, P., La "parola" e il "segno". Il rapporto mittente-destinatario e il problema dell'interpretazione in Catullo, Messana n.s.15, 1993, 23–44.
Radici Colace, P., Riuso e parodia in Catullo, Atti del Convegno su Forme della parodia, parodia delle forme nel mondo greco e latino, (Napoli 9 maggio 1995)—A.I.O.N.‖ XVIII, 1996, 155–167.
Radici Colace, P., Innografia e parodia innografica in Catullo, in Paideia‖ LXIV, 2009, 553–561
Swann, Bruce W. (1994). Martial's Catullus. The Reception of an Epigrammatic Rival. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.
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![20th-century bust of Catullus on the Piazza Carducci in Sirmione[1]](File:Catull_Sirmione.jpg)
