B. H. BLACKWELL LTD. 
 
 BOOKSELLERS 
 OXFOBD
 
 '
 
 CEITICISMS AND ELUCIDATIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 CATULLUS 
 
 BY 
 
 H. A. J. MUNEO 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO. 
 
 LONDON: GEOBGE BELL AND SONS. 
 1878 
 
 [All Rights reserved.]
 
 Cambridge : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Catullus, after two centuries of comparative neg- 
 lect, has of late received from scholars his due share 
 of attention. Even within the last year and half, or 
 two years, have appeared the important critical edition 
 of Aemilius Baehrens and the long and elaborate exe- 
 getical commentary of Robinson Ellis. Not to go more 
 than fifteen years back, we have had within that time, 
 in addition to the works just mentioned, first the 
 learned and painstaking ' Quaestiones ' of Schwabe, 
 which throw such a flood of light on the history of 
 Catullus and of his friends and enemies ; next Schwabe's 
 critical edition of the text, followed successively by 
 Ellis' and Lucian Mueller s ; and, beside all these works, 
 two excellent translations into English verse. 
 
 Although the field may be thought to be already 
 sufficiently preoccupied, I flatter myself that this little 
 book will not prove altogether useless either for the 
 criticism or for the elucidation of our poet. For the 
 manuscript material I am wholly indebted to the suc- 
 cessive labours of Schwabe, Ellis and Baehrens. It 
 behoves me therefore to be modest when dealing with 
 that for which I am altogether dependent upon the di- 
 ligence of others. With respect however to the general 
 principles, from which Catullian criticism has to start, 
 there is no room for doubt or hesitation. All critics 
 are now agreed even Ellis I believe, tho' some of his
 
 iv CATVLLVS 
 
 reasonings are not easy to reconcile with such an as- 
 sumption that, except in the case of one poem, the 
 62nd, the whole of our manuscript material is derived 
 from one single codex, which reappeared at Verona in 
 the beginning of the 14th century and was afterwards 
 lost to the world once more. The two main and inde- 
 pendent representatives of this lost original are the 
 Paris codex Germanensis, copied from that original in 
 1375, and the Oxford codex, which appears to have 
 been written about the same time. Following Ellis 
 and Baehrens, who have alone collated O, I call the 
 one G, the other O ; and after the example of all the 
 editors I designate by V the reading of the lost origi- 
 nal, when that reading can be satisfactorily made out. 
 Resting on the seemingly complete collation of these 
 two Mss. given by Baehrens, I follow him in looking to 
 them almost alone in order to determine what V was. 
 
 Diffidence being as I have said incumbent on me, 
 where I am reaping the fruits of others' industry, I 
 shall not attempt to decide whether G or is on the 
 whole the better manuscript. There are very many 
 passages in which O, and alone, gives the undoubted 
 words of the poet : often on the other hand it is very 
 corrupt, where G is right or less wrong. Nor shall I 
 pronounce upon the question whether, beside these 
 two, all other existing manuscripts are derived directly 
 or indirectly from G, Baehrens strenuously maintaining 
 that they are, Ellis as strenuously denying it. But of 
 this I feel no doubt whatever, that if G and O come 
 directly from the original codex and this Ellis does 
 not seem to call in question then he very greatly 
 overrates the value of the Datanus, which was not 
 written till 1463. I have much difficulty in catching 
 the drift of the argument about this codex in his first
 
 INTRODUCTION V 
 
 volume, an argument which is partially reproduced in 
 his commentary. But G and O proclaim with a loud 
 voice that the strange and uncouth phenomena of the 
 Datanus are figments and interpolations. It is vain to 
 appeal to the authority of Lachmann who was ignorant 
 of G and alike. Nor is it easy quite to grasp the 
 principle from which Ellis starts, when in his commen- 
 tary on meae in 167 34 he writes : ' The valuable Brit. 
 Mus. Ms. a has nice for meae ; possibly Catullus wrote : 
 Brixia Veronae mater amata uicem'. When G and O, 
 and apparently every other Ms., have mee, how can we 
 conceive that this was not the reading of V? how can 
 a, written as Ellis tells us elsewhere in 1460, have got 
 this nice directly or indirectly from V? how can it be 
 anything but a stupid interpolation, designed or unde- 
 signed ? Again in 64 249 O has ' Que til prospectans'; 
 G has ' tamen' in full, and had originally ' prospectans' ; 
 but the pr is erased and o changed to a ; later Mss. fol- 
 low this correction and read 'tamen aspectans'. All 
 the old editions which I have examined before Lach- 
 mann's have 'Quae turn prospectans', and so have the 
 recent editions of Schwabe and Baehrens. Ellis in the 
 Academy (Aug. 19, 1876) writes: 'Are we then to con- 
 clude with M. Baehrens that the right reading is ' Quae 
 turn prospectans'? Is there any critic who could hesi- 
 tate to prefer 'Quae tamen aspectans'?' When we now 
 learn from O that V had ' Que tn prospectans', I should 
 have been disposed rather to say ' Is there any critic 
 who could hesitate to prefer 'Quae turn prospectans'?' 
 This is merely putting tu for tn, a u for an n, no two 
 words being oftener confused than turn and tamen in 
 consequence of their abbreviations being so very similar. 
 Certainly what strikes me as one of the weaknesses 
 of Ellis' commentary, as of his first volume, is the difti-
 
 CATVLLVS 
 
 culty he seems to find in taking up the right position 
 and point of view in controverting opinions which differ 
 from his own : he will attack for instance the conclu- 
 sions of others by arguing against them from his own 
 premisses, instead of shewing either that the premisses 
 are wrong on which those conclusions are grounded, or 
 that the conclusions do not follow from those premisses. 
 The 54th poem, of seven lines, he severs into three 
 different fragments, and assumes a lacuna of 5 lines 
 between the first and second of these, and a lacuna of 
 one line between the second and third. I have now 
 reprinted a short article, written a few years ago for 
 the Journal of Philology, in which I try to shew that 
 this poem as it stands in the Mss. forms a perfect and 
 satisfactory whole. Ellis in his commentary, while he 
 speaks of me in terms for which I feel most grateful, 
 tho' ashamed, controverts my views and adheres to his 
 own. I on the other hand have appended to my article 
 some remarks, tending as I think to strengthen my own 
 argument and to invalidate his. Which of the two has 
 most reason or probability on his side, it is of course 
 for others to determine. But what I would speak of 
 now is the method of his reasoning. He draws up four 
 formal arguments, headed 1, 2, 3, 4, to prove me to be 
 wrong and the poem to be fragmentary, all of which I 
 have touched on elsewhere. But I will here take the 
 4th for a specimen : ' (4) Nothing is gained by inter- 
 preting the poem as a complete whole. Everything 
 shows that the Ms. of Catullus from which all extant 
 Mss. spring was imperfect. Why should we deny here', 
 and so on. Can he not see that this is no argument at 
 all, but a mere assertion that he is right and I am 
 wrong ? If the poem is a complete whole, then surely 
 something is gained by interpreting it as a complete
 
 INTRODUCTION Vll 
 
 whole. If it is a heap of fragments, then of course no- 
 thing is gained by so doing, but on the contrary the 
 labour is thrown away. Let others judge between us ; 
 but such a mere assertion has no more force of demon- 
 stration than if one of two litigants were to asseverate 
 in court that he is right and his adversary wrong. Then 
 as to what he says here of the imperfection of our Msa., 
 the whole of my book will prove that I quite go along 
 with him ; tho' the onus probandi presses heavily on 
 him, who maintains that they have thus tossed to- 
 gether into one apparent whole a congeries of incoherent 
 fragments. But Ellis can take on occasion quite a 
 different view of our Mss. After 64 23, a passage which 
 I have discussed in its place, the Veronese scholia of 
 Virgil give us the commencement of a verse which has 
 disappeared from the Mss. of Catullus, a verse which 
 no modern editor, except Ellis, for a moment hesitates 
 to assign to Catullus. But, says Ellis, ' the weight of 
 the Veronese Scholia, imperfect and full of lacunae as 
 they are, is not to be set against our Mss.' And yet he 
 does not even attempt to shew that Mai and after him 
 Keil have not rightly deciphered every letter of the 
 words 'saluete deum gens, o bona matrum Progenies 
 saluete iter... ' And if they are right, how should there 
 be any doubt of the genuineness of these words, when 
 we cannot even conceive any motive for interpolation, 
 and can so readily conceive the dropping out of a line 
 in the Ms. from which all the others are derived ? 
 
 Where I have attempted to correct the text of Ca- 
 tullus, I have tried to bear in mind the very pertinent 
 remark of Schwabe that no successful or convincing 
 emendations have been made in that text, which de- 
 part widely from the Ms. reading. Again and again I 
 have had to call attention to the singular pertinacity
 
 viii CATVLLVS 
 
 with which G or O, or both of them, interchange certain 
 letters ; most of all perhaps e and o ; then r, t (c), rt 
 and tr ; sc and s ; n and r; n and u; /and s; and final 
 in and s. I have reprinted two or three longer and as 
 many shorter articles which have appeared at intervals 
 in the Journal of Philology during the last ten years. 
 It was not possible to remodel them without confusing 
 times and circumstances. I have appended to each of 
 them remarks and criticisms, designed in some cases to 
 confirm, in others to modify what I had said. 
 
 I have been a good deal surprised to see how often 
 Schwabe, Ellis and Baehrens alike have retained the 
 barbarous spellings of our Mss. which are of much too 
 late a date to have any authority in questions of ortho- 
 graphy. A good lesson on this head is read to us, if in 
 the 62nd poem we compare with the other Mss. the 
 Paris codex of the 9th century which contains that 
 poem : it offers the correct spellings iucunda, iucun- 
 dior, conubium, conubia ; while the other Mss. have 
 the corrupt spellings iocunda, iocundior, connubium, 
 connubia. Nay, in 100 4 'sodalicium' of V, the only 
 genuine form of the word, is changed to 'sodalitium' by 
 Schwabe, by Baehrens, and by Ellis in his text, tho' 
 the last has corrected the mistake in his commentary. 
 This will help to increase the uncertainty which already 
 exists, especially in our country, where the minds of 
 scholars appear to be so very unsettled with regard to 
 Latin orthography ; tho' the spelling of classical Latin, 
 if we only allow for that amount of variety which certain 
 periods of transition admitted, is now fixed and known. 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE : December 1877.
 
 
 p. 144 : 64, 14 dele comma at end. 
 
 p. 181, 1. 6 from end, for ' 105 and 106 ' read ' 145 and 146'. 

 
 Quoi dono lepidum nouum libellum 
 arido modo pumice expolitum ? 
 Cornell, tibi : namque tu solebas -i 
 
 meas esse aliquid putare nugas, 
 5 iam turn cum ausus es unus Italorum 
 omne aeuum tribus explicare cartis 
 doctis, luppiter, et laboriosis. 
 quare habe tibi quicquid hoe libelli, 
 qualecumque quidem patronei ut ergo 
 10 plus uno maneat perenne saeclo. 
 
 9 quidem Itali. quod V. patroni ut ergo Bergk. patrona uirgo V. Qua- 
 leciimque; quod, o patrona oiirgo uulgo. 
 
 I think it worth while to offer the following re- 
 marks on this short and simple poem, even at the' risk 
 of what I say appearing to have in it little that is 
 new and important. All recent Editors adopt in the 
 last line but one what seems the simple and obvious 
 correction of the Mss. : Qualecumque, quod o patrona 
 uirgo. I would here observe in the first place that 
 1 quicquid hoc qualecumque ' can hardly come together 
 without a connecting particle : thus several of the 
 
 M. c. 1
 
 2 CATVLLI 
 
 older Editors add et after libelli. So Tacitus aim. xiv 
 55 has 'quidquid illud et qualecumque tribuisset'. 
 But this correction the rhythm of Catullus will not 
 admit of. If the common reading therefore be right, 
 surely we must join 'Qualecumque quod' (i.e. quod 
 qualecumque), just as Martial has 'Hoc qualecum- 
 que ' in vil 26 3, a poem which contains another 
 imitation of Catullus. 
 
 But the ' patrona uirgo ' offers more difficulty. 
 Who is she ? Minerva, some say. Impossible. The 
 Muse, say others and with more reason. That in a 
 certain sense the Muse may be called the patron of 
 a poet, I would not deny, though the two authorities 
 cited by Ellis, in which the poet is said conversely to 
 be the client of the Muse or Muses, are neither of 
 them of much weight. But why the strangely vague 
 ' patrona uirgo ' with nothing to point its meaning ? 
 Why could he not have written 'patrona Musa'? 
 And if the Muse be the poet's patron, surely she is 
 so in the sense of being his helper, his inspirer and 
 mouthpiece. She dictates the verses and must see 
 to it, that they be worthy of long life. Thus the 
 spurious Sulpicia, quoted by Ellis, bids the Muse 
 come down and help her client. A sorry volume, a 
 ' quicquid hoc libelli', a ' quod qualecumque ' would be 
 her disgrace, as much as the poet's. It is a different 
 patron that would have to nurse into fame such a 
 production. 
 
 It is in such a sense as this that the poets always 
 call on the Muses to dictate the words which they 
 cannot find for themselves : aetSe, Oca. : av^pa /aot 
 IweTre, Movcra : Musa, uelim causas memores : Pandite 
 nunc Helicona, deae, cantusque mouete. And so 
 Catullus himself: Non possum reticere, deae, qua me
 
 CARM. 1 3 
 
 Allius in re luuerit Sed dicam uobis, uos porro 
 
 dicite multis Milibus, and so on. Catullus tells the 
 Muses what he owes to Allius ; they put what he tells 
 them into verse that will last for ages. 
 
 The corrections I have adopted in v. 9 are not so 
 violent as they may at first sight seem to be : quod, 
 quid, and the like appear in the Mss. of Catullus in 
 abbreviated forms often so difficult to distinguish, that 
 I am not sure that the old 1 5th century correction 
 quidem is so much more improbable than the quod o of 
 Palladius. Then as to Bergk's patronei ut ergo, which 
 ever since I knew it has t always struck me as most 
 plausible, it is clear that in the lost archetype a must 
 have greatly resembled ei: thus in 7 9 V had basiei 
 for basia, and in 65 14 O gives aswnpta for absumptei. 
 
 Surely we thus get a much apter conclusion. A 
 poem so short as this at all events should be consistent 
 with itself: semetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto pro- 
 cesserit, et sibi constet. My little book I give to you, 
 Cornelius, who once before deigned to commend my 
 trifles. Take it then, poor as it is, that for its patron's 
 sake it may last some ages. The tone of self- deprecia- 
 tion is thus entirely in place, while it would hardly be 
 in good taste if .addressed to the Muse who would 
 have at least to share the blame with the poet. Again, 
 when Nepos has been the sole theme of the first eight 
 verses and has been addressed throughout in the second 
 person, to turn so abruptly in the last two lines to the 
 Muse, if Muse it be, or to Minerva as others would 
 have it, strikes me as a violation of all art and good 
 taste. 
 
 And, if I am not mistaken, I can bring forward 
 some external testimony to support what I have said. 
 It is natural that the introductory poem of so popular 
 
 12
 
 4 CATVLLI 
 
 a poet as Catullus should be much quoted and imitated. 
 For my present purpose however I confine myself 
 chiefly to Martial, one of the most ardent admirers of 
 our poet. If I should appear needlessly diffuse, let my 
 readers understand that there is a meaning in my te- 
 diousness. Imitations of, or allusions to, one or other 
 of the first four verses occur in the following passages 
 of Martial : we find 'lepidos libellos' in xi 20 9, and in 
 viii 3 19, where the right reading surely is 'Romano 
 lepidos sale tinge libellos' : 1 113 6 Per quern perire 
 non licet meis nugis; II 1 6 Nee tantum nugis seruiet 
 ille meis; iv 10 1 Dum nouus est, rasa nee adhuc mihi 
 fronte libellus.,.1, puer, et caro perfer leue munus 
 amico Qui meruit nugas primus habere meas; 82 1 Hos 
 quoque commenda Venuleio, Kufe, libellos... Non te- 
 trica nugas exigat aure meas; v 80 3 Dum nostras 
 legis exigisque nugas ; vi 1 1 Sextus mittitur hie tibi 
 libellus ; vn 26 7 Quanto mearum scis amore nugarum 
 Flaoret : in v. 3 there is an imitation of v. 9 in Catul- 
 
 o 
 
 lus : viii 72 1 Nondum murice cultus asperoque Morsu 
 pumicis aridi politus...libelle; xn, in prose preface, 
 ' de nugis nostris indices' ; xni 2 4 Non potes in nugas 
 dicere plura meas. 
 
 As vss. 5, 6 and 7 of Catullus' poem refer merely 
 to a particular work of Nepos, we cannot look for any 
 allusions to them. To come to the last three vss., v. 8, 
 as Ellis has shewn, is clearly imitated by Censorinus I 
 Quodcumque hoc libri est ineis opibus comparatum na- 
 talicii titulo tibi misi. Baehrens' reading appears to be 
 confuted by this, as well as by the fact that 'quale- 
 cumque' seems never to be joined with a genitive, as 
 'quidquid' and 'quodcumque' are. If it be said that 
 Censorinus wrote in the third century and that Catul- 
 lus was interpolated before this time, I would appeal
 
 CARM. 1 5 
 
 to Martial in 1 1 Hoc tibi quidquid id est longinquis 
 mittit ab oris Gallia, which, coming as it does at the 
 opening of a book, strikes me as a clear reference to 
 this verse of Catullus. 
 
 For the last two vss. I would first of all compare 
 Martial v GO 5 Qualiscumque legaris ut per orbem, the 
 rhythm of which reminds me of v. 9 of Catullus as I 
 have given it. Then look at Martial's prose dedication 
 of vin to Domitian : Omnes quidem libelli mei, domine, 
 quibus tu famam, id est uitam dedisti, tibi supplicant, 
 et puto propter hoc legentur. For, as our poem was so 
 much in Martial's thoughts, the last words recall to my 
 mind the ' patroni ut ergo cet.' Compare also the end 
 ol Statius' dedication of Siluae n : Haec qualiacumque 
 sunt, Melior carissime, si tibi non displicuerint, a te 
 publicum accipiant : sin minus, ad me reuertantur. 
 For here too I catch an allusion to the end of our 
 poem as I have given it. Domitian and Melior take 
 the place of Nepos. Last of all look at Martial in 2, a 
 short poem manifestly modelled on Catullus' poem. It 
 thus commences : ' Cuius uis fieri, libelle, munus?' after 
 Catullus' 'Cui dono lepidum nouum libellum?' Mar- 
 tial continues 'Festina tibi uindicem parare': then in 
 v. 6 ' Faustini fugis in sinum? sapisti'. The poem thus 
 concludes ' Illo uindice nee Probum tirneto', taking up 
 v. 2 and 6 exactly as Catullus, if we are right, would 
 take up v. 3 ' Cornell tibi' with ' patroni ut ergo cet/, 
 uindex too having much the same meaning as patronus. 
 All these points when taken together appear to me not 
 to be without significance.
 
 CATVLLl 
 
 [Reprinted from the Journal of Philology vol. 4 p. 241 242J 
 
 Passer, deliciae meae puellae, 
 quicum ludere, quern in sinu tenere, 
 quoi primum digitum dare adpetenti 
 et acris solet incitare morsus, 
 5 cum desiderio meo nitenti 
 carum nescio quid libet iocari, 
 et solaciolum sui doloris 
 credo ut cum grauis acquiescet ardor : 
 tecum ludere sicut ipsa possem 
 10 et tristis animi leuare curas ! 
 
 This delightful little poem would seem to have 
 been written while the love of Catullus and Lesbia was 
 yet according to the notions of the time comparatively 
 innocent. All is clear except in vss. 7 and 8 which are 
 manifestly corrupt. The latter has been altered in 
 various ways: Credo ut turn (ut iam, uti) grauis acqui- 
 escat ardor. A change would seem to be required in 
 v. 7 as well, and very old critics have suggested in or 
 ut for et ; ad too might be proposed. Lachmann indeed, 
 followed by Haupt, Schwabe and others, keeps et and 
 refers us .to 38 7 Paulum quid lubet allocutionis. But 
 in this he is quite mistaken : it may be seen from the 
 very large number of instances collected by Neue (n 
 pp. 485 486), that the best writers continually use 
 libere, licere and oportere as personal verbs, but in a 
 very peculiar way, with the neuters of pronouns such 
 as id, ea, ista, quid, quod, quae, quidquid, and of cer-
 
 CARM. 2 7 
 
 tain kinds of adjectives, omnia, quantum, multum, 
 multa ; and so Catullus in 61 42 has quae licent, as 
 well as paulum quid lubet, quoted above. But, as 
 Neue observes, in the whole of classical Latinity these 
 verbs never have a substantive for their subject ; and 
 solaciolum libet is quite solecistic. Ellis keeps et and 
 reads in 8 Credo, et cum grauis acquiescit. 
 
 But though Editors alter three or at least two 
 words, none of their readings appears to me to give a 
 suitable sense : they seem all to take dolor and grauis 
 ardor to be synonymous or nearly so, while I believe 
 them to be used in decided opposition to each other : 
 dolor denotes the grief and aching void which the 
 heart feels in the absence of a loved object, which it 
 desires to have with it: comp. Propert I 20 32 A! dolor 
 ibat Hylas ibat Hamadryasin: which is imitated by 
 Ovid in Heroid. 13 104 Tu mihi luce dolor, tu mini 
 nocte uenis, by which Laodamia expresses her ever- 
 present yearning for Protesilaus. Then see Catullus 
 himself, 50 16, Hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci, Ex quo 
 perspiceres meum dolorem; by which he denotes his 
 longing desire for the company of his friend Calvus, 
 whose wit and conversation he so regretted that he 
 
 o 
 
 could not sleep or rest. Whereas grauis ardor express- 
 es that furious storm of passion which could not last 
 long at one time without destroying its possessor, but 
 which while it did last would put any other gratifica- 
 tion, except that of the passion itself, out of the ques- 
 tion. This ardor a Medea could feel in the presence of 
 lason: Et iam fortis erat, pulsusque recesserat ardor; 
 Cum uidet Aesoniden, extinctaque flamma reuixit : 
 Erubuere genae to toque recanduit ore (Ovid Metam. 
 vn 76): Catullus too felt it himself often enough: Cum 
 tan turn arderem quantum Trinacria rupes Lymphaque
 
 8 CATVLLI 
 
 in Oetaeis Malia Thermopylis (68 53). As well attempt 
 to quench a conflagration with a squirt, as allay the 
 grams ardor, the Aetna-like fire, of a Medea, a Lesbia, 
 a Catullus by the antics of a bird. The grauis ardor 
 must destroy itself for the time by its own intensity 
 before the dolor remaining behind could find relief in 
 playing with a sparrow. I feel convinced therefore 
 that these two verses are to be transposed, transposi- 
 tion being one of the simplest remedies in the case of a 
 text resting finally on a single manuscript; and that 
 we are to read 
 
 credo ut, cum grauis acquiescet ardor, 
 sit solaciolum sui doloris : 
 
 'when the bright lady of my longing love is minded to 
 try some charming play, for a sweet solace of her heart- 
 ache, I trow,, whenever the fierce storm of passion shall 
 be laid'. 
 
 'Cum acquiescet' is in Catullus' manner: 5 13 Cum 
 sciet, another cum preceding in v. 10, as here in v. 5 ; 
 13 13; 64 344, 346, 350, 351; esp. 236 ut,..Agnoscam, 
 cum te reducem aetas prospera sistet. 
 
 I have little to add to this notice which was printed 
 six years ago. I still look upon it as a more satis- 
 factory arrangement of the beautiful poem than any 
 which Catullus' Editors have offered, tho' Ellis through- 
 out his commentary makes not the slightest reference 
 to it, and Baehrens thus prints 7 and 8 : In solaciolum 
 sui doloris (Credo, turn grauis acquiescet ardor). Not- 
 withstanding all I have said, Ellis in commenting on 7 
 still holds that Lachmann may be right in making
 
 CARM. 2, 4 
 
 'solaciolum' a 2nd nominative to 'libet', and refers to 
 38 7, as if I had not shewn that that passage has no- 
 thing to do with the point in question, 'paulum quid' 
 coming under the rule which permits 'lubet ' to be 
 personal. Nor does Ellis' long comment on the three 
 lines, attached in the Mss. to our poem, help me in the 
 least to see how they can in any way belong to it. 
 They seem clearly a fragment of some other poem. In 
 my note on 7 Cum acquiescet, I should have stated 
 that in 5 13 V has 'Cum sciat'; but 'Cum sciet', as 
 Buecheler suggests, should I think be read. 
 
 [Keprinted from the Journal of Philology, vol. 4 p. 231240] 
 
 This poem is a fascinating example of the gentler 
 manner of Catullus. Though it will not bear com- 
 parison with some of his more impassioned pieces, it 
 has an exquisite beauty and finish in its own style, 
 which will not be readily matched in Latin or any 
 other language. Fortunately too the blunders of the 
 manuscripts are so plain and have been corrected with 
 such success by the older critics that there are only 
 two words in the whole poem about which there is any 
 difference of opinion : uocaret in 1. 20, for which Lach- 
 mann, followed by Haupt, reads uagaret, and nouissime 
 in 1. 24 for which many Editors, old and recent, read 
 nouissimo. In both cases I keep the manuscript read- 
 ing, in the former with a good deal of hesitation, in the 
 latter with an absolute conviction that the change 
 adopted by so many seriously interferes with the right 
 understanding of the poem. Clear and limpid how- 
 ever as the language may appear at first sight, when it
 
 1 CATVLLI 
 
 is more carefully examined, its right interpretation is 
 found to be by no means so simple, and seems to have 
 been often missed; for Catullus here, as in his other 
 pure iambic poem, owing perhaps to the restrictions of 
 the metre, is very abrupt and allusive and requires 
 much expansion in order to be fully apprehended. 
 Believing that a minute dissection of the poem and a 
 careful comparison of it and the tenth elegy of the 
 first book of the Tristia, which Ovid has written with 
 Catullus in his mind, probably in his hands, will clear 
 up much that is obscure, I offer the following remarks, 
 first printing the Latin, as precision is needed and 
 careful punctuation is of importance. 
 
 Phaselus ille quern uidetis, hospites, 
 ait fuisse nauium celerrimus, 
 neque ullius natantis impetum trabis 
 nequisse praeter ire, siue palmulis 
 5 opus foret uolare siue linteo. 
 et hoc negat minacis Hadriatici 
 negare litus, insulasue Cycladas 
 Rhodumque nobilem horridamque Thraciam 
 Propontida, trucemue Ponticum sinum, 
 
 10 ubi iste post phaselus antea fuit 
 comata silua : nam Cytorio in iugo 
 loquente saepe sibilum edidit coma. 
 Amastri Pontica et Cytore buxifer, 
 tibi haec fuisse et esse cognitissima 
 
 1 5 ait phaselus ; ultima ex origine 
 tuo stetisse dicit in cacumine, 
 tuo imbuisse palmulas in aequore ; 
 et inde tot per impotentia freta 
 erum tulisse, laeua siue dextera 
 
 20 uocaret aura, siue utr unique luppiter
 
 CARM. 4 11 
 
 simul secundus incidisset in pedem ; 
 neque ulla uota litoralibus dels 
 sibi esse facta, cum ueniret a marei 
 nouissime hunc ad usque limpidum lacuin. 
 25 sed haec prius fuere : nunc recondita 
 senet quiete seque dedicat tibi, 
 gemelle Castor et gemelle Castoris. 
 
 In these verses Catullus represents himself as 
 pointing out and praising to some guests, who were 
 with him at his villa in Sirmio, the phaselus, now laid 
 up beside the Benacus or Lago di Garda, which had 
 carried him from Bithynia to Italy. This at least is 
 the sense in which Catullus' words have been almost 
 universally understood. But one of his latest expositors 
 Westphal in his translation and commentary, pp. 170 
 174, says that the poem contains much that is 
 obscure (viel Dunkles), and proceeds to explain it very 
 differently. The ship had to cross the sea ; it was not 
 therefore a mere ' barke ' ; it could hardly then have 
 come up the Po and Mincio to the Lago di Garda ; 
 Catullus too seems first to have gone on board at 
 Rhodes, and to have performed the first part of the 
 journey by land ; the ship therefore was not his own ; 
 he only hired a passage on it from Rhodes ; the erum 
 of v. 19 was the owner or master of the ship ; the 
 limpidus lacus was not the Benacus, but a saltwater 
 bay of the Adriatic, perhaps on the Grecian shore ; the 
 hospites were not Catullus' guests, but the hosts who 
 entertained him on his landing on the coast. This 
 explanation gives a very lame and impotent meaning 
 to the piece, the 'viel Dunkles' of which we will 
 endeavour to clear up in a different way, partly by the 
 assistance of Ovid. The phaselus was unquestionably
 
 12 CATVLLI 
 
 built for Catullus or purchased by him in Bithynia, 
 and must have been a light galley constructed for 
 great speed and provided with both sails and oars. 
 It need not have been of any great size : a friend of 
 mine during the war with Russia went to the Baltic, 
 cruised there for some time and returned to England 
 in a yacht of seven tons ; and we know from a late 
 memorable trial that the ' Osprey ' of 66 tons, built for 
 mere trading purposes, could circumnavigate more than 
 half the globe, whether or not it bore in addition the 
 weight and fortunes of Sir Roger. And what feats of 
 discovery were performed of old by heroes like Baffin 
 in their craft of 40 tons I We shall probably not be 
 wrong in assuming that our phaselus was of a burden 
 somewhere between 20 and 50 tons, and that this 
 would be the size of Ovid's ship too, of which we are 
 now going to speak. 
 
 Ovid on his sad journey to Tomoe had come by 
 sea to the Isthmus of Corinth ; he there quitted the 
 ship, crossed the Isthmus and purchased a vessel at 
 Cenchreae, which was to convey him and all his pro- 
 perty to his final destination. He sailed in it as far as 
 the entrance of the Hellespont, where he seems to 
 have encountered contrary winds and been obliged to 
 beat about, and to have been carried back first to 
 Imbros and .then to Samothrace, where he made up his 
 mind to send on his own vessel, doubtless with all his 
 impedimenta and most of his servants, through the 
 Hellespont, the Propontis, the Bosporus, and along the 
 left shore of the Euxine to Tomoe ; while he himself, 
 weary of the sea, crossed over to Thrace and performed 
 the rest of his journey by land. All this he tells us in 
 the elegy already spoken of, which was written while 
 he was staying in Samothrace. It is the most cheerful
 
 CARM. 4 13 
 
 in the whole series of the ' Tristia ' and the ' Ex Ponto'. 
 The poet finds himself in a cultivated place after the 
 dangers and discomforts of the sea and before he had 
 learnt what Tomoe really was, or rather the aspect it 
 assumed to his diseased imagination which succeeded 
 in persuading him, though fresh from the astronomical 
 studies of the Fasti, that a town, in the latitude of 
 Florence, lay far within the Arctic circle. Were it not 
 for Ovid's minute diffuseness, his meaning would per- 
 haps have been more obscure to us than the curt 
 and allusive language of Catullus, which we will now 
 endeavour to illustrate, partly from this elegy. 
 
 The first five lines of our poem we will thus trans- 
 late : ' That yacht, my friends, which you see, claims to 
 have been the fastest of ships ; no spurt of aught which 
 swims of timber built but she could pass, she says, 
 whether need were to fly with blades of oars or under 
 canvas'. These verses are thus imitated by Ovid, 
 who shews himself here too 'nimium amator ingenii 
 sui' and pushes to hyperbole the simple thought of 
 Catullus : 
 
 Est mihi sitque precor, flauae tutela Mineruae, 
 nauis, et a picta casside nomen habet. 
 
 siue opus est uelis, minimam bene currit ad auram, 
 siue opus est remo, remige carpit iter. 
 
 nee comites uolucri contenta est uincere cursu, 
 occupat egressas quamlibet ante rates. 
 
 We will next take vss. 6 21 of Catullus : 'And 
 this the shore of the blustering Adriatic will not, she 
 says, gainsay ; no nor the Cyclad isles and Rhodes 
 renowned and the rough Thracian Propontis ; no nor 
 the surly Pontic gulf, where, afterwards a yacht, she 
 was before a leafy wood ; for often on Cytorus' ridge
 
 1 4 CATVLLi 
 
 with her talking leaves she gave a whispering forth. 
 To you, Amastris-npon-Pontus, and to you, box-clad 
 Cytorus, these facts, the yacht declares, were and are 
 known right well : from her earliest birthtime on your 
 top she stood, she says ; in your waters handselled her 
 blades ; and next she carried her master over so many 
 raging seas, whether on her left the breeze invited or 
 on her right, or Jupiter propitious had fallen at once 
 on both her sheets'. In these hues Catullus twice 
 over in his very rapid manner, with the simplest 
 copulae, indicates the voyage of his yacht from the 
 time it was launched in the Pontus, probably at 
 Amastris or perhaps at Cytorus, till it reached the 
 shores of Italy : first in 6 9, and again in 17 21. 
 In the former verses the voyage, as the commentators 
 have observed, is described in reversed order by one 
 looking back on it from Italy. It is divided into three 
 main sections by the particle ue, as I have tried to 
 indicate by the punctuation of both my text and my 
 translation. The yacht was built in Amastris or in 
 Cytorus, the town and hill having both the same name. 
 These two great emporia for the box and other woods 
 of the Cytorian mount are mentioned together in the 
 Iliad (B 853) Ot pa KvTwpov ex w Ka ^ S^cra/xov (old 
 name of Amastris) a/^eve/^ozTo. This part of Paph- 
 lagonia, of which Amastris was the capital, now be- 
 longed to the province of Bithynia, and it was natural 
 that Catullus should get his yacht there. But when 
 he left Bithynia in the year B.C. 56, he was in Nicaea 
 far down to the south-west and not far from the 
 Propontis : comp. 46 4 Linquantur Phrygii, Catulle, 
 campi Nicaeaeque ager uber aestuosae : Ad claras 
 Asiae uolemus urbes. It is pretty certain then in itself 
 that Catullus would not make the 'long and almost
 
 CARM. 4 15 
 
 impracticable hill -journey from Nicaea to Amastris 
 or Cytorus ; and this will appear more clearly from 
 what will be said presently. He would order his 
 yacht to be brought round along the ' surly ' Pontus, 
 through the Bosporus into the Propontis, and would 
 embark with all his belongings either at Cios, which 
 Mela (i 100) calls 'Phrygiae opportunissirnum em- 
 porium ', or at Myrlea (Apamea), to both of which 
 there was a short and easy road from Nicaea. 
 
 Then in 7 9 'insulasue Propontida', Catullus 
 briefly indicates the second division of the yacht's 
 voyage, he himself being now on board. It coasted 
 along the Propontis, then through the Hellespont, and 
 along the shore of Mysia, Lydia, etc., or the islands 
 Lesbos, Chios, etc. to Rhodes, which the poem inti- 
 mates to have been the most eastern point to which he 
 went. He would thus probably visit the most famous 
 towns of the province of Asia : Ad claras Asiae uolemus 
 urbes: so Ovid 'Te duce magnificas Asiae perspeximus 
 urbes'. The yacht of course with his property and 
 servants would be coasting along all the time. It is 
 likely enough that he himself would sometimes travel 
 by land : it was probably on this occasion that he 
 visited his brother's tomb in the Troad, and doubtless 
 cities like Ephesus and Halicarnassus were not passed 
 over. But Rhodes would seem to be specially desig- 
 nated not only on account of its celebrity, but also 
 because it was the farthest point in his voyage home- 
 wards. He would then make straight for the 'insulas 
 Cycladas', visiting perhaps Delos; for they lay directly 
 between Rhodes and the Isthmus of Corinth, over 
 which Catullus no doubt had his yacht transported. 
 It would be carried across by the Diolcos in a few 
 hours ; and it is almost certain that he would not make
 
 1 6 CATVLLI 
 
 the long and dangerous voyage round Cape Malea. In 
 fact his words, as we have said, short and allusive here 
 as elsewhere, seem to point out his course. We now 
 come to the last part of the sea-voyage, denoted by the 
 'minacis Hadriatici litus', which, indicates briefly his 
 coasting along the Grecian shore, crossing over the 
 Hadriatic, and then running along the Italian shore. 
 What we have said of his joining his yacht in the Pro- 
 pontis seems implied not only in the nature of the case, 
 but also in the poet's own words (v. 18) 'inde tot per 
 impotentia freta Erum tulisse'; and that he did not 
 personally know the first part of the yacht's voyage 
 might appear from his appeal to Amastris and Cytorus : 
 all this, tlie growtli of the wood, the first launching of 
 the ship, you, Amastris and Cytorus, 'know, it says, and 
 know full well, even if I do not. That the erum tulisse 
 is emphatic, I will try to shew from Ovid too ; but first 
 I will speak of the concluding lines of the poem (22 
 27), as Ovid will perhaps illustrate them also. 
 
 'And not a vow had been offered for her to the 
 guardian gods of the shore, when last of all she came 
 from the sea as far as this limpid lake. But this is 
 past and done : now she ages in tranquil retirement 
 and dedicates herself to you, twin-brother Castor and 
 Castor's brother twin'. The yacht at v. 22 had reached 
 the mouth of the Po, its sailing qualities being such 
 that it had never been in danger enough for a single 
 vow to be offered up, until it was quite clear of the sea. 
 The oratio obliqua renders this sentence a little obscure, 
 as it does not shew whether 'esse facta' is the perfect 
 or the pluperfect : the oratio recta would be plain 
 enough : neque ulla uota dis li toralibus mihi facta erant 
 turn, cum nouissime, mari relicto, ueni ad hunc usque 
 lacum: ultima ex origine of 15, et inde of 18, and cum
 
 CARM. 4 17 
 
 nouissime of 23 and 24, answer to each other just as in 
 Plancus' letter to Cicero (ad fam. x 42 2), we have pri- 
 tnum delude nouissime, as well as in Seneca de ira 
 in 5 2: Quintilian has primum post haec nouissi- 
 me; prius turn nouissime; maxime turn nouissime : 
 [Varro Bimarcus VIIT (25) Cum nouissime putaret, quan- 
 tum sumpti fecerit : the precise expression of Catullus]. 
 Cicero, a purist in such matters, admonished doubtless 
 by Aelius Stilo, as Gellius tells us (x 21), seems never 
 to use the adverb nouissime, and once only in a some- 
 what early oration the adjective nouissimus, though his 
 correspondent Plancus twice uses the former and Cas- 
 sius and Galba both employ the second word in letters 
 to him; and Gellius says that Cato, Sallust and others 
 of that age 'uerbo isto promisee usitati sint': the ad- 
 verb occurs three times in Sallust's Catiline and lu- 
 gurtha. Those Editors therefore, old and recent, who 
 change the manuscript reading to nouissimo, in my 
 judgment spoil Catullus. He is injured too by those 
 who put a comma after Thraciam in v. 8 ; for though I 
 would not assert with Lachmann that Catullus or Lu- 
 cretius could not have used Thraciam as a substitute 
 for Thracam or Thracen, the poem as I have explained 
 it seems to require Thraciam to be an epithet of Pro- 
 pontida. The yacht too must have hugged the Asiatic 
 coast and quite avoided Thrace, and finally ' horridam 
 Thraciam Propontida' is symmetrical with ' trucem Pon- 
 ticum sinum'. As for uocaret in v. 20, when Lachmann 
 (Lucret. p. 178) says he does not understand it, he 
 knew of course such passages as Klotz and Ellis cite 
 from Virgil and Statius, or such a one as I have noted 
 down from Ovid (Heroid. 13 9) et qui tua uela uocaret, 
 Quern cuperent nautae, non ego, uentus erat: a favour- 
 able breeze springs up and invites the ship or the sails 
 M. c. '2
 
 1 8 CATVLLT 
 
 to come out of port and take advantage of it. In the 
 passage from Ovid's Remedium quoted by Ellis, you 
 are told to let the oar follow the current, ' qua fluctus 
 uocant'. It is not easy then to see the appropriateness 
 of the word here, where, as Lachmann observes, a shift- 
 ing wind is spoken of. I sometimes picture to myself 
 the poet thinking of the yacht as becalmed or using its 
 oars, and then of a wind suddenly springing up and 
 inviting it to spread its sails; but that hardly agrees 
 with the 'raging seas' of the preceding line. Lach- 
 mann (Lucret. p. 178) then may perhaps be right in 
 reading 'uagaret', which well suits the context. 
 
 The erum tulisse of v. 19 seems, as I have shewn 
 above, to be emphatic and to imply that Catullus did 
 not himself make the voyage from the Pontus round 
 to the Propontis: these words have a bearing too on 
 22 24, if I am not mistaken, and indicate that Catul- 
 lus, when he had safely reached the Italian coast, did 
 not accompany his yacht in the very tedious voyage up 
 the Po and then the Mincio into the Lago di Garda, 
 which would have been made for the most part against 
 a very powerful stream partly by sailing, partly by 
 rowing, but mainly I presume by towing from the 
 bank. Of course this would be the most convenient 
 way for his heavy effects and part of his attendants to 
 go. If the Mincio in Catullus' time, as is said to be 
 the case now, was not navigable where it joins the Po, 
 the yacht must have been transported there, as at the 
 Isthmus. But great changes may have taken place 
 between those days and ours in the river's course. He 
 himself in all probability started by some quicker and 
 more convenient route for Sirmio, to which the 31st 
 poem shews that he hastened, as soon as he returned 
 from Bithynia. He may indeed have quitted his ship
 
 CARM. 4 19 
 
 at Brandusium, and not been in it during its coasting 
 voyage from thence to the mouth of the Po. 
 
 Now this and much else that I have said above 
 seem to be confirmed by Ovid in the elegy spoken of : 
 comp. v. 9 foil. 
 
 ilia Corinthiacis primum mihi cognita Cenchreis 
 fida manet trepidae duxque comesque uiae, 
 
 perque tot euentus et iniquis concita uentis 
 aequora Palladio numine tuta fuit. 
 
 In the first two of these verses there appears to be an 
 allusion to w. 1 4 1 6 of our poem : Ovid's ship was 
 'primum cognita' to him at Cenchreae, where he pur- 
 chased it, while Catullus traces his back to its origin 
 on Cy torus; and in the last two lines Ovid manifestly 
 refers to the 'tot per impotentia freta' of Catullus. 
 Ovid then continues 
 
 nunc quoque tuta, precor, uasti secet ostia Ponti, 
 quasque petit, Getici litoris intret aquas : 
 
 and he goes on to describe how the ship had got into 
 the Hellespont and then was forced back to Imbros, 
 until in v. 20 
 
 Threiciam tetigit fessa carina Samon. 
 saltus ab hac terra breuis est Tempyra petenti : 
 
 hoc dominum tenus est ilia secuta suum. 
 nam mihi Bistonios placuit pede carpere campos : 
 
 Hellespontiacas ilia relegit aquas : 
 
 and then he proceeds tediously to describe in 18 lines 
 the ship's voyage to Tomoe, through the Hellespont, 
 Propontis, Bosporus and along the left shore of the 
 Euxine, enumerating nine or ten towns which it would 
 have to pass; while he tells us nothing further of his 
 
 22
 
 20 CATVLLI 
 
 own journey by land, after he has said that he would 
 cross over to Tempyra on the mainland and then travel 
 through Thrace. He manifestly felt that the ship was 
 carrying his property and household-gods ; it was there- 
 fore the main object of his solicitude. Now in the line 
 printed in Italics there is a clear reference to Catullus' 
 erum tuluse; and from this I should infer that Ovid 
 understood the other poet's meaning to be that he too 
 only accompanied his yacht on this part of the voyage. 
 Ovid, anxious for the safety of his vessel, says (v. 43) 
 that if the ship reaches Tomoe, 
 
 hanc si contigerit, meritae cadet agna Mineruae : 
 non facit ad nostras hostia maior opes: 
 
 this too looks like an allusion to the ' neque ulla uota 
 litoralibus deis cet.' of Catullus. Ovid not knowing the 
 issue of the voyage makes this vow : Catullus had been 
 with his yacht while it was crossing the sea, and would 
 have been able at any moment to offer up vows if neces- 
 sary. When the ship reached land, all cause for anxiety 
 was now over. The next verses of Ovid also 
 
 uos quoque, Tyndaridae, quos haec colit insula fratres, 
 mite, precor, duplici numen adeste uiae: 
 
 altera namque parat Symplegadas ire per artas, 
 scindere Bistonias altera puppis aquas 
 
 appear to be suggested by Catullus' three last verses: 
 Catullus says that all is now over and the yacht is laid 
 up and dedicated to Castor and Pollux : Ovid begs 
 their protection chiefly for his own ship which has yet 
 to make its voyage, but also for the ship which has to 
 carry him in person from Samothrace over to the main- 
 land. 
 
 As the manuscripts of Catullus uniformly give phti- 
 sellus, it is not improbable that this spelling is his own,
 
 CAUM. 4 21 
 
 on the analogy perhaps of qu&rella, Wquella, luella, m&- 
 della : thus Cicero and some others seem to have writ- 
 ten cttmellus. Something in the pronunciation of the 
 words led it may be to this. In v. 4 L. Mueller rightly 
 prints praeter ire, which is required by the metre : in 
 29 22 Catullus no doubt wrote ' Nisi uncta de uorare 
 patrimonia': in his day this separation of the monosyl- 
 labic preposition from its verb was common enough, as 
 we see from inscriptions. In Catullus' iambics and sca- 
 zons, which have the hephthemimeral caesura, the end 
 of the second foot must coincide with the end of a 
 word, as in * Neque ullius | natantis J impetum trabis'. 
 The same law is observed in the Yirgilian catalecta and 
 by Martial in his many hundred iambic lines, chiefly 
 scazons, except that in catal. 3 and 4 we find 'Generque 
 Nocturne', and * Superbe Noctuine', and once in Martial 
 (vi 74 4), 'Mentitur, Aefulane: non habet dentes': a 
 proper name forming the sole exception in so many 
 hundred verses would seem to confirm the rule. 
 
 Ellis has devoted a good deal of criticism to my 
 analysis of the poem, printed six years ago: some parts 
 of it he accepts, some he rejects. I will now make a 
 few remarks on his remarks. I adhere entirely to the 
 general exposition I gave of Catullus' voyage home: 
 none of Ellis' objections touches the real points at issue, 
 and some of them I hope to shew are altogether irre- 
 levant. My main reason of course for arguing that 
 Catullus himself got on board his yacht in the Propon- 
 tis was this : he started homewards from Nicaea, from 
 which there was most ready access to the Propontis. 
 Had he gone to Cy torus or Amastris, he would have
 
 22 CATVLLI 
 
 had to make a most difficult and laborious land-journey, 
 solely to add to the length and annoyance of the sea- 
 voyage. He may have had special motives for so doing; 
 but I have endeavoured to shew that the poet's very 
 curt and allusive language supports my conclusions. 
 It is plain enough that if a man wants to go to the 
 Phasis, he must enter the Euxine ; but Catullus says 
 nothing of Phasis or Argo, and why Ellis should bring 
 Propertius and his friend Tullus into the discussion, I 
 do not see. But Ellis follows ' the ordinary, certainly 
 the natural, view, which makes inde local'. It may be 
 the ordinary; but why it should be the natural view, 
 I cannot comprehend. My exposition leaves the Ms. 
 reading intact; Ellis', which is the ordinary one, re- 
 quires a change in it. And inde as often refers to tune 
 as to place: not only does Catullus use it in the one 
 sense as often as in the other; but all the best writers, 
 such as Cicero and Caesar, equally recognise both 
 senses : Caes. B. C. in 9 7 has a sentence much resem- 
 bling Catul. 29 16 and 17, inde having the same force 
 in both passages : and Catullus' metre both here and in 
 29 demands Et inde, not Et deinde. In the catalecta 
 ' Et inde' seems to denote time at least as naturally as 
 place; and the 'praeter hoc nouissimum' can refer to 
 time alone, supporting therefore the Ms. 'nouissime'. 
 Ovid's elegy bears much more than ' points of resem- 
 blance' to our poem; but here let me say that through- 
 out my argument I only bring Ovid in to help to 
 confirm what Catullus' words suggest to my mind ; not 
 to give them an unnatural twist, as Ellis, taking up 
 his own point of view instead of mine, tries to shew, I 
 think without success. 
 
 1 : Camp. Mart, n 57 1 Hie quern uidetis. 8 : Ellis, 
 in separating 'horridamque Thraciam' and 'Propontida'.
 
 CAKM. 4 23 
 
 among all Editors since Lachmann inclusive is left in a 
 minority of one : I have no doubt that here I am right 
 and he is wrong. He now interprets the 'horridam 
 Thraciam' to mean the genial and cultivated Cherso- 
 nese, whose shore is more West than North of the Hel- 
 lespont. 
 
 20 uocaret: I would gladly recall what I have 
 written on this word; but alas! 'littera scrip ta manet': 
 Ellis however only makes matters worse. Lachmann I 
 fear, with ah 1 his virtues, was no better than a Berliner 
 land-lubber ; and all the combined nautical knowledge 
 of Ellis and myself is needed to bring the yacht safely 
 from the Propontis, to say nothing of the Euxine. 
 Years ago 1 saw that I had missed the point of Catul- 
 lus' expression, and my friend Sir Henry Thring wrote 
 to me : ' laeua siue dextera Vocaret aura' has nothing 
 to do with a ' shifting wind ' ; on the contrary it means 
 * whether sailing on the left or the right tack with the 
 same wind a cross wind': in other words she bore her 
 master equally well whether sailing with a cross wind 
 on either tack, or sailing straight before the wind. 
 
 22 24 : Of my elucidation of this passage Ellis 
 says : ' This seems to give an unnaturally pluperf. sense 
 to esse facta, while it forces sibi and leaves usque with 
 little meaning'. Let us see: first of all the sibi has no 
 bearing whatever on the general argument : I translated 
 sibi 'for it' not 'by it', because at the time it struck me 
 as an unnecessary hyperbole to say the vows were 
 offered by the yacht itself; a far greater hyperbole than 
 the ' seque dedicat tibi' of 26. Catullus I grant, tho' 
 the usage was very rare in his time, could write sibi for 
 a se\ as 37 13 Pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata: 
 but take it either way, it comes to exactly the same 
 thing. Then as to the pluperfect, I maintain that esse
 
 24 CATVLLI 
 
 facia is just as much a pluperf. as a perfect, esse being 
 the infin. of eram as much as of sum; and, more than 
 that, it must be here a pluperf. even if you read ' No- 
 uissimo'; for surely the vows would only have been 
 made 'litoralibus deis' while the ship was on the sea in 
 danger of shipwreck, not while it was in the Po, Mincio 
 and Garda: Votaque seruati soluunt in lit ore nautae 
 Glauco et Panopeae et Inoo Melicertae. At least I 
 assert this to be the natural not the * unnatural' mean- 
 ing of Catullus : 1 1 Kespondi, id quod erat, nihil 
 neque ipsis Nee praetoribus esse nee cohorti : here too 
 esse is rat. obi. of erat, not est. Ellis' quotation from 
 Seneca gives to 'nouissime' precisely the meaning I 
 give to it; and his own explanation of the word is only 
 an imperfect reproduction of mine. But I leave usque 
 'with little meaning': indeed! surely usque is well said 
 of a yacht undertaking the long tedious voyage from 
 the sea 'even as far as this limpid lake'; or else I can- 
 not appreciate the force of words. Let others judge 
 how I have answered Ellis' objections: I have now two 
 or three more observations to make on our poem. 
 
 2 ait...celerrimus: 'a not very common attraction' 
 Ellis observes. Ovid however is fond of it; I have col- 
 lected from him many instances like met. xm 141 quia 
 rettulit Aiax Esse louis pronepos : and Catullus was 
 not the first who ' ventured on' it : Plaut. asin. 634 
 Quas hodie adulescens Diabulus ipsi daturus dixit. 
 Ellis might have illustrated too the second form of ' at- 
 traction' in the verse: with 'nauium celerrimus' comp. 
 Cic. de nat. n 130 Indus uero qui est omnium fluminum 
 maximus; Pliny xvm 79 hordeum frugum omnium mol- 
 lissimum est; Hor. sat. i 9 4 dulcissime rerum; Ov. her. 
 4 125, ars I 213 and met. vm 49 pulcherrime rerum. 
 12: ' " The yacht gave a rustling with the voice of her
 
 CARM. 4, 6 25 
 
 tresses" is a combination which would probably have 
 been avoided by Virgil : it is on faults of this kind that 
 the indifference of Horace for Catullus... was probably 
 grounded' Ellis. Cultivated language is made up of 
 inconsistent metaphors, which time has smoothed over. 
 Ellis' translation I think caricatures Catullus: Kop-r) was 
 used by Homer for the foliage of a tree, and to Catullus 
 I believe coma had much the same meaning that, foliage 
 has to us. A poet like him would drink in the myste- 
 rious beauty of the wind's rustling through the trees, 
 whose leaves were their organ of speech; whose voice 
 was this very rustling. If Horace had been able to 
 commit ' faults' like this, he would have been a greater 
 poet than he is. 27: this verse expresses, not ( allu- 
 sively' but directly, just the opposite of what Ellis says 
 it does: it separates as distinctly as possible the two 
 brothers and means 'Castor, gemine frater, et Pollux, 
 gemine frater Castoris': similarly in the prologue of the 
 Menaechmus Plautus says of the two brothers : Nunc 
 ille geminus...uenit cum seruo suo Hunc quaeritatum 
 geminum gernianum suum. 
 
 Flaui, delicias tuas Catullo, 
 ni sint illepidae atque inelegantes, 
 uelles dicere nee tacere posses, 
 uerum nescio quid febriculosi 
 5 scorti diligis : hoc pudet fateri. 
 nam te non uiduas iacere noctes 
 nequiquam taciturn cubile clamat 
 sertis ac Syrio fragrans oliuo 
 puluinusque peraeque et hie et ille 
 10 attritus tremulique quassa lecti
 
 26 CATVLLI 
 
 argutatio inambulatioque. 
 Mani, stupra uales nihil tacere. 
 cur ? non tarn latera ecfututa pandas, 
 nei tu quid facias ineptiarum. 
 15 quare, quidquid habes boui malique, 
 die nobis. uolo te ac tuos amores 
 ad caelum lepido uocare uersu. 
 
 6 noctes Nequiquam taciturn cubile sic interpunxL 8 ac Syrio uulyo. 
 asirio V. et Syrio Baehrens. 12 Mani, stupra uales scripsi. Nam inista (or 
 ui ista) preualet V. Nam ni stupra ualet Scaliyer. N. nil Haupt. lam nil 
 stupra uales Schwdbius ' aliquando\ 
 
 There are several points in this poem which none of 
 the commentators, so far as I have seen, has brought 
 into view or explained. In the first place it must be 
 observed that Catullus pictures himself as peering about 
 his friend Flavius' bedroom and addressing him there. 
 He notes the bed reeking with unguents, and the worn 
 pillows; he it is who rocks the bed and makes it creak 
 and dance about. Flavius in vain attempts to conceal 
 the truth, which all the things about him proclaim with 
 a loud voice. 
 
 I now proceed to vss. 6 and 7, which not one of 
 the Editors whom I have come across explains in a 
 satisfactory manner ; but which by a better punctuation, 
 unless I am mistaken, I have made quite clear: taciturn 
 is not an adjective here, but the passive participle, in 
 apposition with the preceding verse. This use of tad- 
 tus is quite as classical as the other : the common 
 Lexicons give abundant examples, from Cicero, Livy, 
 Plautus, Virgil and others: Quis te, magne Cato, taci- 
 turn aut te, Cosse, relinquat? 'For that you do not 
 pass solitary nights a fact vainly concealed by you 
 the bed proclaims, perfumed with garlands and Syrian
 
 CAIIM. C 27 
 
 oil, etc.' I may just observe that 'bed', not 'bedcham- 
 ber', is the common meaning of cubile in Catullus : see 
 64 163; 66 21; 68 29. Then in 12 it is clear to me 
 that Nam is meaningless, and that ualet cannot be 
 right ; for everything cries out, instead of trying to hide 
 what it knows, except Manius himself. We must read 
 then uales; and it strikes me that the strangely corrupt 
 commencement of the line is best explained by reading 
 Hani for Nam ni (or ini) : thus 29 3 the Mss. have 
 Nam murrain for Mamurram; 28 9 Omnem mi for 
 Memmi, proper names being a habitual source of cor- 
 ruption in Mss. See how in the two parts of 68 the 
 names of Manlius and of Allius are variously corrupted. 
 Manius Flauius therefore would be the friend's name. 
 With ualet for uales, a usual corruption in Mss. like 
 ours, compare 68 2 mittis O, mittit G, 10 petis 0, pe- 
 tit G, 7 4 iacet G, iaces O; 41 8 solet et V for solet es 
 (i.e. aes), 61 119 taceatis V for taceat, 64 384 Nereus 
 V for Heroum et, where we see too the confusion so 
 extraordinarily common in our Mss. of o and e: thus 
 too in 110 7 I read 'est furis' for the 'efficit' of Mss., 
 the sentence demanding an est. 
 
 12 is thus an emphatic repetition of 6 foil.: 'no, 
 Manius, you cannot at all conceal your amours'. Every- 
 thing about you is a tell-tale, nay (13 foil.) your own 
 haggard appearance. Say out then all you have to 
 disclose, that I may wed you and your love to immortal 
 verse. 
 
 In 3 the imperfects I think may be defended : I 
 do not follow Heinsius and Baehrens in changing them 
 into present subjunctives. 7 1 cannot comprehend why 
 Editors retain the neqiticquam or nequidquam of our 
 barbarous Mss. instead of reading nequiquam, the sole 
 classical form. 8 I keep the vulgate ac tiyrio for asirio
 
 28 CATVLLI 
 
 of Mss. and do not with Baehrens read et S., as s for 
 sc is a very common blunder in our Mss. : 46 3 silesit 
 O, 60 2 silla V, 61 139 simus O, 66 73 diserpent V, 
 88 4 sis O: on the other hand sc for s is just as com- 
 mon. I shall have to return to this and similar cor- 
 ruptions. In 9 too I prefer hie et ille to hie et illic : o 
 and e must have been almost indistinguishable in our 
 Mss. : this I shall recur to again and again. 
 
 10 : I have yet to say a word about quassa, which 
 I do not change, tho' its precise force is far from clear 
 and I cannot at all discern the drift of Ellis' explana- 
 tion and illustration. Quintilian xn 10 29, speaking of 
 the harsh sound of F, says that this harshness of sound 
 is ' quassa quodammodo ', shattered, broken, when a 
 vowel immediately follows, it being much more harsh, 
 when it on the other hand precedes and so ' frangit ' 
 any of the consonants, as in the word 'frangit'. Quin- 
 tilian thus shews that quassa can be applied to a sound, 
 and has much the same meaning as fracta. Perhaps 
 therefore in Catullus it denotes the broken, unequal 
 creaking of the bed, which had become tremulus or 
 rickety by the use to which it had been put. 
 
 I have not much to remark upon the poems which 
 come between 6 and 10. In 8 9, the end of which is 
 lost in the Mss., I much prefer Avantius' completion, 
 adopted by most Editors, 
 
 nunc iam ilia non uult, tu quoque, inpotews, noli 
 to Scaliger's, which the latest Editor Baehrens adopts, 
 ' tu quoque inpote/is ne sis ', because there seems to me 
 to be a manifestly designed parallelism in this verse, 
 corresponding with the similar one just above: 
 ibi ilia multa turn iocosa fiebant, 
 quae tu uolebas nee puella nolebat.
 
 OARM. 6, 10 29 
 
 v. 14 cum rogaberis nulla : this use of nullus with the 
 sense of omnino non, prorsum non, I have illustrated 
 in my note on Lucretius I 377 (and n 53) and com- 
 pared with the similar adverbial use of totus and omnis, 
 so very common in the best authors. As Cicero and 
 Lucretius employ nullus in this way, there can be no 
 reason for refusing the same liberty to Catullus. Ellis 
 observes that Holtze quotes no instance of this use of 
 nullus with passive verbs. I have quoted 1. 1. from 
 Cicero ' consilium quod capi nullum potest ', as well as 
 this passage of Catullus. There too I have cited Cicero's 
 1 repudiari se totum putabit ', which has much analogy 
 with Catullus' expression. Livy employs ullus in the 
 same way : vni 354 quae in discrimine fuerunt, an ulla 
 post hanc diem essent. 
 
 Of the chronological inferences which Ellis draws 
 from our 9th poem I will speak after I have discussed 
 the 10th and 12th. 9 2 : To the illustrations from 
 Cicero given by Ellis, which I had myself noted down, 
 add Brutus 191 Plato enim mihi instar est centum mi- 
 lium. 4 anumque matrem : Mart, xi 23 14 sed quasi 
 mater a,nus ; xin 34 anus coniunx : Plautus ha,s ' anus 
 uxor', 'sacerdos anus', 'mater lena'. 9 os oculosque : 
 Cic. phil. vni 20 ante os oculosque legatorum; Aen. vni 
 152 ille os oculosque loquentis cet. ; Ovid Ibis 155 ante 
 os oculosque uolabo : the sound has evidently brought 
 the two words thus together. 
 
 10 
 
 Varus me meus ad suos amores 
 
 uisum duxerat e foro otiosum, 
 
 scortillum, ut mihi turic repente uisum est,
 
 30 
 
 non sane illepidum neque inuenustum. 
 5 hue ut uenimus, incidere nobis 
 
 sermoDes uarii, in quibus, quid esset 
 
 iam Bithynia, quo modo se haberet, 
 
 ecquonam mihi profuisset aere. 
 
 respondi id quod erat, nihil neque ipsis 
 10 nee praetoribus esse nee cokorti. 
 
 cur quisquam caput unctius referret ? 
 
 praesertim quibus esset irrumator 
 
 praetor nee faceret pili cohortem. 
 
 'at certe tamen' inquiunt, 'quod illic 
 15 natum dicitur esse, comparasti 
 
 ad lecticam homines', ego, ut puellae 
 
 unum me facerem beatiorem, 
 
 ' non' inquam ' mihi tam fuit maligne, 
 
 ut, prouincia quod mala incidisset, 
 20 non possem octo homines parare rectos'. 
 
 at mi nullus erat neque hie neque illic, 
 
 fractum qui ueteris pedem grabati 
 
 in collo sibi collocare posset. 
 
 hie ilia, ut deeuit cinaediorem, 
 25 ' quaeso ' inquit ' mihi, mi Catulle, paulum 
 
 istos: commodum enim uolo ad Sarapim 
 
 deferri'. 'mane me' inquio puellae; 
 
 'istud quod modo dixeram me habere, 
 
 fugit me ratio : meus sodalis 
 30 Cinna est Gaius : is sibi parauit. 
 
 uerum, utrum illius an mei, quid ad me ? 
 
 utor tam bene quam mihi paratis. 
 
 sed tu insulsa male et molesta uiuis, 
 
 per quam non licet esse neglegentem'. 
 
 10 cohort!. Cur referret ? sic interpunxi. cohorti, Cur referret, uulgo. 
 27 mane me is corrupt, mane Statins, minime Pontanus. mi anime Bergk. 
 Perhaps meminei. 32 paratis Stating, pararim V, uulgo.
 
 CARM. 10 31 
 
 There are several points I think it worth while to 
 dwell upon in this striking poem, than which there 
 does not exist in the whole compass of Latin literature 
 a finer example of terse idiomatic expression, of which 
 Catullus and Terence are such consummate masters. 
 
 I will begin with vss. 5 14. The first lines are 
 clear enough : it is only in 9 13 that any difficulties 
 have been found. These difficulties, unless I am greatly 
 mistaken, I have removed by a better punctuation, by 
 dividing the passage into two distinct sentences, with- 
 out departing in one word from the genuine Ms. read- 
 ing. For, if we compare G and O, there can be no doubt 
 that in 9 neque ipsis and in 13 nee, and not non,faceret t 
 are right. I am amazed that none of the commentators 
 has made this simple change. Some of them have re- 
 sorted to violent alterations of text, others to explana- 
 tions which they themselves feel to be unsatisfactory. 
 Thus the latest Editor Baehrens partly rewrites the 
 passage ; while Ellis appends to his first comment : 
 ' Yet there is something illogical etc.' and goes to an- 
 other ' conceivable ' one. A full stop and a mark of in- 
 terrogation will make the logic run quite smoothly. 
 
 ' When we came to Varus' house', says Catullus, 
 'various subjects of conversation were started. One of 
 them was, how Bithynia was now off, what was its con- 
 dition, whether I had made any money out of it. I 
 told them in reply, what was the simple truth, that 
 there was nothing at all for people, or for praetors or 
 for praetor's staff'. And here the sentence ends, tho' 
 all the Editors carry it on with a most perplexing re- 
 sult. Is it that they have not apprehended the fact, 
 that in an interrogative sentence ' cur referret ' is the 
 right, and the only right, mood and tense for oratio 
 obliqua ? If proof of this be asked, I need only refer to
 
 32 CATVLLI 
 
 Madvig's Opuscula and Grammar. At the risk how- 
 ever of being tedious I will quote the following pas- 
 sages from Caesar, as they so precisely illustrate the 
 turn of our sentence : B. G. I 40 2 Ariouistum se con- 
 sule cupidissime populi Komani amicitiam appetisse. 
 cur hunc tarn temere quisquam. ab officio discessurum 
 iudicaret ? B. C. I 72 Caesar in earn spem uenerat, se 
 sine pugna et sine uolnere suorum rem conficere posse, 
 quod re frumentaria aduersarios interclusisset. cur 
 etiam secundo proelio aliquos ex suis amitteret ? cur 
 uulnerari pateretur optime de se meritos milites ? cur 
 denique fortunam periclitaretur ? praesertim cuni non 
 esset minus imperatoris consilio superare quam gladio. 
 B. G. iv 16 2 responderunt populi Romani imperium 
 Rhenurn finire. si se inuito Germanos in Galliam trans- 
 ire non aequum existimaret, cur sui quicquam esse 
 imperii aut potestatis trans Rhenum postularet ? These 
 sentences illustrate Catullus in every point : observe 
 the cur in every case introducing the question, with no 
 connecting particle, and followed by an imperfect sub- 
 junctive ; the quisquam and quicquam, the praesertim, 
 the responderunt. 
 
 ' Why should any of us bring home our persons in 
 gayer trim, especially when our praetor was a dirty fel- 
 low and cared not for his staff one straw ?' The plur. 
 quibus referring to the indefinite quisquam is a very 
 usual construction: comp. too 102 3 illowim, referring 
 back to fido ab amico, and 111 2 Nuptarum referring 
 back to contentam uiuere. 
 
 On vss. 14 20 there is a good note in the Hueti- 
 ana (p. 207 210 ed. Amst. 1790): Huet anticipates 
 what Haupt tells us in the Hermes, and quotes Probus 
 from the Juvenal scholia. He remarks too that in the 
 Delphin Manilius of 1679 he had said what is said five
 
 CARM. 10 33 
 
 years later in Vossius' Catullus ; and observes that 
 these verses, taken together, shew Catullus to have 
 meant that the * lectica octophorus ' was invented and 
 first used in Bithynia. 
 
 1 4 inquiunt : ' somebody said ' Ellis : rather * say 
 they ' i. e. Varus and the woman, for we are not to sup- 
 pose any one else present. The mistress speaks, and 
 Varus by his looks takes part, as it were, in the speech. 
 Thus when Francesca has alone spoken, Paolo standing 
 by weeping, Dante says : Queste parole da lor ci fur 
 porte. 
 
 17 unum beatiorem : scarcely 'a particularly lucky 
 fellow ' with Ellis. The more common turn is, as Ca- 
 tullus elsewhere has it, Quis me uno uinit felicior; Cic. 
 epist. vii 163 neminem te uno Samarobriuae iuris pe- 
 ritiorem esse. When the units is in the same case as 
 the comparative, the object of comparison must either 
 be expressed, as in the passage of Horace which Ellis 
 quotes, and in Ter. hecyra 861 Vt unus omnium homo 
 te uiuat numquam quisquam blandior : comp. too Plaut. 
 Amph. 1046 Qui me Thebis alter uiuit miserior ?: or be 
 understood, as here : beatiorem quam ceteram cohortem, 
 as at once follows from what precedes. He had just 
 said there was nothing at all for praetor or staff. Now, 
 wishing to brag, he says : ' to make myself out to the 
 lady to be the one man rich or fortunate above all the 
 rest', facere is used again by Catullus in the same 
 sense : 97 9 et se facit esse uenustum. 
 
 24 27: 'Then she like an impudent little minx 
 says, Pray, my dear Catullus, lend me them for a little ; 
 for^I want presently to be carried to SarapisV. ut 
 dec. cin. : Priap. 66 2 ut decet pudicam. I am surprised 
 Ellis should feel any doubt of the meaning of ' cinae- 
 diorern': Catullus surely points to the impudence of 
 
 M. c. 3
 
 34 CATVLLI 
 
 the request. As commodti nam is impossible in Catul- 
 lus, Hand's commodum enim, tho' quite uncertain, gives 
 a suitable sense and has been generally adopted by the 
 later editors. The omission of an imperative da or the 
 like is idiomatic enough : comp. 55 10 Camerium mini, 
 pessimae puellae ; Mart, iv 43 5 Iratam mihi Pontiae 
 lagonam, Iratum calicem mihi Metili. Perhaps com- 
 mode enim is nearer the Ms. reading, as a and e are so 
 often interchanged in our Mss. ; and it would give a suit- 
 able sense : 'I want to be carried comfortably': comp. 
 Cic. ad Att. xvi 6 1 Ego adhuc...magis commode quam 
 strenue nauigaui. But Doering I see suggests Istos 
 da : modo nam : now before I observed this, I had 
 thought of Istos da modo. nam uolo ; because I per- 
 ceived that da modo might easily in the Mss. fall into 
 the more natural prose arrangement modo da, and this 
 get changed to commoda ; and because I felt that modo 
 would add force both to paulum and da : comp. Plaut. 
 rud. 1127 Cedo modo mi, uidulum istum: Cic. de orat. 
 in 196 si in his paulum modo offensum est ; epist. I 5 b 
 2 si Pompeius paulum modo ostenderit sibi placere ; 
 Nepos Ham. 1 4 si paulum modo res essent refectae ; 
 Sail. lug. 60 3 ubi hostes paulum modo pugnam remi- 
 serant ; 93 4 paulum modo prona ; Catil. 52 18 si pau- 
 lulum modo uos languere uiderint ; Ter. heaut. 316 
 Vbi si paululum modo quid te fugerit. Ellis well de- 
 fends the accusative Sarapim. 
 
 27 30 : man$ me is surely not admissible in Ca- 
 tullus, nor do the words appear to have any satisfactory 
 meaning : man% inquio is good metre and good sense 
 and is adopted by several of the best editors, and so is 
 the minime of Pontanus, Lachmann, Haupt and others. 
 Again Bergk's mi anime is enticing. But when that 
 which follows is kept in view, meminei, which in Catul-
 
 CABM. 10 35 
 
 lus' Mss. might easily pass into mane me, a and e being 
 so often confused, strikes me as not at all improbable. 
 I prefer inquio of the old editors and Baehrens to in- 
 quii of most recent editors ; for it seems to have as 
 much indirect evidence to its existence as inquii has, 
 and is as near to inquid, as inquii is to inquit ; and 
 elsewhere in the poern we have the presents, inquiunt, 
 inquit, inquam. 
 
 The following sentence appears to me to be rightly 
 understood by none of the commentators. They all 
 take quod for the relative, whereas it surely is the con- 
 junction. This has led Lachmann, Haupt and others 
 to assume a lacuna, and Ellis' explanation is to me very 
 unsatisfactory. This peculiar use of the conjunction 
 quod, to denote the effect rather than the cause, I have 
 illustrated at great length in my note on Lucretius 
 iv 885 from Cicero, Ovid, Virgil and others. The 
 phrase, I have there said, is elliptical and the full ex- 
 pression is seen in Catull. 68 33 Nam quod scriptorum 
 non magna est copia apud me, Hoc fit quod Romae 
 uiuimus. So here the full expression would be ' Istud 
 quod modo dixeram me habere, hoc factum est quod 
 me ratio fugit'. To the very many passages I have 
 given in my note on Lucretius I here add the following : 
 Phaedr. n 4 8 Nam fodere terram quod uides cotidie 
 Aprum insidiosum, quercum unit euertere ; Mart, vm 
 213 placidi numquid te pigra Bootae Plaustra uehunt, 
 lento quod nimis axe uenis?; ib. 82 2 Nos quoque quod 
 domino carmina parua damus, Posse deum rebus pariter 
 Musisque uacare Scimus, et haec etiam serta placere 
 deo. 
 
 With mcminei then, the passage is plain enough : 
 'Now I bethink myself: when I said just now that I 
 had them, I forgot myself for the moment : my dear 
 
 32
 
 36 CATVLLI 
 
 friend Gaius Cinna, he it was who bought them': istud, 
 the thing in question, the chair and its eight men; just 
 like ' quod natum' above. Though the general sense of 
 the words ' meus parauit' is clear enough, their exact 
 construction is not so certain: are they to be punctu- 
 ated as I have punctuated with most of the editors? or, 
 what is perhaps better, are we with Baehrens to put a 
 comma after sodalis, and Gains? Nay, as Cinna was 
 not an uncommon name, it strikes me as not improbable 
 that Catullus meant to say: 'meus sodalis Cinna est 
 Gaius is s. p. : ' my friend Cinna Gaius I mean (not 
 Gnaeus or Lucius) he it was who bought them': comp. 
 Mart, ix 87 3 dicis ' modo liberum esse iussi Nastam 
 seruolus est mihi paternus Signa'. One might sug- 
 gest the omission of est ; but it should be observed that 
 throughout this poem we find spondees alone in the 
 first foot. With 27 29 I would compare the writer 
 ad Herenn. n 40, which might perhaps favour my me- 
 minei: in mentem mihi si uenisset, Quirites, non com- 
 misissem ut in hunc locum res ueniret: nam hoc aut 
 hoc fecissem; sed me turn ratio fugit. 
 
 In v. 32 Ellis tries, in my opinion without success, 
 to defend the pararim of Mss. Because the best writers 
 often use tamquam for tamquam si, because some good 
 writers, Livy for instance, not unfrequently use uelut 
 for uelut si, it by no means follows that tarn bene, quam 
 can pass for tarn bene, quam si: none of Ellis' examples, 
 Latin, Greek or English, helps in the least to prove 
 this. But if the omission of si were conceded, can the 
 tense be defended ? this has always struck me as deci- 
 sive. The poet is surely speaking of a matter past and 
 gone: Cinna bought them, I did not; they are his, not 
 mine. Surely then you want 'quam si mihi parassem', 
 not ' pararim' : ' I have the same use of them as if I had
 
 CARM. 10 37 
 
 bought them myself. If this be so, Baehrens' ceu for 
 quam, for other reasons improbable, will not help mat- 
 ters. Now Statius' paratis is not so violent a correction 
 as some might at first sight think it to be; for final m 
 and s are perpetually interchanged in our Mss. evi- 
 dently because some original of them all expressed both 
 by abbreviations not easy to distinguish. Of this I will 
 speak more at length when I come to the 12th poem. 
 If paratim then, a non-existent word, were once writ- 
 ten, it would pass immediately into pararim', for r and 
 t were also not easily distinguished in our archetype. 
 Of this too I shall have occasion to speak later on: I 
 have copied down some thirty cases in which V, or else 
 G or O, put r for t, or t for r. 
 
 33 : On this verse I should hardly have thought of 
 dwelling, if it had not been for Baehrens' most infeli- 
 citous alterations, ' Set tu, mulsa, mala et m. u. '. No 
 verse in Catullus less needs correction than this: the 
 use of male = ualde, to denote an aggravation of an evil, 
 is well illustrated from Horace by Bentley on od. in 
 1411, where he reads, perhaps rightly, ' male inomina- 
 tis': he cites 'male dispari' and other instances. The 
 instance most resembling ours that I can find is Tibull. 
 (Sulpicia) iv 10 2 ne male inepta cadam. The usage is 
 very similar to the often recurring ' male aeger', * male 
 (peius, pessime) odi, metuo, timeo, formido, uror, perdo', 
 and the like. We might compare with male insulsus, 
 ineptus, Homer's Sucra/xjuo/aos, Empedocles' Svo-a^oX/So?, 
 Sophocles' Svcra#Xios, SvcraXy^ros, and the like. I be- 
 lieve Martial had this line in his mind, when he wrote 
 (xn 55 1) Gratis qui dare uos iubet puellae, Insulsissi- 
 mus improbissimusque est, where the two superlatives 
 are synonymous with the two adjectives of Catullus 
 strengthened by male. At the same time I take it that
 
 38 CATVLLI 
 
 the poet intended his reader to infer that these words 
 were spoken, not to the girl's face, but like a stage 
 aside, as Catullus was turning away from them. The 
 rudeness would otherwise be in glaring contrast to the 
 polite tone of the rest of the poem. Such asides are 
 common alike in the ancient and modern drama : Tri- 
 mimmus 40 Vxor, uenerare ut nobis haec habitatio 
 Bona fausta felix fortunataque euenat Teque ut quam 
 primum possim uideam emortuam. 
 
 When I have first discussed some points in the 12th 
 poem, I will say a few words about the date of C. Mem- 
 rnius' propraetorship, words which I should have deemed 
 altogether superfluous, if Ellis had not broached and 
 developed what appears to me to be a singular paradox 
 on the subject. 
 
 12 
 
 Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra 
 non belle uteris in ioco atque uino : 
 tollis lintea neglegentiorum. 
 hoc salsum esse putas ? fugit te, inepte 
 5 quamuis sordida res et inuenusta est. 
 non credis mihi ? crede Pollioni 
 fratri, qui tua furta uel talento 
 mutari uelit : est enim leporum 
 disertus puer ac facetiarum. 
 
 10 quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos 
 expecta aut mihi linteum remitte ; 
 quod me non mouet aestirnatione, 
 uerum est mnemosynum mei sodalis. 
 nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis 
 
 15 iniserunt mihi muneri Fabullus
 
 CARM. 10, 12 39 
 
 et Veranius : haec amem necesse est 
 ufc Yeraniolum meum et Fabullum. 
 
 9 Disertus seems corrupt, Dissertus 0. Differtus Paaseratius, Vossius, 
 Baehrens. perhaps Ducentum. 
 
 This Asinius, brother of the famous C. Asinius Pol- 
 lio On. fil., is mentioned nowhere except in this poem of 
 Catullus. He was probably a man of little worth, and 
 may have soon disappeared from a world which he did 
 not greatly adorn. Ellis calls him ' Asinius Polio, 
 an elder brother of the friend of Horace and Virgil'. 
 Though there is no direct evidence to the point, I am 
 disposed to think he was the elder of the two ; but I 
 feel sure his cognomen was not Pollio. I rest my argu- 
 ment on the following grounds. 
 
 The family belonged to Teate, the capital of the 
 Marrucini. It was plebeian and like so many other 
 plebeian families, such as the Memmii and the Antonii, 
 appears to have had no cognomen. Gnaeus Asinius, 
 father of the two in question, had left his native place 
 and come to settle in Rome. Wishing, we may pre- 
 sume, to do at Rome as the Romans did, he called one 
 son C. Asinius Pollio. Whence this surname was derived, 
 is altogether unknown. Had this been his eldest son, 
 he would doubtless in compliance with the usual fashion 
 have given him his own praenomen Gnaeus, and not 
 Gaius. I infer therefore that the other was the elder 
 and was named On. Asinius. But not Pollio ; else 
 Catullus would not in v. 6 have said 'crede Pollioni 
 fratri', in order to distinguish the two. It was very 
 usual at this period for the same family to use different 
 cognomina : thus the father of Catullus' friend C. Li- 
 cinius Calvus was named C. Licinius Macer. I believe 
 therefore that we have here the youth's actual name,
 
 40 CATVLLI 
 
 and that the father called him Cn. Asinius Marrucinus 
 in order to perpetuate the memory of their native 
 country, as this son may have been born before the 
 father had migrated from Teate to Rome. The very 
 common cognomina Marsus, Sabinus, Latinus, Gallus, 
 Afer, Hispanus and so many others doubtless had a 
 similar origin. The history of Pollio's family, which 
 ends with his grandsons, would illustrate and confirm 
 what has been said. He called his eldest son C. Asinius 
 Gallus Saloninus, giving him his own praenomen, but 
 not his cognomen, and naming him Gallus, because he 
 was born in Gallia Cisalpina; Saloninus to commemorate 
 his own chief exploit, the capture of Salonae. This ill- 
 fated son had five sons of his own, and gave a different 
 cognomen to each: see Drumann n p. 1. The eldest 
 was C. Asinius Saloninus and had his father's prae- 
 nomen ; the next was Asinius Gallus ; the third C. 
 Asinius Pollio ; the fourth M. Asinius Agrippa, so called 
 after his grandfather M. Agrippa ; the fifth was Asinius 
 Celer. All this will confirm I believe what I have in- 
 ferred about Cn. Asinius Marrucinus : the name of Pollio 
 it will be seen recurs once only. 
 
 7 is I think quite correct : tho' the expression is 
 unusual, the sense seems clear : ' Who would gladly have 
 your thefts redeemed even at the cost of a talent', 
 would gladly give so much that your thefts had never 
 been committed. The common meaning of ' res aere 
 mutatur' is 'a thing is sold for so much money'. But 
 in certain writers the sense is occasionally just the op- 
 posite: 'The thing is bought for so much money*. Thus 
 Hor. sat. n 7 109 'puer uuam Furtiua mutat strigili' 
 means ' the lad gives a scraper for a bunch of grapes ' : 
 tho' elsewhere he has ' nee Otia diuitiis Arabum 
 liberrima muto ' with the opposite and more usual con-
 
 CARM. 12 41 
 
 st ruction. Sallust lug. 38 10 quae quamquam grauia 
 et flagitii plena erant, tamen, quia mortis metu muta- 
 bantur, sicuti regi lubuerat pax conuenit : by accepting 
 these conditions they were freed from the fear of death : 
 the more common construction would be ' his rebus 
 mortis metus mutabatur'. Id. orat. Philip. 7 quorum 
 nemo diurna mercede uitam mutauerit : ' none of whom 
 would give up his daily pay to save his life': more 
 usually 'nemo diurnam mercedem uita mutauerit'. Some 
 editors, to get this construction, insert non after nemo 
 without necessity. The construction in Catullus re- 
 sembles those just quoted. 
 
 9 ' Disertus ' must I think be corrupt : the genitives 
 cannot without an epithet be genitives of quality ; nor 
 do I see how they can be governed by ' disertus' : Ellis 
 cites no parallel case whatever. 'Differtus', tho' it 
 might possibly enough govern a genitive, I do not like, 
 as it seems elsewhere to have a bad sense, 'crammed 
 full of. To one who examines the Mss. of Catullus 
 my * Ducentum ' will not appear so harsh a change. I 
 have spoken above at 10 30 on the frequency with 
 which our Mss. interchange final in and s on account 
 of some compendium not easy to distinguish : indeed 
 s for m is more common than m for s : 5 13 tantus for 
 tantum; 64 126 tristes for tristem ; 384 Nereus for 
 Heroum ; 49 7 patronus O, patronum G ; 55 1 molestus 
 es V for molestum est : therefore I incline to keep in 39 9 
 the old correction tnonendus es for monendum est, 
 and not to read te est or est te with the later editors. 
 From the unmeaning ducentus it would be an easy step 
 to disertus : I might give fifty instances of c and s con- 
 fused in V, or else in G or O : dissidium for discidium; 
 disserpunt for discerpunt ; illos for illoc, quisquam for 
 quicquam ; pectus for pestis ; scis for sis ; simus for sci-
 
 42 CATVLLI 
 
 mus etc. etc. and so with n and r : nide, nisi for ride, 
 
 n 
 
 risi, uertur for uenter ; berue (? here) for bene; iuuerit 
 G, inuenit () ; ab rupto G, abin nupto ; externata O, 
 extenuata G ; etc. 
 
 I am induced to think of ' ducentum ' chiefly be- 
 cause it seems likely that Horace, od. iv 1 15 Et cen- 
 tum puer artium, had our verse in his mind. He uses 
 naturally in an ode the more stately * centum ' for an 
 indefinitely large number, whereas Catullus would em- 
 ploy the ducenti of common life, which we find no 
 fewer than five times in Horace's satires. ' Ducentum ' 
 may be either the gen. plural, which occurs also in Varro ; 
 or else the indeclinable ducentum, which is found in Lu- 
 cilius more than once and elsewhere. The trecentos of 
 v. 10 is to my mind rather in its favour than against it. 
 
 In v. 14 there can be no question that the old 
 correction ' ex Hiberis ' for ' exhibere ' is true ; but I 
 would remark, as an interesting confirmation of this, 
 that Catullus' great admirer Martial twice, iv 55 8 and 
 x 65 3, ends a hendecasy liable in the same way with 
 the words 'ex Hiberis'. 5 quamuis sordida cet. : Ca- 
 tullus himself once again has quamuis in this sense : 
 103 2 esto quamuis saeuus et indomitus. 
 
 From the joint testimony of Tacitus (dial. 34) and 
 of Jerome, that is of Suetonius, we may assume that 
 Pollio was born in 76 B. c. It is strange that scholars 
 like Lachmann and Haupt should have taken no account 
 of this well-attested date, when they fixed 76 for the 
 year of Catullus' birth. Catullus could not have spoken 
 of Pollio in the way he does, if their ages were the same. 
 The poet must have been a grown up man when he 
 thus wrote of Pollio. Ellis draws attention to this point
 
 CABM. 12 43 
 
 in p. XLVI of his commentary. I had argued this ques- 
 tion in a letter now before me which I wrote to Pro- 
 fessor Sellar more than a year before the appearance of 
 Ellis' volume, having indeed noted it down many years 
 ago : I advert to this fact solely for the confirmation 
 thus afforded by two independent testimonies in a case 
 in which scholars like Lachmann and Haupt are con- 
 cerned. 
 
 Schwabe (p. 300) assigns this and the following poem 
 to about 60 B.C. on grounds probable enough. Pollio 
 would be then about 16, and we cannot I should say 
 think of him as younger than 16 or 1 7 l : the Paulus 
 Maximus whom Horace terms 'centum puer artium' 
 must have been quite 20, the age too of Marcellus 
 whom Virgil calls both ' puer ' and ' iuuenis '. Horace 
 and Virgil however, when they so wrote, were much 
 older men than Catullus. But with the Romans 'puer' 
 and 'iuuenis' were both of them very elastic terms, 
 like the French 'garcon'. 
 
 From the manner in which Catullus in several poems 
 speaks of Veranius and Fabullus, it is clear that they 
 were intimate associates of one another and dear friends 
 of his. They were young men, probably of equestrian 
 rank, belonging either to equestrian or senatorian fami- 
 lies. One would infer from 9 4 that the father of 
 Veranius was already dead. What they were about 
 during their joint sojourn in Spain Catullus does not 
 tell us. They may have been on the staff' of a provin- 
 cial governor, or they may have been engaged in one 
 or other of the many lucrative employments of which 
 the Equites had the monopoly in the provinces, among 
 
 1 This by the way is another indication that Asiuius Marrucinus was the 
 elder brother, as he would not, if he were the younger, have been allowed at so 
 tender an age to frequent the parties of grown men.
 
 44 CATVLLI 
 
 the wealthiest of which in this age were the Spains. 
 There was so little opening at this time in Rome itself 
 for needy men of family and it would seem from what 
 Catullus says in the 47th poem that these youths were 
 needy that they nocked to the provinces, and to Spain 
 as much as any, since it was both wealthy and easily 
 reached from Rome. A few years after this, in B.C. 57, 
 at the very same time that Catullus was with his pro- 
 praetor Memmius in Bithynia, they were again together 
 on the staff of L. Piso Caesoninus proconsul of Mace- 
 donia, so well known to us by the embittered invective 
 of Cicero. 
 
 At least I had believed that Schwabe had trium- 
 phantly demonstrated that this Piso and no other could 
 be the one in question, so precisely do times and cir- 
 cumstances fit together, so exactly do the few lines in 
 which Catullus depicts him agree with the more ela- 
 borate portrait which Cicero draws. But Ellis has 
 broached a novel theory, which is one of the oddest 
 instances I know of straining at a gnat and swallowing 
 a camel ; a theory which carries havock into many of 
 the facts and dates in Catullus' life which Schwabe has 
 established and to which Ellis himself apparently gives 
 credit. I shall here be brief, as I feel certain that Ellis 
 will not find one scholar to back him up in his argu- 
 ment. His sole difficulty in accepting Schwabe's state- 
 ment arises from the fact that Yeranius and Fabullus 
 would in that case have made two journeys together ; 
 to my mind the simplest thing in the world. He argues 
 therefore for the following combination. There w T as 
 a Gnaeus Piso, an accomplice of Catiline, whom the 
 senate, to rid themselves of a very dangerous man, 
 sent out to Hispania Citerior in 65 with the unusual 
 title of Quaestor pro Praetore. He was murdered there
 
 CARM. 12 45 
 
 by his native escort before the summer of 64 1 . This 
 man Schwabe just mentions, to point out that he could 
 not be the Piso in question. But Ellis maintains on the 
 contrary that Veranius and Fabullus went with him as 
 members of his cohort. Yes, but they were with their 
 Piso at the same time that Catullus was in Bithynia 
 with his praetor Memmius 2 . And as Memmius was 
 Praetor in 58, he must have gone to his province as 
 Propraetor in 57, at the time Piso Caesoninus went 
 as Proconsul to Macedonia. No, Ellis argues, at the 
 same time that Cn. Piso was specially sent by the 
 senate as Quaestor pro Praetore, Memmius may have 
 been sent with the same extraordinary title to Bithynia. 
 But it was a most unusual thing for the senate or people 
 to send any one out with this exceptional title. The 
 strange case of Cato who was dispatched to Cyprus 
 in 58 through Clodius' intrigues, and the earlier one of 
 Lentulus Marcellinus commissioned to settle the affairs 
 of the Cyrenaica, are the only two instances besides 
 that of Cn. Piso which Marquardt (Handb. 2 d ed. I p. 
 390) can cite during the existence of the Republic. 
 Why then should Memmius be selected for such a dis- 
 tinction ? why, if he had been so selected, should we 
 never hear of it ? how could such an appointment be 
 made at the very time when Pompey was exercising 
 supreme power over all the East by virtue of the Mani- 
 lian law ? 
 
 But Ellis (p. L) has another hypothesis at com- 
 mand : ' Or again he may have been appointed directly 
 by Pompeius, as Marius left his quaestor Sulla "pro 
 praetore" (lug. 103), as Trebonius', etc. But in the 
 
 1 See Mommsen in Hermes i p. 47. 
 
 * C. Memmius L. f. Galeria had no cognomen ; yet Ellis persists in calling 
 him G. Memmius Gemellus. Again C. not G. is the symbol of Gaius, as Cn. is 
 of Gnaeus.
 
 46 CATVLLI 
 
 three instances mentioned here by Ellis, as well as in 
 that of Albinus (Sail. lug. 36) who goes off to Rome 
 ' Aulo fratre in castris pro praetore relicto', the gover- 
 nor or general having died in office or being called away 
 by a sudden emergency, by the necessity of the case 
 his quaestor for the time being takes his place. But 
 this cannot apply to Memmius; for Catullus (28 7) dis- 
 tinctly states that he went out in his suite from Borne : 
 ' qui meum secutus Praetorem' : secutus, like the prose 
 prosecutus, has this meaning : Mart, vu 455' Hunc tu 
 per Siculas secutus undas' is the same as ib. 44 5 ' Ae- 
 quora per Scyllae magnus comes exulis isti, Qui modo 
 nolueras consulis ire comes'. And it would have been 
 absurd for Catullus to assail as he does a mere subordi- 
 nate, and not their common chief Pompeius, on whom 
 the blame would rest, if blame there was. 
 
 But if we adopt Ellis' theory, what results do we 
 obtain ? The Pollio of our poem would be a child of 
 eleven or twelve years of age, to whom such an appeal 
 as Catullus here makes could not possibly be addressed. 
 But, more than this, the whole fabric which Schwabe 
 has built up with so much pains and learning, is shaken 
 to its foundations, in portions of it too which Ellis 
 appears to accept. In his later volume, tho' he had 
 doubted it in his earlier, he admits the theory, which 
 I too firmly believe in, that Lesbia is the notorious 
 Clodia. One of the main props of this theory is the 
 assumption that the fierce invectives, launched at Rufus 
 for pretending to be the poet's intimate friend and then 
 robbing him of what was dearer to him than life, must 
 have reference to the intrigue of M. Caelius Rufus with 
 Clodia 59 and 58 B.C. about which Cicero in his speech 
 for Caelius gives us such copious information. In 59 
 therefore and perhaps later Catullus, tho' he had lost
 
 CABM. 12 47 
 
 his esteem for Lesbia, was still inflamed with the full 
 fervour of his consuming passion. Turn now to the 
 65th and to both parts of the 68th poem. In these 
 we find Catullus bitterly lamenting the recent death 
 of his brother; and from both divisions of 68 we learn 
 that he had not yet lost his passion for Lesbia, tho' he 
 was fully aware of her inconstancy to him. Some time, 
 probably a year or two, after this, either on his way 
 to Bithynia, as Ellis argues ; or on his return from it, 
 as Schwabe holds and I am disposed to agree with 
 the latter, because, as I observed above, I believe that 
 Catullus went from Rome to Bithynia in the praetor's 
 suite the poet stopped at Rhoeteum to perform the 
 last offices for his dead brother. Before his journey to 
 Bithynia he had utterly renounced Lesbia as a common 
 harlot and streetwalker : Nunc in quadriuiis et an- 
 giportis cet. If therefore he went to his province at 
 the beginning of 65, he must have assailed his dearest 
 friend with insult and outrage for robbing him of his 
 
 o o 
 
 life's happiness at least six years after the time when 
 he had finally cast her off as an abandoned strumpet. 
 
 I will say no more on these questions, as I regret 
 the length to which my remarks have already run ; but 
 I could not make my meaning clear in fewer words. 
 
 Of the six poems between the 12th and the 22nd I 
 have not much to say. The industry of the latest editor 
 Ellis has anticipated me in most of the illustrations 
 which I had jotted down, especially from the old scenic 
 writers, from Cicero and Martial. 
 
 13 14 Totum ut te faciant, Fabulle, nasum : with 
 reference to Ellis' note I would observe that this ad- 
 verbial use of totum, which belongs equally to te and 
 nasvm, ' to make you wholly ' ' nothing but' ' nose', is
 
 48 CATVLLI 
 
 exceedingly common in Latin. Above at 8 1 4 rogabems 
 nulla I have referred to my note on Lucr. I 377 where 
 I have given abundant examples. I might give here 
 as many more ; such as Cic. (Caelius) epist. vin 810 
 Curio se contra eum totum parat ; ix 16 8 neque est 
 quod in promulside spei ponas aliquid, quain totam 
 sustuli ; xi 29 2 totum te ad amicitiam meam contu- 
 listi ; xvi 12 6 ut... totum te susciperet et tueretur; 
 ad Q. fr. n 10 (12) 3 multa dixi in ignobilem regem 
 quibus totus est explosus. quo genere commotus, ut 
 dixi, Appius totum me amplexatur...sed ille scripsit ad 
 Balbum fasciculum ilium... totum sibi aqua madidum 
 redditum esse ; Suet. Caes. 46 uillam...quia non tota 
 ad animum ei responderat, totam diruisse : very like 
 Catullus is Martial xn 84 3 Talis eras, modo tonse 
 Pelops, positisque nitebas Crinibus, ut totum sponsa 
 uideret ebur. 
 
 14 1220 
 
 Di magni, horribilem et sacrum libellum, 
 quern tu scilicet ad tuum Catullum 
 misti, continue ut die periret 
 
 1 5 Saturnalibus optimo dierum ! 
 
 non non hoc tibi, salse, sic abibit : 
 nam, si luxerit, ad librariorum 
 curram scrinia, Caesios, Aquinos, 
 Suffenum omnia colligam uenena, 
 
 20 ac te his suppliciis remunerabor. 
 
 14 continue* can only have the sense it so often has 
 in the old idiomatic writers : ' at once without an in- 
 terval, straight on end' : Cic. Verr. iv 48 ille continue 
 ut uidit non dubitauit illud...tollere. Calvus sent it
 
 CARM. 12, 14, 17, 21 49 
 
 on the morning of the Saturnalia, to poison at once the 
 poet's happiness. With the apposition comp., besides 
 the excellent illustration quoted by Ellis, Livy xxx 
 39 8 Cerealia ludos dictator et magister equitum ex 
 senatus consulto fecerunt; and Virgil's f aras Ecce duas 
 tibi, Daphni, duas altaria Phoebo': with the position 
 of the words Mart, x 30 1 O temperatae dulce Formiae 
 litus, and Virgil's 'Vina nouum fundam calathis Ariusia 
 nectar'. 16 salse seems right; not false, as Baehrens 
 reads : Hor. sat. I 9 65 male salsus Bid ens dissimulare. 
 In 19 both rhythm and sense in my judgment shew 
 Suffenum to be the gen. plur. and not the sing, as Ellis 
 now takes it to be with some other editors. 
 
 172 inepta : Cicero again and again in his Orator 
 opposes aptus to solutus, diffluens, etc. : 228 quod multo, 
 maiorem habent apta uim quam soluta ; 233 uidesne 
 ut...ad nihilum omnia recidant, cum sint ex a,ptis dis- 
 soluta...Efficitur aptum illud, quod fuerit antea difflu- 
 ens ac solutum. As then in the de orat. I 17 he defines 
 ineptus as one who is not aptus, cannot inepta in Ca- 
 tullus be non apta i. e. dissoluta, soluta ? 
 
 21 meus stupor: Petron. 62 homo meus coepit ad 
 stellas facere...iacebat miles meus in lecto tamquam 
 bouis ; 63 baro autem noster : with this we may comp. 
 136 uenuste noster, tho' that is friendly banter. 
 
 21 1 Aureli, pater esuritionum : A curious expres- 
 sion ; but I would refer to Mart, xu 536 which is just 
 as singular and obscure : Sed causa, ut memoras et ipse 
 iactas, Dirae films es rapacitatis. Ecquid tu fatuos ru- 
 desque quaeris, Illudas quibus auferasque mentem ? 
 Hide semper uitio pater fuisti. 7 nam insidias mihi 
 instruentem TaDgam te prior : Tho' the two words for 
 
 M. o. 4
 
 50 CATVLLI 
 
 a well-known reason might easily be confused in Mss. 
 and tho' ' struere insidias ' is the more usual phrase, yet 
 I would not with Ribbeck and Baehrens read here sti*u- 
 entem : all the editors leave untouched in Livy vi 23 
 6 quern insidiis instruendis locum? xxni 35 14 et 
 inter id instruendae fraudi intentior. 
 
 9 atque id si faceres satur, tacerem : 
 nunc ipsum id doleo quod esurire 
 me me puer et sitire discet. 
 
 Of the corrupt Me me of v. 11 many corrections have 
 been made. Both the Mellitus of Ellis and the Tenel- 
 lus of Baehrens seem to me improbable, first for diplo- 
 matic reasons, next because to my mind they strike a 
 false chord, not in unison with the rest of the poem. 
 Keeping in view 9 id si faceres satur, tacerem : I think 
 ' A te mei puer ' would be a correction simple in itself 
 and excellently suited to the context : so 77 3 mei V. 
 
 22 
 
 Suffenus iste, Vare, quern probe nosti, 
 homo est uenustus et dicax et urbanus 
 idemque longe plurimos facit uersus. 
 puto esse ego illi milia aut decem aut plura 
 5 perscripta, nee sic ut fit in palimpsesto 
 relata : cartae regiae, noui libri, 
 noui umbilici, lora rubra, membranae. 
 derecta plumbo et pumice omnia aequata 
 haec cum legas tu, bellus ille et urbanus 
 10 Suffenus unus caprimulgus aut fossor 
 
 rursus uidetur : tantum abhorret ac mutat. 
 hoc quid putemus esse ? qui modo scurra
 
 CARM. 21, 22 51 
 
 aut siquid hac re tersius uidebatur, 
 
 idem infaceto est infacetior rure, 
 1 5 simul poemata attigit ; neque idem umquam 
 
 aeque est beatus ac poema cum scribit : 
 
 tarn gaudet in se tamque se ipse miratur. 
 
 nimiriim idem omnes fallimur, neque est quisquam 
 
 quern non in aliqua re uidere Suffenum 
 20 possis : suns cuique attributus est error, 
 
 sed non uidemus, manticae quod in tergo est. 
 
 5 palimpsestos Baehrens. palimpsestum Heinsius. palimpseston Lachmann. 
 7 membranae. membrana all editors wlwjoin it with wliat follows. 13 tersius 
 scripsi. tristius V. tritius uulgo. 
 
 Besides reprinting below what I had written in the 
 Journal of Philology on v. 13, I have to discuss some 
 other points, which seem to me not unimportant, in 
 this very bright and witty poem. 3 : Mart, x 76 6 
 cuius unum est, Sed magnum uitiuin, quod est poeta. 
 4 Baehrens reads ' ad decem ' ; but ' aut aut ' = aut 
 aut etiam : so 68 131 Aut nihil aut paulo = aut certe 
 paulo : comp. with our passage Cic. phil. 13 2 si aut 
 ciuis aut homo habendus. We have the full form in 
 Cic. Verr. TV 14 homines qui aut non minoris aut etiam 
 pluris emerint; Ov. her. 14 41 Aut sic aut etiam tre- 
 mui magis, and often. 5 in palimpsesto Relata : this 
 can scarcely be Latin : in the passage, which Ellis after 
 Hand cites from Cicero, no editor I think would retain 
 * in codice ' with ' in codices ' and ' in codicem ' almost 
 in the same sentence. Baehrens' palimpsestos is perhaps 
 to be preferred to the singular. Relata seems genuine ; 
 else ' in palimpsesto Artata ' would not be a harsh cor- 
 rection : 25 11 insula V for inusta : ' T et I et L haud 
 raro permutantur' Baehrens p. XLIV. Mart. I 2 3 Hos 
 erne, quos artat breuibus membrana tabellis ; xn 5 1 
 
 42
 
 52 CATVLLI 
 
 Longior undecimi nobis decimique libelli Artatus labor 
 est; xiv 190 Pellibus exiguis artatur Li.ui.us ingens. 
 
 6 Everything is on the grandest scale, reams of 
 royal papyrus, new uolumina or rolls made up from this 
 papyrus : see Ellis. 7, when a single roll is in ques- 
 tion, umbilicus in the sing, is used to denote the wooden 
 cylinder with projecting bosses; or umbilici in the plur. 
 to signify the ornamental bosses at each end. As several 
 rolls are spoken of here, it is uncertain which of the 
 two meanings the word has. The meaning of ' lora 
 rubra ' is not clear : with Ellis I should have taken 
 them to be some sort of fastening for the uolumen : 
 Marquardt v pt 2, p. 396, says they are the index 
 attached to the roll : Et cocco rubeat superbus index. 
 Then membranae are the parchment wrappers, one for 
 each of the libri or uolumina, coloured generally with 
 purple, sometimes with saffron : besides the passages 
 cited by Ellis see the locus classicus at the beginning 
 of the Tristia : 5 Nee te purpureo uelent uaccinia fuco ; 
 Mart. I 117 16 purpuraque cultum. Martial had this 
 line and its rhythm in his mind when he wrote I 66 11 
 Nee umbilicis cultus atque membrana : he has the sin- 
 gular because he is speaking of a single roll : Catullus 
 has the plural because he is speaking of more than one. 
 In neither is there any epithet, as the wrapper was 
 understood to be ornamental in itself. 
 
 But now I come to the point, on account of which 
 I have dwelt at such length on this locus classicus for 
 the history of an ancient book. To my abiding amaze- 
 ment every editor from the poet's fellow townsman, old 
 Auantius of Verona, in January 1502 down to the very 
 latest brings hopeless confusion into our passage by 
 changing the membranae of Mss. to membrana and join- 
 ing the word on with what follows. Let us see : Ellis
 
 CAEM. 22 53 
 
 in his copious commentary takes membrana to be the 
 wrapper of the roll ; and it can of course have no other 
 meaning ; for in Catullus' days the Romans used only 
 papyrus, never parchment, for a regular liber or uolu- 
 men. Books made up like ours and written on parch- 
 ment seem to have come into use about Martial's time ; 
 and even if they had been known to Catullus, to take 
 the word here in this sense would make nonsense of 
 the context. Now, that plumbo denotes the small round 
 plate of lead which, instead of pencil or stylus, the 
 ancients employed with a regula to rule straight lines 
 along the page, we all know : see Rich s. v. and Beck- 
 man whom he cites. Ellis quotes nine passages from 
 the Greek anthology to illustrate the word and con- 
 cludes that 'Derecta plumbo' is a condensed expression 
 for 'plumbo notata lineis ductis ad regulam'. But 
 not one syllable does he say as to the purpose or the 
 meaning of scoring over these purple or saffron-coloured 
 wrappers with 'lineis ductis ad regulam*; nor do I 
 believe any explanation can be given. 
 
 Well, and what then are the ' pumice omnia ae- 
 quata' ? omnia must include all the objects mentioned 
 in 6 and 7. Thus Suffenus, after getting his bright- 
 painted bosses, his scarlet lora, his purple wrappers, 
 must have employed his pumice it would appear to 
 scrub them clean of all their ornament, in this shewing 
 himself indeed ' infaceto infacetior rure '. 
 
 Tho' Auantius, Guarinus, Statius, Muretus, Scali- 
 ger, Graeuius, Vossius, Doeringius, Silligius, Lachman- 
 nus, Hauptius, Rossbachius, Schwabius, Muellerus, El- 
 lisius, Baehrensius, are there to check my presumption, 
 I feel no doubt that v. 8 is to be joined with what 
 follows : ' When you read these thousands of verses, 
 kept so straight by the lead and evened all with
 
 54 CATVLLI 
 
 pumice, yon fine and well-bred gentleman Suffenus 
 turns out a common hind or ditcher'. If the arrange- 
 ment of the sentence be called in question, I would refer 
 to my note on Lucr. v 789 where I have given 5 like 
 passages from him : take iv 430 Tecta solo iungens 
 atque omnia dextera laeuis Donee in obscurum coni 
 conduxit acumen : take too Cat. 66 65 Virginis et 
 saeui contingens namque leonis. 
 
 8 pumice om. aeq. : the precise import of these 
 words may be questioned; but in all the Latin passages 
 which Ellis cites here, and in 1 2 ' pumice expolitum', 
 he has mistaken the meaning. In these, as well as in 
 Ov. trist. ii 1 13 Quod neque sum cedro flauus nee 
 pumice leuis ; Mart. I 66 10 pumicata fronte si quis est 
 nondum; 117 16 Kasum pumice, there is no reference 
 whatever to preparing the papyrus for writing. They 
 one and all mean that after the uolumen was completed 
 and rolled up, both ends of the closed roll were 
 smoothed and polished with pumice : Ovid's ' geminae 
 poliantur pumice frontes ' shews this clearly ; but so do 
 the other passages, tho' not so directly, as in most of 
 them it accompanies their receiving their purple cover. 
 In our passage the words I think mean that after the 
 verses had been all fairly written out on their ruled 
 lines, the pumice was applied to remove all inequalities 
 in the writing, all blots, portions of ill-made letters 
 and the like. For we must remember that in ancient 
 writing the pen used was coarse and thick, the letters 
 were large and irregular compared with our print. For 
 the contrary case of blots being left from neglect comp. 
 Prop, v 3 3 Siqua tamen tibi lecturo pars oblita derit, 
 Haec erit e lacrimis facta litura meis ; Ov. her. Ill 
 Siqua tamen caecis errabunt scripta lituris, Oblitus a 
 dominae caede libellus erit; trist I 1 13 Neue litura-
 
 CARM. 22 55 
 
 rum pudeat cet.; in 1 15 Littera suffusas quod habet 
 maculosa lituras, Laesit opus lacrimis ipse poeta suum. 
 Suffenus would not neglect his blots. 
 
 It can hardly I think refer to the previous smooth- 
 ing of the papyrus, by which the letters would lie more 
 smoothly on the surface. Ellis says ' the inequalities 
 of surface produced by the fibres of the papyrus were 
 removed by pumice stone'. This may have been so, 
 tho' he gives no authority for his statement, his cita- 
 tions, as I have said, referring to something totally 
 different. Pumice was applied indeed in subsequent 
 ages to prepare parchment for writing, as I find in a 
 passage of Hildebert of Tours, the reference to which 
 I have got from the English Cyclopaedia : sermo xv 
 col. 733 ed. 1708 'Scitis quid scriptor solet facere : 
 primo cum rasorio pergamenum purgare de pinguedine 
 et sordes magnas auferre ; deinde cum pumice pilos 
 et neruos omnino abstergere. quod si non faceret, 
 littera imposita nee ualeret nee diu durare posset, 
 postea regulam apponit cet.'. 
 
 As so much has been written at various times on 
 the Ancient Book and as the above passage is a ' locus 
 classicus' on the subject and as the alteration, first 
 made by Auantius and adopted after him by every 
 editor down to the present day, has introduced no 
 small amount of confusion into the question, I have not 
 hesitated to discuss the matter with some, tho' I hope 
 not unreasonable, prolixity. I shall be surprised and 
 mortified if I be thought not to have established the 
 main points of my argument : I have external Ms. au- 
 thority, I believe I have also intrinsic truth and reason, 
 on my side. I will add a few more remarks, which 
 may be looked on as supplementary to Ellis' copious 
 commentary.
 
 56 CATVLLI 
 
 9 cum legas tu : this use of the 2nd pers. sing, 
 potent, is so common and has been illustrated by me 
 elsewhere at such length, that I will just cite here, 
 merely because he chances to use the same word, Mart, 
 ii 27 Laudantem Selium cenae cum retia tendit Accipe, 
 slue legas siue patronus agas. 10 unus caprimulgus : 
 this use of unus, taken it would seem from the conver- 
 sational idiom of common life and so characteristical of 
 the manner of Catullus, has been illustrated so copi- 
 ously by Holtze I p. 412, Wagner aulul. 563 and 
 others, that, tho' I have collected examples from authors 
 of various ages, I will quote only one passage from the 
 antiquarian Arnobius, because when he wrote it he 
 may have had our passage in his thoughts, and because 
 I want to bring him forward again in support of a read- 
 ing in the next poem: Adu. nat. iv 35 in bubulei unius 
 amplexum. 
 
 1 1 tantum abhorret ac mutat : ' so unlike himself, 
 so altered is he' Ellis, who then gives many illustra- 
 tions of this very common intransitive sense of mutat, 
 and I could add many more. But he does not supply 
 a single example of abhorret for abhorret a se ; and 
 this needed illustration much more than mutat did ; 
 and I am unable to offer any, tho' this would seem to 
 be the meaning called for. Comparing Cic. de orat. n 
 85 sin plane abhorrebit et erit absurdus; and Livy xxx 
 446 qui tamen [risus] nequaquam adeo est intempes- 
 tiuus, quam uestrae istae absurdae atque abhorrentes 
 lacrimae sunt : I would ask whether, as in those two 
 passages, so here too abhorret may not be synonymous 
 with absurdus est. 13 tersius : I reprint below my 
 former paper in favour of tersius (or, tertius), which I 
 feel little doubt is what the poet wrote. Baehrens has 
 adopted the same reading : Ellis does not condescend
 
 CARM. 22 57 
 
 to notice it, but sticks to the old correction tritius, tho' 
 he brings nothing in support of it but the ' tritae 
 aures', which I tried to shew was nothing to the point. 
 14 rure, 12 modo scurra, 2 urbanus : Plaut. most. 15 
 Tu urbanus uero scurra, deliciae popli, Rus mihi tu 
 obiectas ? 21 manticae quod in tergo est : ' the half of 
 the wallet which is on his back' : Livy in 14 3 iuniores, 
 id maxime quod Caesonis sodalium fuit; xxi 52 2 quod 
 inter Trebiam Padumque agri est; xxn 4 1 quod agri 
 est inter Cortonam urbem Trasumennumque lacum ; 
 xxx 20 5 quod roboris in exercitu erat ; Aen. IX 274 
 campi quod rex habet ipse Latinus ; Lucr. jv 372 quod 
 liquimus eius ; Ter. heaut. 1048 quod dotis dixi. 
 
 [Eeprinted from the Journal of Philology, vol. 5 p. 305] 
 
 22 12 and 13 
 
 Scurra has the same meaning here which it has in 
 Plautus : a townbred fine gentleman, the opposite of 
 one brought up in the infacetum rus : ' Urbani assidui 
 cives quos scurras uocant ' ; ' Tu urbanus uero scurra, 
 deliciae popli, Rus mihi tu obiectas'. The 'homo ue- 
 nustus et dicax et urbanus' of v. 2, and the 'bellus ille 
 et urbanus' of 9 are expressions synonymous with 
 scurra : [Cic. pro Quinct. 1 1 nam neque parum facetus 
 scurra Sex. Naeuius neque inhumanus praeco est um- 
 quam existimatus :...libertate usus est quo impunius 
 dicax esset]. Compare too Pliny epist. iv 25 3, who 
 is imitating Catullus, though the scurriliter there has 
 at the same time the bad sense which it afterwards 
 acquired : quid hunc putamus domi facere, qui in tanta
 
 58 CATVLLI 
 
 re tarn serio tempore tarn scurriliter ludat, qui denique 
 in senatu dicax et urbanus est ? It is plain from the 
 whole context that the tristius of manuscripts in our 
 passage is quite out of place, and nearly all critics and 
 editors have adopted Pontanus' conjecture tritius. But 
 tritius seems to me hardly more appropriate than tris- 
 tius : at first sight the * tritae aures ' of Cicero might 
 appear somewhat in point ; but that only means ' ears 
 much practised' on some subject. The scurra is the 
 very opposite of what is trite and commonplace. The 
 latest editor Mueller is not satisfied with tritius, and 
 reads scitius. 
 
 There is a word which seems to me exactly suited 
 to the context and, when rightly explained, as near 
 perhaps to the manuscript reading as tritius. Lexicons 
 quote from Quintilian 'indicium acre tersumque'; 'ele- 
 giae tersus atque elegans auctor'; and the like from 
 him and others. He uses too the comparative : 'multum 
 eo est tersior ac purus magis Hora tins'. Nonius quotes 
 Varro and Cato for the older form tertus. Thus Lucre- 
 tius has fictus for Jlxus, and artus, fartus, sartus, tortus 
 always retained the t. Catullus then wrote, I believe, 
 tertius, and s was written over the t to explain the 
 
 8 
 
 meaning : thus tertius would readily pass into tristius. 
 
 23 711 
 
 Nee mirum : bene nam ualetis omnes, 
 pulcre concoquitis, nihil timetis, 
 non incendia, non graues ruinas, 
 non furta impia, non dolos ueneni, 
 non casus alios periculorum. 
 
 10 furta Uaupt. facta V.
 
 CARM. 22, 23 59 
 
 This poem, of which I have quoted 5 out of 27 lines, 
 tho' its subject leaves no room for the highest qualities * 
 of Catullus' poetry, is a most finished and witty speci- 
 men of light and airy banter, of easy yet vigorous ver- 
 sification. This Furius and Aurelius, the companion 
 with whom he is joined in the llth and 16th poems, 
 are among the most enigmatical of all the associates 
 whom Catullus commemorates. They would appear to 
 have been needy men, more or less parasites and de- 
 pendents of Catullus among others, yet at the same 
 time with some pretensions to fashion and breeding: in 
 the next poem Furius is called a *bellus homo' or fine 
 gentleman. Why were they selected in the memora- 
 ble llth poem to carry the poet's last message to Les- 
 bia? was it because that poem, probably one of his latest 
 and written with direct reference to the 51st, perhaps 
 his very earliest, was designed in this point too to 
 stand in glaring contrast with the other? were Furius 
 then and Aurelius to carry the llth poem to Lesbia, 
 because M. Tullius Cicero had carried to her the 51st ? 
 
 I am somewhat surprised, and an accomplished 
 scholar has likewise expressed to me his surprise, at 
 the interpretation which Ellis has put on this 23rd 
 poem. 'The attack' he says 'is unusually fierce even 
 from Catullus and we may doubt whether the object of 
 its unsparing sarcasm ever forgave the injury*. ' Even 
 to one familiar with Catullus' habit of assaulting his 
 most intimate friends most violently, and who had him- 
 self experienced something of this scurrility in 16, the 
 personalities of 23 must have seemed to go beyond the 
 licence naturally conceded to poets; they could not be 
 treated as merely jocose'. Elsewhere, p. 376, he places 
 this poem among the three or four coarsest of all that 
 Catullus has written. I regard it in a much more in-
 
 60 CATVLLI 
 
 nocuous light : I can fancy Furius taking it philosophi- 
 cally enough and being more than consoled by a dinner 
 or a sum of money much smaller than he asks for at the 
 end of our poem. However, as I have said, he is to me 
 an enigmatical personage, and many people no doubt 
 would find the poet's banter offensive enough. 
 
 To come now to the verses which I have quoted 
 above : in 10 H&upt's furta seems to me a certain cor- 
 rection, just as in 68 140 I take the generally accepted 
 furta to be a certain correction of the facta of V : see 
 Haupt quaest. Cat. p. 9 12, who well supports his 
 emendation. But I would likewise call in the antiqua- 
 rian Arnobius IV 28 praecellere in furtorum dolis: these 
 words may very well be a reminiscence of ' Non furta 
 impia, non dolos ueneni', as his 'unius bubulci' a few 
 chapters later may recall the 'unus caprimulgus' of the 
 preceding poem. Why should not this constant imi- 
 tator of Lucretius occasionally have the contemporary 
 Catullus in his thoughts? Take too Seneca Agam. 673 
 (708) Non quae tectis Bistonis ales Residens summis 
 impia diri Furta mariti garrula deflet : the fact that 
 Seneca here is on quite another topic rather strengthens 
 the supposition that he had Catullus' 'furta impia' in his 
 mind, the more so that just before he may have been 
 thinking of some other verses of Catullus, 65 12 14, 
 as well as of Virgil ; and most certainly a few lines be- 
 low 'fluctu leuiter plangent e sonent', he had in his 
 thoughts Cat. 64 273 leuiterque sonant plangore ca- 
 chinni, confirming O and Baehrens against nearly all 
 recent editors. 
 
 1 1 casus alios periculorum : besides Cicero quoted 
 by Doering, comp. Cic. epist. v 16 5 casum incommo- 
 dorum tuorum ; bell. Alex. 7 1 ut ad extremum casum 
 periculi omnes deducti uiderentur; bell. Gall, vin 34 1
 
 CARM. 23, 25 61 
 
 similem casum obsessionis; Suet. Claud. 25 ad arcendos 
 incendiorum casus. In the last line ' sat es beat us' is 
 surely a certain correction for 'satis beatus' of Mss. : 
 Ellis should not in his first volume have adopted 
 Bergk's 'beatuV: this archaic elision of the vowel in es 
 and est together with that of s in the preceding word 
 was unknown to Cicero and Lucretius even, who yet 
 elide the final s so much more freely than Catullus 
 does. I much doubt whether even Lucilius admitted 
 such a licence. 
 
 [Eeprinted from the Journal of Philology, vol. 5 p. 306] 
 
 25 47 
 
 Idemque Thalle turbida rapacior procella, 
 
 cum diua mulier arios (or aries, or aues) ostendit osci- 
 
 tantes, 
 
 remitte pallium mihi meum, quod inuolasti, 
 sudariumque Saetabum catagraphosque Thynos. 
 
 The second line in this extract is one of the most 
 desperate in Catullus : fifty conjectures have been made 
 by critics and editors, old and recent ; not one of which 
 I believe has found much acceptance. All the explana- 
 tions of diua for instance strike me as thoroughly un- 
 satisfactory. Though I do not think that the conjecture 
 I am going to offer is likely to be received with more 
 approbation than former ones, I yet venture to give it, 
 in the hope that it may perhaps present the question 
 in a new light. This then is what I propose : 
 
 Conclaue com uicarios ostendit oscitantes. 
 
 What suggested the reading to my mind was first the 
 very common substitution in manuscripts of d for cl as
 
 62 CATVLLI 
 
 in Catullus 7 5 ora dum for oraclum ; G8 43 sedis for 
 saeclis ; and next the frequency with which our arche- 
 type confuses a and co ; many instances of which con- 
 fusion I have given in p. 23 of the third number of our 
 journal. Thus conclaueco might pass into condaua, com 
 diua; and then muicarios into mulieranos or some- 
 thing else that looked like Latin. 
 
 Conclaue was a room that could be locked up, if ne- 
 cessary, and might be used for a storeroom, a bedroom, 
 a diningroom, or the like. The uicarii, who are often 
 spoken of by writers and in inscriptions, were the slaves 
 of slaves and were employed in any menial capacity. 
 Probably then at some feast these uicarii would have 
 charge of such articles as are mentioned here, and when 
 they were off their guard, Thallus would take the oppor- 
 tunity of pouncing upon the things in question. It has 
 always seemed to me more probable that they should 
 be stolen in such a way as this, than taken from the 
 person of their owner. 
 
 On the above verse more conjectures appear to have 
 been made than on any other line in Catullus : Schwabe 
 records eleven, which exhibit the most astonishing di- 
 versity of meaning and language. Ellis and Baehrens 
 add to the number. By the way I do not know whether 
 Ellis can support his gduias : my feeling and impres- 
 sion are certainly for gtiuias ; but as I have no evidence 
 one way or the other, I will not argue the question. 
 I have ventured to reprint what I wrote some years 
 ago ; because it strikes out a new sense and situation, 
 different from those given by any of the other multitu- 
 dinous conjectures. But I feel now, as indeed I felt at
 
 CARM. 25 G3 
 
 the time, that my reading is far too venturesome, espe- 
 cially in tampering with the genuine-looking ' Cum 
 diua'. It seems clear from the Fasti Maffeiani, Dec. 21, 
 C. I. L. I p. 307 and the Fasti Praenestini, Dec. 21, 
 with Mommsen's supplements, C. I. L. I p. 319, that 
 the mysterious Angerona, with mouth closed and sealed, 
 who knew and must not reveal the hidden name of 
 Borne, might be called Diua : comp. with this Pliny in 
 65 non alienum uidetur inserere hoc loco exemplum 
 religionis antiquae, ob hoc rnaxime silentium institutae. 
 namque diua Angerona, cui sacrificatur a. d. xn kal. Ian., 
 ore obligato obsignatoque simulacrum habet : comp. too 
 Macrob. sat. I 10 7 and Janus' note. Adhering there- 
 fore to the general sense of what I have proposed above, 
 I would suggest 
 
 Cum Diua mi [or, iam] uicarios ostendit oscitantes. 
 
 But when O and G are examined, it would appear 
 that aries is the oldest form of the corruption, and that 
 aues, olios, arios are rude attempts to correct. I assume 
 then that (except ostendet for ostendit) the words mulier 
 aries alone call for emendation, and I still believe that 
 the oscitancy of servants and not of guests is referred 
 to, as all the property stolen is Catullus' own. No one 
 seems to have thought of the goddess Murcia, and yet 
 she would be in point : August, ciu. dei iv 16 deam 
 Murciam quae praeter modum non moueret ac faceret 
 hominem, ut ait Pomponius, murcidum, id est nimis 
 desidiosum et inactuosum. I dont know what might 
 be thought of the following attempt : 
 
 Cum diua Murcia atrieis ostendit oscitantes. 
 
 Comp. too Arnob. iv 9 quis [praesidem] segnium 
 Murcidam : so the sole codex : Murciam Sabaeus. In 
 Catullus atrieis is a very simple correction for aries:
 
 G4 CATVLLI 
 
 I have observed already on 10 32 with what exceeding 
 frequency his Mss. confuse r and t : let me here men- 
 tion, as most in point, 36 12 uriosq; O utriosq ; G, 
 with ' al uriosq;' written above ; 14 18 Curram. Cura 
 
 Cur tarn G ; 66 4 certis G ceteris ; 63 27 Attis. 
 atris V; 12 1 Marrucine. Matrucine V: es for eis I 
 need not illustrate. From whatever part of the house 
 Thallus stole these things, whether it were the dining- 
 room or another chamber or the Atrium itself, he would 
 have to pass thro' this Atrium to get to the door, and 
 in it servants would naturally be posted to observe 
 what was doing. 
 
 As our passage is so notorious a Catullian crux, 
 
 1 will not hesitate to quote nearly the whole of Martial 
 vin 59. The epigram is upon a thievish guest, and 
 Martial could hardly fail, when writing on a similar 
 subject, to remember one whom he loved so dearly and 
 knew so well as Catullus. 
 
 Aspicis hunc uno contentum lumine... 
 5 hunc tu conuiuarn cautus seruare memento : 
 
 tune furit atque oculo luscus utroque uidet. 
 pocula solliciti perdunt ligulasque rninistri 
 
 et latet in tepido plurima mappa sinu. 
 lapsa nee a cubito subducere pallia nescit 
 10 et tectus laenis saepe duabus abit. 
 
 nee dormitantem uernam fraudare lucerna 
 
 erubuit fallax, ardeat ilia licet, 
 si nihil inuasit, puerum tune arte dolosa 
 
 circuit et soleas surripit ipse suas. 
 
 If our poem was in Martial's thoughts when he 
 wrote this epigram, we might fancy from v. 9 that he 
 supposed the pallium to have been stolen from Catullus' 
 person. But then v. 1 1 might well be a reference to
 
 CARM. 25, 26 65 
 
 some such reading as I have given to Catullus. What 
 the ' catagraphi Thyni ' were I have not the least 
 notion ; but the poem seems to imply that all the 
 articles were stolen at the same time, and it is not likely 
 that they were all taken from Catullus' person or even 
 from the dining-room. I cannot help feeling that the 
 ' Si nihil inuasit ' of v. 13 is a reminiscence of our ' quod 
 inuolasti', the force of the two expressions is so similar. 
 If the ' oscitantes ' be the guests, one might suggest 
 ' Murcia ebrios' : ebrios first becoming eurios. 
 
 12 minuta : a popular homely word, like so many 
 others found in Catullus. Besides Cicero's ' minuta naui- 
 gia', I have noted down from Plautus ' curculiunculos 
 minutos ', Terence ' pisciculos minutos', Vitruuius ' mi- 
 nutum theatrum' : in the Bellum Africae and the Bel- 
 lum Hisp., both written in a very plebeian style, I 
 have found 6 or 7 instances of ' minutus ' or ' minu- 
 tatim'. The latter Virgil admits once in imitation of 
 Lucretius ; but very many writers reject the word 
 entirely. If the examples too which are given in the 
 lexicons be examined, it will be found I think that the 
 writers employ a homely plebeian style ; or else Cicero, 
 like Catullus, is either adopting the popular style, as 
 in his letters to Atticus, or is using the word in a 
 disparaging contemptuous sense. Hence, as in so many 
 analogous cases, bellus and pulcher for instance, while 
 paruus has disappeared, we find minuto, menu, etc. 
 in the different Romance languages. 
 
 26 
 
 1 The uestra of O and nostra of G leave us un- 
 certain which reading was in V. Baehrens follows O ; 
 Ellis argues for nostra; while Schwabe, tho' unac- 
 
 M. c. 5
 
 66 CATVLLI 
 
 quainted with O, prefers to take uostra even on con- 
 jecture. Furius is so shadowy a personage and I am 
 so unable to decide how much or how little truth there 
 may be in Catullus' banter, that I feel reluctant to pro- 
 nounce a decided opinion one way or the other. But 
 on the whole my feeling is for uestra, as I think that 
 Catullus, tho' he would readily jest with a dear friend 
 like Fabullus on his own poverty (as in 13 8), would be 
 more likely to jeer at a butt like Furius for his lack of 
 means (as he does in 23), than to expose his own. 
 Catullus' contemporary Furius Bibaculus, a poet too of 
 the same school, who elsewhere laughs at the famous 
 grammarian Valerius Cato for his abject poverty, writes 
 a poem on Cato's mortgaged Tusculan villa, which de- 
 pends, like our poem, wholly on a pun for its point : 
 
 Catonis modo, Galle, Tusculanum 
 
 tota creditor urbe uenditabat. 
 
 mirati sumus unicum magistrum, 
 
 summum grammaticum, optimum poetam, 
 
 omnes soluere posse quaestiones, 
 
 unum deficere expedire nomen. 
 
 en cor Zenodoti, en iecur Cratetis ! 
 
 Whether we read uestra or nostra, our poem has pro- 
 bably some reference to the request of Furius referred 
 to in 23 26. 
 
 27 3 and 4 
 
 Yt lex Postumiae iubet magistrae 
 ebrioso acino ebriosioris. 
 
 In 4 and G have ebriose: the letters o and e are 
 so often interchanged in our Mss. that in V or some
 
 CAEM. 26, 27 67 
 
 predecessor of V they must have been almost Indistin- 
 guishable. I have collected 50 instances and more of 
 this confusion : not seldom, as we shall see, rightly 
 offers e where G perversely has o\ from which it would 
 follow that in V the two letters must often have been 
 difficult to distinguish. I have touched upon this al- 
 ready at 6 9 ; and I shall have to recur to it again and 
 again. 
 
 That, as G and O indicate, Catullus wrote ' Ebrioso 
 acino' I have little doubt. Gellius vi 20 6 has a curious 
 comment on this line. The Mss. of Gellius are very 
 corrupt there; but Haupt (Ind. lect. aest. 1857: opusc. 
 II p. 121) proves clearly that Gellius meant to say the 
 genuine reading in Catullus was ' Ebria acina ', with a 
 pleasing hiatus of the two cCs ; tho' some assigned to 
 Catullus 'Ebriosa acina', others 'Ebrioso acino'. But, 
 while Baehrens accepts ' Ebria acina' as the genuine 
 reading, Haupt rejects it as a vain fancy of Gellius and 
 reads with most of the Editors ' Ebriosa acina'. I doubt 
 the existence of acina at all, and unhesitatingly follow 
 the lead of our Mss. in the persuasion that Gellius is 
 pursuing a mere chimerical crotchet with no more foun- 
 dation for it in fact than for what he says of Virgil just 
 before. I do not therefore look upon this verse as giv- 
 ing any indication that the text of Catullus, as found 
 in our Mss., had been designedly tampered with in or 
 before or after the time of Gellius : Gellius knew of the 
 reading 'Ebrioso' as well as of 'Ebria'. Again in 37 
 18 I accept without demur the 'Cuniculosae' of V, in 
 the belief that Priscian who twice quotes that verse, 
 wrote down, through some odd negligence or hallucina- 
 tion, ' Celtiberosae Celtiberiae', and then in one of the 
 two passages copied down what he had written in the 
 other. 
 
 52
 
 68 CATVLLJ 
 
 29 
 
 [Eeprinted from the Journal of Philology, vol. 2 p. 2 34] 
 
 My present design is to examine at length and 
 
 dissect a single poem of Catullus, the 29th, from a wish 
 to abate some shameful scandals which have attached 
 themselves to the fame of the greatest of the Romans, 
 and at the same time to try to rescue from obloquy a 
 humbler man, who yet appears to have been a most 
 efficient servant to two of the first generals in history : 
 perhaps also to mitigate our censure of Catullus himself 
 who has propagated these scandals, by shewing that 
 what looks like foul insult is three parts of it meant 
 only in jest. 
 
 But first a word or two about the name and, what 
 is of more importance for our immediate purpose, the 
 date of the poet. The unadulterated testimony of ma- 
 nuscripts calls him merely Catullus Veronensis, but we 
 know from Suetonius and others that his gentile name 
 was Valerius. Though there has been more doubt 
 about his praenomen, I thought that Schwabe had set- 
 tled the question; but I see that Ellis regards it as still 
 open. Jerome, copying Suetonius' words, names him 
 Gaius Valerius Catullus, the word Gaius being written 
 at full length, so as to preclude all possible error in the 
 case of a writer whose Mss. are so very valuable and so 
 independent as those of Jerome : a scarcely less weighty 
 authority than Suetonius, Apuleius terms him in his 
 Apologia C. Catullus : what is there to set against such 
 overwhelming testimony ? And yet Scaliger, Lachmann, 
 Haupt, Mommsen and other distinguished scholars de-
 
 CAEM. 29 69 
 
 cide for Quintus, mainly on the authority of a passage 
 of Pliny, xxxvn 6 81. But there the best Mss. and 
 the latest editor have Catullus, not Q. Catullus ; and 
 the Q. I wager will never appear in any future critical 
 edition. In the other four places where he mentions 
 the poet, Pliny calls him simply Catullus. But the 
 important 1 , though very late codex D designates him 
 as Q. Catullus, and a few other less important Mss. 
 have the Q. ; but clearly D and the rest have taken 
 this Q. from Pliny who was a most popular author 
 when they were written ; and the Q. got into the in- 
 ferior codices of Pliny from a common confusion with 
 Q. Catulus so often mentioned by him. As then 
 Catullus was not at the same time both Gaius and 
 Quintus, Scaliger's conjecture of Quinte for qui te in 67 
 12 can have no weight whatever against the convincing 
 evidence of Suetonius and Apuleius, though it has been 
 adopted by Lachmann, Haupt, Ellis and others : the 
 poet always calls himself simply Catullus. 
 
 His age has to be decided by the testimony of Je- 
 rome, corrected by that offered by his own poems. 
 Intense personal feeling, the odi or amo of the moment, 
 characterises so many of Catullus' finest poems, that 
 dates are of the greatest importance for rightly appre- 
 hending his meaning and allusions, much more so indeed 
 than in the case of Horace's more artificial muse. Je- 
 rome under the year corresponding to B.C. 87 records 
 his birth : ' Gaius Valerius Catullus scribtor lyricus Ve- 
 ronae nascitur' : under that answering to B.C. 57 he says 
 * Catullus xxx aetatis anno Romae moritur'. Here I 
 have little doubt that he has accurately taken down 
 Suetonius' words in respect of the place of birth and 
 
 1 [With my present knowledge, I should put 'worthless* in the place of 
 'important'.]
 
 70 CATVLLI 
 
 death and of the poet's age when he died. But, as so 
 often happens with him, he has blundered somewhat in, 
 transferring to his complicated era the consulships by 
 which Suetonius would have dated ; for it is certain 
 that many of the poems, and among them the one we 
 are about to consider, were written after B.C. 57. Lach- 
 mann hit upon an escape from the difficulty which once 
 approved itself to many : in 52 3 we have ' Per consu- 
 latum peierat Vatinius': now Vatinius was consul for a 
 few days at the end of B.C. 47 ; and hence Lachmann 
 infers that Catullus at all events was then living. He 
 supposes therefore that Jerome has confounded the 
 Cn. Octavius who was consul in 87 with one of the 
 same name who was consul in 76; and that Catullus 
 was born in 76 and died in 46. This is ingenious, but 
 hardly can be true. Schwabe, following in the track of 
 more than one scholar, has shewn that it is by no 
 means necessary to assume that Catullus saw Vatinius 
 consul. He has cited more than one most striking pas- 
 sage from Cicero to prove that this creature of Caesar 
 and Pompey, marked out by them for future office, was 
 in the habit of boasting of his consulship to come, as 
 early as B.C. 56 or even 62: Catullus therefore in the 
 line quoted need only mean that Yatinius used to say, 
 ' as I hope to be consul, I swear it is so* ; and the verse 
 thus carries with it far more point. Again 76 is too 
 late a date for his birth : it is plain that as early as 62, 
 when he would thus be only 1 4 years old, he had be- 
 come entangled with Lesbia, who was no other than 
 the formidable Clodia, the Clytemnestra quadrantaria, 
 the Medea of the Palatine 1 . When the reference to 
 
 1 [This date is disproved quite as decisively by 12 9, where Pollio, who was 
 born in that very year or at the latest in 75, is spoken of as a puer : see my 
 remarks on that poem.]
 
 OAEM. 29 71 
 
 Vatimus has been explained as above, we find that 
 several of his most personal poems allude to events 
 which took place in 55 and 54 : this will be seen more 
 in detail when we come to consider our 29th poem: 
 but the latest event which can be dated is the refer- 
 ence to his friend Calvus' famous denunciation of Yati- 
 nius which took place in August of 54. As the years 
 then which immediately followed were full of moment- 
 ous events which must have stirred the feelings of 
 Catullus to their inmost depths, we can scarcely con- 
 ceive him as writing after this period. We may well 
 suppose then that towards the end of 54, feeling the 
 approach of early death which his poems seem more 
 than once to anticipate, he collected and published 
 them with the dedication to Cornelius Nepos 1 . 
 
 In a Greifswald index Scholarum published some 
 months ago and transmitted to me by the courtesy of 
 the writer, Mr F. Buecheler tries to prove, p. 15 17, 
 that the two Ciceros had the poems of Catullus in 
 their hands before June of this year 54 and that Catul- 
 lus must therefore refer to some earlier speech of Calvus 
 against Vatinius. Cicero ad Q. fratrem II 15 4 has 
 these words 'tu, quemadmodum me censes oportere 
 esse..., ita et esse et fore auricula infima scito mollio- 
 rem': this, Buecheler says, is an allusion to the 25th 
 poem of Catullus 'Thalle mollior...uel imula auricilla'. 
 I am disposed to think both Cicero and Catullus are 
 alluding to some common proverbial expression, as I 
 have pointed out in my Lucretius that Cicero, who so 
 often speaks of older poets Greek and Latin, never 
 
 1 [I now see that the ' libellus ', which Catullus dedicated and presented to 
 Nepos, can hardly have contained the whole or any thing like the whole of his 
 extant poems : see Ellis' notes on the 1st poem and Brunei's essay to which he 
 refers. But when that poem was written, and what poems were cent with it, I 
 am quite uuablo to decide.]
 
 72 CATVLLI 
 
 quotes any contemporary verses except his own, never 
 mentions the name of Catullus, and speaks of Calvus 
 only as an orator, not as a poet. But granting that 
 Cicero does allude here to Catullus, this will tell us 
 nothing as to the time when he published his 'liber': 
 it is plain from the dedication to Nepos, from such 
 pieces as the 54th which refers to the publication of 
 the 29th, from the very nature of the case, that Catul- 
 lus must have given many of his occasional pieces to 
 the world at the time they were written and that 
 Cicero may have had in his hands the piece in question 
 years before the whole collection was made public. For 
 what I now proceed to state will prove that the body 
 of poems we now have could not have been completed 
 very much before the end of 54 : I have shewn in my 
 note to Lucretius in 57 how often Catullus has imi- 
 tated him in one section of his longest work, the mar- 
 riage of Peleus and Thetis. Now the De Berum Natura 
 was not published before the commencement of 54; and 
 Catullus must have studied it before he wrote the long 
 episode of Theseus and Ariadne which, as I there ob- 
 serve, though beautiful in itself, singularly interrupts 
 the thread of the narrative. Being then formally a fol- 
 lower of the Alexandrines, though so widely differing 
 from them in genius, he must have thought his varied 
 collection would be imperfect without an epyllion. He 
 therefore wrote or completed, and inserted in the mid- 
 dle of his book this brilliant and exquisite, but unequal 
 and ill-proportioned poem 1 . A generation had yet to 
 pass, before the heroic attained to its perfection ; while 
 he had already produced glyconics, phalaecians and 
 
 1 [I now see that this 25th poem may have been published in an earlier 
 ' libellus ', perhaps in that which he sent to Nepos, and that the epyllion may 
 cot have appeared till after his death.]
 
 CARM. 29 73 
 
 iambics, each 'one entire and perfect chrysolite', 'cun- 
 ningest patterns' of excellence, such as Latium never 
 saw before or after, Alcaeus, Sappho and the rest then 
 and only then having met their match. 
 
 If therefore he died in 54 at the age of 30, he was 
 probably born in 84, the year of Cinna's 4th consulship, 
 Jerome as Schwabe suggests having confounded it with 
 87, when Cinna was first consul : for him a very pro- 
 bable error. But Schwabe prefers to take 87 as the 
 year of his birth and to make him 33 years old at the 
 time of his death. The other alternative I much pre- 
 fer, as it appears to me to fulfil every requisite con- 
 dition of the problem : he evidently died in youth : 
 ' Obuius huic uenias, hedera iuuenalia cinctus Tempora 
 cum Caluo, docte Catulle, tuo'. He would thus be 
 about 22, when he first met his fate in the ox-eyed 
 Lesbia or Clodia, the ^800)7715 of Cicero and Atticus. 
 She was some ten years older ; but her Juno-like beauty 
 would then be in its prime ; and those terrible lenocinia 
 needed time for their Ml development ; for she was a 
 Juno to whom Aphrodite had lent her own cestus : Ivff 
 <EVL fj,ev <iA.or>7s, iv 8' t)w,epos, ev S' oapia-rvs ndp<f>ao-L<s, tfr' 
 K\x// voov TTVKCL 7rep fypoveovTw. If such allurements 
 made captive in a moment the Olympian himself, how 
 were they to be resisted by a youth of twenty-two, 
 that youth a poet, that poet Catullus? ' Haec bona 
 non primae tribuit natura iuuentae, Quae cito post sep- 
 tem lustra uenire solent', says the teacher of the art of 
 love ; and Lesbia was then in her seventh lustrum. 
 She was a fearful woman, but she has also been fear- 
 fully outraged and maligned. Seldom can an unfortu- 
 nate lady have had the luck to incur the burning hatred 
 of two such masters of sarcasm as Cicero and Catullus. 
 She destroyed the luckless poet ; yet we owe her some
 
 74 CATVLLI 
 
 gratitude ; for she gave us one of the great lyric poets 
 of the world. 
 
 But at present I will dwell no longer on these mat- 
 ters : I will come at once to my more special subject, 
 the 29th poem, of which I have so much to say that I 
 shall probably tire out my readers' patience. And first 
 I will print the piece at length, leaving the words 
 spaced in the only four places where there is any doubt 
 as to the reading : these I will discuss as I come to 
 them in my dissection of the poem. 
 
 Quis hoc potest uidere, quis potest pati, 
 
 nisi impudicus et uorax et aleo, 
 
 Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia 
 
 habebat cum te et ultima Britannia? 
 5 cinaede Romule, haec uidebis et feres ? l 
 
 et ille nunc superbus et superfluous 
 
 perambulabit omnium cubilia, 
 
 ut albulus columbus aut ydoneus? 
 
 cinaede Romule, haec uidebis et feres ? 
 10 es impudicus et uorax et aleo. 
 
 eone nomine, imperator unice, 
 
 fuisti in ultima occidentis insula, 
 
 ut ista uostra defututa mentula 
 
 ducenties comesset aut trecenties ? 
 15 quid est alid sinistra liberalitas? 
 
 parum expatrauit an parum helluatus est ? 
 
 paterna prima lancinata sunt bona : 
 
 secunda praeda Pontica : inde tertia 
 
 Hibera, quam scit amnis aurifer Tagus. 
 20 hunc Galliae timet et Britanniae 
 
 1 [Auantius, followed by Statins and most of the older editors, and recently 
 by L. Mueller and Baehrens, have added here v. 10, Es impudicus cet. : this 
 repetition adds greatly to the symmetry of the poem and is probably right.]
 
 CARM. 29 75 
 
 quid hunc malum fouetis ? aut quid hie potest 
 nisi uncta deuorare patrimonia? 
 eone nomine urbis opulentissime 
 socer generque, perdidistis omnia? 
 
 But before I begin to examine more minutely the 
 poem itself, I must from love of Caesar and indeed of 
 Catullus himself endeavour to shew that in their days, 
 and indeed long before and after, the most offensive 
 and indecent personalities meant something very dif- 
 ferent from what they would mean in the present day. 
 Had it not been so, civilised society could hardly have 
 gone on in ancient Greece and Rome during their most 
 brilliant and energetic times, or in the Middle Ages 
 down indeed to a quite recent period. Just think, to 
 take two conspicuous and widely distant examples, of 
 the appalling personalities of Aristophanes and Dante ! 
 Public opinion craved for and found such vents for the 
 relief of its pent up feelings towards the great ones 
 of the earth, whether demagogues, popes or kings. 
 Coupled with this love of personality there was a ten- 
 dency, which to us seems strange and almost incompre- 
 hensible, towards outrageous indecency and buffoonery. 
 There was more in this than can be explained on any 
 ordinary principles of human conduct. When in old 
 Greece the majestic beauty of epic poetry came into 
 being together with the erotic licence of lyric, elegiac 
 and iambic poetry ; when side by side with the august 
 solemnity of tragedy was seen the old comedy rioting 
 in a liberty which turned into ridicule gods and men 
 alike, the belief clearly was that gods and men alike 
 dreaded Nemesis and wished by such sacrifices of dig- 
 nity to appease that awful power. We must give a 
 similar interpretation to the scenes witnessed in the
 
 76 CATVLLI 
 
 cathedrals of Christendom daring those ages when men 
 had faith, if they ever had it, and yet at stated seasons 
 of the year parodies went on, the most blasphemous 
 and obscene, of all that was held most sacred. Appa- 
 rently from long use and wont this curious love of in- 
 decency continued till quite recent times to infest the 
 light literature of jest books and the embittered po- 
 lemics of angry adversaries. In the middle of last cen- 
 tury Voltaire's calumnies upon Frederick of Prussia are 
 quite as revolting to our sense as those of Catullus 
 against Caesar, or Calvus and Clodius against Pompey, 
 and they were meant too more in earnest. 
 
 In ancient Italy the union of indecency with bitter 
 personality was very rife, the latter being fostered as 
 in Greece by the fierce struggles of party in the free 
 communities, the former by curious religious supersti- 
 tion. As in Greece and throughout the East, so in 
 Italy the evil eye, the fascinum, was believed to have 
 an extraordinary influence, and this influence it was 
 thought could best be averted by obscene symbols and 
 obscene verses: thus 'fascinum' became a synonyme 
 for 'ueretrum'. The evil eye was most efficacious 
 where human happiness appeared to be greatest: in 
 three cases therefore it was especially guarded against, 
 in the case of children, of a marriage, and of a triumph 
 when man was supposed to stand on the highest pin- 
 nacle of glory and felicity. Therefore, as Varro tells us 
 in the de ling. Lat. VII 97, puerulis turpicula res in 
 collo quaedam suspenditur, ne quid obsit ; and there is 
 a striking passage in Pliny xxvui 4 39 quamquam 
 illos [infantes] religione tutatur et fascinus, imperato- 
 rum quoque, non solum infantium custos, qui deus inter 
 sacra Romana a Vestalibus colitur et currus triumphan- 
 tiuin, sub his pendens, defendit rnedicus inuidiae, iubet-
 
 CARM. 29 77 
 
 quo eosdem respicere similis medicina linguae, ut sit 
 exorata a tergo Fortuna gloriae carnifex. A similar 
 protection against Fortune, the executioner of glory 
 and happiness, was afforded from the earliest times by 
 the Fescennine songs, connected in meaning and origin 
 with this fascinum : the indecent ridicule thrown thereby 
 on the great or the fortunate was believed to turn aside 
 the evil eye. While patrimi and matrimi were ad- 
 dressing the gods in pure and lofty strains, with regard 
 to other religious solemnities we have Ovid in the fasti 
 in 675 saying, Nunc mihi cur can tent superest obscena 
 puellae Dicere: nam coeunt certaque probra canunt; 
 and 695 Inde ioci ueteres obscenaque dicta canuntur, 
 Et iuuat hanc magno uerba dedisse deo 1 . In marriage 
 as might be expected the evil eye was greatly dreaded ; 
 and therefore the fescennine verses were a vital part of 
 the ceremony, as important as the invocation of Hymen 
 Hymenaeus. Look at the long episode of the * fescen- 
 nina iocatio' which comes in the midst of the epithala- 
 mium, and mars so rudely to our feeling the exquisite 
 grace and delicacy of Catullus' 61st poem. It is strange 
 but true that this address to the 'concubinus' was 
 meant as a compliment to the beautiful Aurunculeia 
 and the highborn and accomplished Torquatus : it was 
 not meant to be taken seriously, but was only a sacri- 
 fice to Fortune the carnifex. If this be doubted, I 
 would appeal to Seneca's Medea 107 foil, where the 
 chorus, celebrating lason's marriage with Creusa, says 
 'Concesso, iuuenes, ludite iurgio....Rara est in dominos 
 
 iusta licentia Festa dicax fdndat conuicia fescenninus : 
 
 Soluat turba iocos. tacitis eat ilia tenebris, Siqua pe- 
 regrino nubit fugitiua marito': meaner mortals like the 
 
 1 [On obscenity in feasts of Liber, to avert 'fascinatio', comp. August, ciu. 
 dei vn 21.]
 
 78 CATVLLI 
 
 runaway Medea may marry in quiet ; but a Creusa or 
 an Aurunculeia has a claim to be honoured in being 
 thus degraded by the fescennine licence. When Cato 
 and Marcia married for the second time amid the gloom 
 of civil war, after the death of Hortensius to whom she 
 had been made over, Lucan mentions among the signs 
 of mourning that ' Non soliti lusere sales, nee more Sa- 
 bino Excepit tristis conuicia festa maritus'. But on 
 their first marriage doubtless the fescennina iocatio had 
 sounded as loudly as Hymen Hymenaee in honour of 
 the then youthful Cato. 
 
 The car of the conqueror could not escape, and we 
 know from Livy and others that on every triumph the 
 victorious commander was followed by his legions sing- 
 ing ridiculous fescennine verses. The greater he was 
 and the more adored by his soldiers, the greater would 
 be the sacrifice demanded by Fortuna and the more 
 ribald the fun in honour of their much-loved general. 
 Caesar, as we shall see, has suffered grievously by this ; 
 he has suffered also as well as his successor in another 
 way. During their reigns the licence of invective was 
 quite unrestrained, as we may learn from the well- 
 known speech of Cremutius Cordus in Tacitus : ' sed 
 ipse diuus lulius, ipse diuus Augustus et tulere ista et 
 reliquere': but the consequence he draws was hardly 
 true in the case of Julius. Tiberius however in old 
 age, wearied with the burden of redressing the world 
 and driven wild by the treachery of his most trusted 
 friends, resolved to put a stop to this limitless ' scanda- 
 lum magnatum'. Though its open display was thus 
 checked, it went on in secret with more rancour than 
 ever. He himself has bitterly paid for this ; and so has 
 Julius, as in the days of Suetonius and Dion Cassius 
 people had forgotten that in his time the abuse meant
 
 CARM. 29 79 
 
 little or nothing ; and these two writers have taken lite- 
 rally, what soldiers said in boisterous good-humour, or 
 Catullus and the like from temporary pique or some 
 equally frivolous motive 1 . 
 
 But with the cessation of virulent personalities the 
 custom of writing light licentious verses did not come 
 to an end : Catullus had said in thorough good faith 
 'Nam castum esse decet pium poetam Ipsum, uersiculos 
 nihil necesse est, Qui turn denique habent salem ac 
 leporem, Si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici'. These 
 lines the younger Pliny, a man of sterling worth and 
 indefatigable industry, repeats with approbation; and 
 in another place, epist. v 3, he reckons the writing 
 such poems among 'innoxiae remissionis genera', for 
 which 'Homo sum' is all the defence needed; and he 
 draws up a formidable list of predecessors who have 
 indulged in this pardonable recreation: among others 
 Tully, Calvus, Pollio, Messala, Hortensius, M. Brutus, 
 Sulla, Catulus, Scaevola, Varro, the Torquati, Gaius 
 Memmius, Lentulus Gaetulicus, Seneca; diuus lulius, 
 diuus Augustus, diuus Nerua, Titus : a Nero could not 
 degrade this noble art which had been practised by 
 Virgil and Nepos, and before them by Ennius and 
 Accius. Apuleius quotes the same words of Catullus, 
 and to Pliny's list adds the name of diuus Hadrianus 
 who composed many such trifles and wrote for a friend 
 this epitaph 'Lasciuus uersu, mente pudicus eras'. Ca- 
 tullus therefore had once a goodly band of brothers to 
 
 1 [We ought never to lose sight of the fact that nearly all the great poeta 
 and writers, who were contemporaries of Caesar and transmitted their sentiments 
 to succeeding generations, belonged to the ' boni' or ' Opposition '. Now in such 
 an age of pulling down and building up opposition meant frantic hatred and 
 antagonism. This to my mind accounts for a certain ill-omened air which 
 seems to hang about the Dictator's memory in the pages of Lucan, Tacitus and 
 Suetonius, and which in justice belonged more to his successor than to him. 
 Cromwell's fate much resembles Caesar's in this respect.]
 
 80 CATVLLI 
 
 keep him in countenance, though he is now almost the 
 sole representative of them left. 
 
 At last I turn to our special poem, which is cer- 
 tainly one of the most powerful and brilliant of our 
 author's satirical pieces. For fully understanding the 
 allusions, it is of importance to know the time when 
 it was written, and this is not difficult to determine. 
 Some of the older editors, Scaliger among them, have 
 gone absurdly wrong, referring for instance the ' praeda 
 Pontica' and 'Hibera' to Caesar's latest conquests, after 
 the death of Pompey ; though the poem (see vss. 13, 
 21 24) plainly speaks of the latter joining with Caesar 
 in pampering their unworthy favourite Mamurra. It 
 was written after Caesar's invasion of Britain, as the 
 poem itself plainly declares, probably therefore at the 
 end of 55 or beginning of 54, when Caesar was in 
 Cisalpine Gaul, having returned from his first invasion 
 late in the preceding summer ; hardly after the second 
 invasion which took place in the summer and autumn 
 of 54, as the poet, we saw, appears to have died by the 
 end of that year. In the latter case there would 
 scarcely have been room for the events which must 
 have occurred afterwards, Catullus too, as Jerome in- 
 forms us, having died in Rome. Clearly therefore our 
 poem, together perhaps with the less important, though 
 more offensive 57th, is what Suetonius refers to in the 
 well-known passage, lulius 73 Yalerium Catullum, a 
 quo sibi uersiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata im- 
 posita non dissimulauerat, satisfacientem eadem die 
 adhibuit cenae hospitioque patris, sicut consuerat, uti 
 perseuerauit. At Verona therefore where Catullus' 
 father resided Caesar must have asked the poet to 
 dinner, and in the winter cf 55 54; for after the re-
 
 CARM. 29 81 
 
 conciliation Catullus for some reason, perhaps mere 
 wantonness, must have again declared war, as appears 
 by the obscure but offensive attack of the 54th piece, 
 the concluding lines ' Irascere iterum meis iambis Im- 
 merentibus, unice imperator' plainly referring to the 
 'imperator unice' of our poem. Angry no doubt he was 
 at the repetition of such waspish and ludicrously un- 
 founded insults ; but of his many imperial qualities none 
 was more glorious to himself or more salutary to the 
 world than his practice of the art not to be angry over- 
 much : his clemency cost him his life; yet made his 
 memory what it is. But the ' perpetua stigmata ' meant 
 both to Caesar and Catullus something very different 
 from what Suetonius seems to imply: Catullus could 
 not have dared so to beard the irresponsible proconsul 
 in his own province, who with a breath could have 
 swept from off the earth ' te cum tota gente, Catulle, 
 tua'. What such insults really implied will I trust be 
 presently shewn. Though I feel no doubt that our 
 poem was written at this time, I see no weight in the 
 argument of Haupt and Schwabe that it must have 
 been composed in the lifetime of Julia who died during 
 Caesar's second expedition to Britain, as otherwise the 
 'socer generque' of the last line could not have been 
 used. Whatever the legal meaning of these terms, 
 Caesar and Pompey in history were always ' socer ge- 
 nerque': those eminent scholars refute themselves by 
 Virgil's ' Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monoeci 
 Descendens, gener aduersis instructus eois'. Recollect 
 too Cicero's reply to Pompey 's question 'Where is your 
 son-in-law?' 'with your father-in-law': Lucan a dozen 
 times over plays with this favourite antithesis, as in 
 'socerum depellere regno Decretum genero eat' 1 . 
 
 1 [Cicero again, ad Att. x 4 3 alter (Pompeius)...elapsus e soceri manibus ac 
 ferro, helium terra et mari comparat.J 
 
 M. C. 6
 
 82 CATVLLI 
 
 At the time our poem was written the league be- 
 tween Caesar and Pompey had lasted about five years, 
 since the consulship of Caesar in 59, and had given 
 them absolute power in Rome and throughout the em- 
 pire, whenever they chose to exert it ; for what could 
 the constitutionalists or ' boni' do against the masters 
 of 20 legions or more? Crassus had just started on his 
 disastrous expedition and was otherwise of small ac- 
 count. It was a despotism, tempered only by their 
 own moderation and by epigrams, such as these poems 
 of Catullus and the confidential letters of Cicero : in his 
 public speeches he had to praise without stint. Not- 
 withstanding Caesar's unprecedented successes in Gaul 
 Pompey with the vulgar was still the greater; but 
 acute observers like Catullus and Cicero saw that the 
 other had already got ' the start of the majestic world\ 
 though he did not yet "bear the palm alone'. Pompey 
 could be thwarted and bullied even by a Clodius; be- 
 fore Caesar's will all must bend. The letters to At- 
 ticus, which may be looked on as soliloquies by an 
 impassioned nature of more than Italian fervour of 
 temperament, give a singular picture of Cicero's feelings 
 towards Caesar. Caesar behaved to him as an enemy 
 with a kinder courtesy than Pompey shewed him as a 
 friend; he forgave him every offence before he had time 
 to ask forgiveness; compelled his subordinates Antony, 
 Balbus and the rest to treat him when a declared op- 
 ponent with punctilious deference. Yet for all this, 
 perhaps because of all this, admiring as he could not 
 but do Caesar's social and personal qualities, he felt all 
 his aspirations so nipped and kept under by the other's 
 commanding genius, that hatred the most intense took 
 possession of his mind: 'hoc re/acts horribili est uigi- 
 lantia, celeritate, diligentia' was his constant feeling. 
 Yet he, thinking and speaking in earnest, never dreamed
 
 CARM. 29 83 
 
 of fastening on Caesar any of these ridiculous scandals 
 of Catullus. Read the letters written to Atticus after 
 those ides of March on which he received his own 
 death-warrant: he glories in that day; but soon finds 
 that he has got nothing ' praeter laetitiam quam oculis 
 cepi iusto interitu tyranni'; that the tyrant dead is 
 worse than the tyrant living ; that he could speak with 
 less danger 'uiuo tyranno quam mortuo; ille enim nescio 
 quo pacto ferebat me quidem mirabiliter: nunc '. At 
 last in xv 4 we have this outbreak : ' if things go on 
 thus, I like not the ides of March. For he should 
 never have come back after death, nor fear compelled 
 us to ratify his acts; or else heaven's curse light upon 
 him, dead though he be so high was I in his favour 
 that, seeing the master is slain and we are not free, he 
 was a master not to be rejected at my time of life. I 
 blush, believe me: but I have written, and will not 
 blot it out'. For these awful words neither Cicero nor 
 Caesar is to blame, but the fortune of Home: they 
 must express the feeling of the ' boni ' generally who 
 could not see that old things had passed away. 
 
 But though Catullus would take advantage of such 
 feelings, with him it was always as I have said the odi or 
 amo of the moment that constrained him to write and 
 made him the poet he was ; and his unabashed candour 
 and cynical effrontery lay bare to us the motives which 
 impelled him to this attack on Caesar and Mamurra. 
 The 41st and 43rd poems shew us that the latter had 
 by his wealth supplanted him in the affections of a pro- 
 vincial beauty, 'Decoctoris arnica Formiani', a phrase 
 repeated for effect in both the poems just mentioned. 
 This Formian spendthrift is our Mamurra of whom I 
 will now speak more at length. Though he was a man 
 of some mark in his day, he would have passed into 
 
 62
 
 84 CATVLLI 
 
 oblivion but for the unenviable notoriety Catullus has 
 given him. Owing solely to this notoriety he is spoken 
 of by Pliny in xxxvi 6 48, a passage to which we 
 shall recur more than once: he tells us on the autho- 
 rity of Cornelius Nepos that Mamurra was born at 
 Formiae, was a Roman knight and was praefectus fa- 
 brum to C. Caesar in Gaul. Horace as we know de- 
 notes Formiae by the name of 'urbs Mamurrarum', 
 whether with reference to Catullus or because the 
 family was really very important there. Caesar, it may 
 be on account of his annoyance at such attacks, never 
 once mentions his name, which twice occurs in Cicero; 
 once in the well-known account which he gives Atticus 
 of Caesar's dining with him in December 45, where he 
 says that Caesar * de Mamurra audiuit' without chang- 
 ing countenance. This is perhaps rightly now explained 
 to mean that he heard of Mamurra's death; but, as 
 ' uultum' is omitted in the best Ms., perhaps Manutius' 
 interpretation is right, that a sentence against Mamurra 
 for transgressing the sumptuary law, which Caesar 
 strictly enforced, was read to him; and he let it stand 
 as it was : nothing else is known as to the time when 
 Mamurra died. The other passage is more important 
 for our purpose : Cicero is writing to Atticus, vn 7, in 
 the year 50: he is greatly disgusted with the state of 
 affairs, with Caesar's ever-growing power and resistless 
 energy, and thus quotes and replies to a question of 
 his correspondent : ' Annorum enim decem imperium et 
 ita latum placet?' placet igitur etiam me expulsum et 
 agrum Campanum perisse et adoptatum patricium a 
 plebeio, Gaditanum a Mytilenaeo, et Labieni diuitiae et 
 Mamurrae placent et Balbi horti et Tusculanum. Here 
 Cicero is referring to things most obnoxious to him, 
 carried by the joint power of Caesar, Pompey and
 
 CARM. 29 85 
 
 Crassus during late years. You ask me whether I like 
 the imperium given to Caesar for ten years and in such 
 a way. Why, if I like that, then I like my own 
 banishment, the loss to the state of the revenue from 
 the Campanian ager, the adoption of the patrician 
 Clodius by a plebeian, of a Gaditane by a Mytilenaean; 
 the riches of Labienus and of Mamurra; Balbus' gar- 
 dens and Tusculan villa. The first four of these ob- 
 noxious measures were carried conjointly by the three 
 dynasts, Varro's TpLKaipavos: the adoption of the bland 
 Phoenician L. Cornelius Balbus by Pompey's trusted 
 friend and client Theophanes of Mytilene must have 
 been solely Pompey's doing, as he gave to both of them 
 citizenship and wealth and influence: the riches of 
 Labienus would come of course from Caesar alone; 
 those of Mamurra, as we shall see presently from Ca- 
 tullus, from both Pompey and Caesar: the gardens and 
 villa of Balbus probably from Pompey alone, as he was 
 long his patron, and it was late that Balbus, when 
 forced to choose sides, took that of Caesar who nobly 
 allowed him to nurse Pompey's property during the 
 civil war. 
 
 Catullus himself I repeat tells us that Mamurra got 
 his riches from Pompey as well as Caesar : with reference 
 to this I will examine vss. 1719 of our poem. In 
 the offensive 13th line uostra refers to the two: he goes 
 on to say that first of all he squandered his patrimony, 
 that of a Roman knight as Pliny tells us in the passage 
 I quoted: next the booty of Pontus: this beyond all 
 question was the spoil gained by Pompey in the Mith- 
 ridatic war, as Haupt and others have seen. I cannot 
 conceive how Mommsen in his history (bk. 5 ch. 8 near 
 the end) can maintain that this was the booty taken 
 at the capture of Mytilene in 80 or 79, where Caesar
 
 86 CATVLLI 
 
 then a youth distinguished himself under the praetor 
 M. Thermus. Next was wasted the Iberian booty 
 which the Tagus knows: this was the spoil gained in 
 60 by Caesar as propraetor in Spain from the Lusitani. 
 And now says the poet he is to have the wealth of 
 Gaul and Britain; and was it to pamper a profligate 
 like this, father- and son-in-law, that you have ruined 
 between you the world? From all this, coupled with 
 what Pliny tells us, we learn that Mamurra was a man 
 of good birth; that he was Caesar's chief engineer in 
 Gaul where operations were on so gigantic a scale ; he 
 must therefore have been a man of distinguished pro- 
 fessional merit; high too in Caesar's confidence, as he 
 had served years before under him in Spain; nay years 
 before that he had served in some similar capacity 
 under Rome's other great general Pompey, when en- 
 gineering works must have been on an equally great 
 scale; and, as Pompey had the whole of Lucullus' army 
 handed over to him, it is more than probable that 
 Mamurra was with Lucullus before. From all this it 
 follows necessarily that in the year 54 he was a man 
 of mature age and of high professional distinction. It 
 would appear that in Rome, as in some other countries, 
 members of the scientific corps of the army had a diffi- 
 culty in emerging from under the ' cold shade of the 
 aristocracy' ; but one who had been so long the trusted 
 officer of Caesar and Pompey must have had eminent 
 merit, though he would not readily attain to the social 
 consideration of a Labienus or Antony. It is likely 
 enough from what Catullus and Pliny tell us, that he 
 was fond of display and enjoyment, and that his riches 
 lightly came and lightly went. But what Catullus 
 says in other pieces of his success with women would 
 seem to contradict the most offensive things in our
 
 CARM. 29 87 
 
 poem, which on all considerations are incredible. Nay 
 it is clear that by this fescennine-like raillery the poet 
 simply means ' you have cheated me, my fine fellow, 
 out of my mistress, and you and your two mighty 
 patrons, who have given you the means to do it, shall 
 bitterly smart for this'. 
 
 And now I will turn to other such-like charges 
 which can be shewn I believe to be as utterly baseless 
 as this Mamurran banter : Catullus, though he will not 
 let Pompey escape, directs the main force of his in- 
 vective against Caesar as Mamurra's more immediate 
 patron: in vss. 2 and 10 he calls him 'impudicus', 
 which in Latin has a peculiarly offensive meaning, being 
 a synonyme of the 'cinaede' which he applies to him 
 in 5 and 9; and in the brief but yet more impudent 
 57th poem he begins with 'Pulcre conuenit improbis 
 cinaedis, Mamurrae pathicoque Caesarique', and goes 
 on in the like insulting strain. Suetonius was an in- 
 defatigable collector of anecdotes and facts concerning 
 the early Caesars; but, removed from them a century 
 and a half in time and still further in feeling, for reasons 
 some of which we have touched upon above, and per- 
 haps from the Boswell-like character of his mind, he is 
 often unable to distinguish between what was meant 
 in earnest and mere joking or conventional invective. 
 Yet, while in a passage we have already referred to he 
 gives as one instance of Caesar's exceeding placability 
 his ready forgiveness of Catullus, though he avowed 
 that these verses about Mamurra had set upon him a 
 perpetual brand, in ch. 49 he proves that these very 
 verses meant little or nothing. For there he tells us 
 ' pudicitiae eius famam nihil quidem praeter Nicomedis 
 contubernium laesit, graui tamen et perenni obprobrio 
 et ad omnium conuicia exposito'; he then gives a list
 
 88 CATVLLI 
 
 of these ' omnes' to which I shall presently refer. But 
 first for the story itself: Caesar when a boy shewed 
 that in Sulla's words he had many Marii in him ; when 
 he was but eighteen he refused to divorce his wife 
 Cornelia, by whom he was already father of Julia, and 
 preferred to wander about a proscribed fugitive in 
 hourly peril of his life, though Pompey had at once 
 obeyed the dictator's commands. He then escaped to 
 Asia and served under M. Minucius Thermus, was sent 
 by him on a confidential mission to Nicomedes of Bithy- 
 nia, successfully performed it, returned and took part 
 in the capture of Mytilene and received a civic crown 
 for saving the life of a soldier. It was in consequence 
 of this visit to Nicomedes that the absurd and scanda- 
 lous story took its rise at some time or other. From 
 a long list of angry opponents or bantering jesters who 
 20 or 30 years later taunted Caesar about this matter 
 Suetonius singles out Gaius Memmius as making the 
 charge in a definite shape ; ' C. Memmius etiam ad 
 cyathum et uinum Nicomedi stetisse obicit cum reli- 
 quis exoletis pleno conuiuio, accubantibus nonnullis ur- 
 bicis negotiatoribus quorum refert nomina'. This then 
 Memmius must have learnt or pretended to learn more 
 than twenty years after the event when he was praetor 
 in Bithynia. But supposing the memories of these 
 merchants of the place did not play them false, what 
 does the story mean ? A young noble of the highest 
 birth, of distinguished bravery, energy and talent, the 
 representative of Rome at a king's court, first foully 
 disgraces himself with that king and then gratuitously 
 parades his degradation before a large company. A 
 circumstantial lie is often the most self-convicting of 
 lies. It is possible enough that the story may have 
 arisen from the handsome and accomplished youth
 
 CARM. 29 89 
 
 having taken part in some court pageant or frolic : a 
 guilty secret would have stood in the way of such con- 
 descension. It may be asked how would so many emi- 
 nent orators and others make a charge they knew to 
 be unfounded ? Why, every Greek and Eoman orator, 
 as a part of his art, made charges against an antagonist 
 which he knew to be false as well as the opponent 
 himself did. Such attacks on Caesar meant no more 
 than the terms of abuse or endearment used by a cab- 
 man or coalheaver in the streets of London or Paris ; 
 or than the threats of CatuUus towards his Furius and 
 Aurelius. The poet, to shew his contempt for his 
 would-be patron Memmius, in two pieces makes mean- 
 ingless imputations on him, more foul than this of 
 Memmius upon Caesar. But Caesar, whose self-respect 
 would suffer by this one foolish story turning up so 
 often a generation after its fictitious date, must have 
 been enraged by the acrimonious turn given to it by 
 the foul-mouthed Memmius; for Suetonius tells us that 
 he replied in writing to his virulent speeches 'non 
 minore acerbitate'. But he soon forgave him, as he 
 knew his scurrility was a mere fashion of speech. 
 
 To confirm my view of the case I will adduce the 
 evidence of Pompey and Augustus. Pompey, left by 
 the coalition to coerce the city, by his unskilful manage- 
 ment at once irritates the ' boni ' and exposes himself 
 to their contempt. How do they avenge themselves ? 
 Calvus, as an orator second only to Cicero, as a poet 
 only to Catullus, at once indites this epigram, 'Magnus 
 quern metuunt omnes digito caput uno Scalpit : quid 
 credas hunc sibi uelle ? uirum' : this is more offensive 
 even than the attacks on Caesar. Clodius next quarrels 
 with Pompey, takes his troops of ruffians with him, 
 and standing in a conspicuous spot asks, as Pompey is
 
 90 CATVLLI 
 
 passing, TL<S ecrnv avTOKparaip ctKoXacrro? (imperator im- 
 pudicus) ; TI<S avrjp av$pa t^rel ; TIS ev\ Sa/crvXa) Kvarat 
 rrfv Ke<^a\i/)v ', And they answer in chorus to each ques- 
 tion ' Pompey to be sure'. Now this is the very wan- 
 tonness of insult, as Poinpey by universal consent was 
 acknowledged as a man of simple and exemplary do- 
 mestic habits, so attached to his family and his succes- 
 sive wives as to be quizzed for uxoriousness ; while at 
 the same time his conversation and manners are said by 
 Plutarch to have been most attractive to clever women. 
 Cicero, out of humour with himself, with Pompey and 
 with the world, in his very curt comment on his death 
 to Atticus (xi 6 5) remarks 'non possum eius casum 
 non dolere ; hominem enim integrum et castum et 
 grauem cognoui': this is what Cicero thinks of, not his 
 deeds in war or peace. But if Suetonius had written 
 his life, we should have had all these assaults on his 
 ' pudicitia ' enumerated at length, as we have in the 
 case of Augustus : in the 68th chapter of his life he 
 gives a set of most fatuous and ribald charges made by 
 his fiercest antagonists, Sextus Pompey and the two 
 Antonies : ' pudicitiam delibatam a Caesare, Aulo etiam 
 Hirtio in Hispania trecentis milibus nummum substra- 
 uerit'H worthy parallels to the Nicomedes and Ma- 
 murra tales ; but gravely narrated by the biographer, 
 who solemnly records how the people in the theatre 
 pointed at Augustus when this verse was recited of a 
 gallus with his tambourine, 'uidesne ut cinaedus orbem 
 digito temperat'. But as Cremutius Cordus says, 'ipse 
 diuus lulius, ipse diuus Augustus et tulere ista et 
 reliquere'. 
 
 When Caesar triumphed, Fortuna had to be pro- 
 pitiated by an unwonted display of the 'fescennina 
 iocatio'. Some joker of jokes hit of course upon Nico-
 
 CARM. 29 91 
 
 medes and composed for his soldiers the famous 'Gallias 
 Caesar subegit, Nicomedes Caesarem' and the rest ; as 
 well as the ' Vrbani, seruate uxores moechum caluom 
 adducimus': but nothing about Mamurra who doubtless 
 was in the conqueror's suite. Dion Cassius tells us (43 
 20) how Caesar was gratified by the freedoms of his 
 soldiers, because it shewed they knew he would take 
 them in good part ; but expressed annoyance at the 
 Nicomedes chaunt and swore the story was a lie ; upon 
 which the soldiers laughed the louder. That laugh 
 merely meant to say, 'General, we only wished to shew 
 our love to you and avert the ten thousand envious 
 eyes, fixed on you and us as we passed through the 
 streets'. I have yet a word to say of the twice recur- 
 ring ' Cinaede Romule' and the 'imperator unice' re- 
 peated in another poem. Up to Caesar's conquest the 
 Gauls were looked upon as a standing menace to Italy 
 and the empire : from Cicero's laudatory speech ' de 
 prouinciis consularibus', spoken more than a year be- 
 fore our poem was written, we see what boundless en- 
 thusiasm his exploits had caused ; Gauls, Helvetians, 
 Germans had been crushed; nations not known from 
 books or even rumour, ' has noster imperator nosterque 
 exercitus et populi Romani arma peragrarunt' ; Provi- 
 dence had placed the Alps between Gaul and Italy, else 
 Rome had never become the seat of empire ; but now 
 these Alps may sink down, for there is nothing between 
 them and the ocean that Italy need dread. And now 
 the invasion of Britain had added to the enthusiasm, 
 and the unprecedented honour was decreed of a thanks- 
 giving of twenty days. It is probable that, like other 
 saviours of their country, he had been styled in the 
 official announcement of this a second Romulus, a ' uni- 
 cus imperator' ; to which Catullus gives this malicious
 
 92 CATVLLI 
 
 turn, though mingling with the banter is a half-betrayed 
 admiration for the ' Caesaris monimenta magni'. In the 
 bitter and powerful speech of the consul Lepidus, pre- 
 served among the fragments of Sallust, Sulla with like 
 irony is styled 'scaeuus iste Romulus' ; and Quintilian 
 (ix 3 89) records that Sallust thus addressed Cicero, 
 ' Romule Arpinas': in Livy we find 'unicus impera- 
 tor', 'dux', 'consul' or the like a dozen times, and 
 more than once said with bitter irony. 
 
 The words ' et uorax' which follow in both lines the 
 'impudicus' afford me a welcome opportunity to repel 
 another scandal which has fixed on Caesar's memory an 
 ignominious vice ; a scandal however of quite modern 
 origin which has arisen through misapprehending two 
 words of Cicero. The charge so often made I find thus 
 stated in Macmillan's Magazine, vol. 17 p. 526, by Gold- 
 win Smith in his able and sympathising, yet moderate 
 defence of 'the last Republicans of Rome' against the 
 unmeasured scorn and abuse which have been recently 
 heaped upon them : ' We find the great man, when he 
 is the guest of Cicero, preparing himself for the plea- 
 sures of the table in the Roman fashion by taking an 
 emetic. These be thy Gods!' The writer refers to 
 the dinner which Cicero gave to Caesar and describes 
 to Atticus in the last letter of the 13th book. The 
 dinner took place it would appear on the 21st of De- 
 cember 45, in Cicero's Formian villa, a few months 
 before Caesar's murder. It was the 3rd day of the 
 Saturnalia, a time of universal relaxation and feasting. 
 How was it spent by the heavy-laden master of the 
 world ? He had come the evening before to the house 
 of Philippus with a large retinue : there he spent the 
 day working hard at his accounts with Balbus till one 
 o'clock ; then he walked on the shore ; at two he took
 
 CARM. 29 93 
 
 a bath ; then he heard about Mamurra, whether it was 
 of his death or his transgression of the sumptuary law ; 
 was anointed, sat down to dinner ; and as he intended 
 that night to take an emetic (lfj.eTii<rjv or rather e/^ert/cov 
 agebat), he ate and drank without fear and in good 
 spirits. The dinner, Cicero tells us, was sumptuous and 
 served in good style ; and not only that but, in the 
 words of Lucilius, 'with good talk well dressed, well 
 seasoned, and, if you would know, to his heart's con- 
 tent I shewed myself a man: yet he is not a 
 
 guest to whom you would say, Pray let me see you 
 when you come again this way : once is enough. No 
 politics in the conversation, much literary talk. In 
 short he was delighted and thoroughly enjoyed himself. 
 The two words I have cited in the original admit I 
 believe no sense but that which I have given them: 
 the paraphrase in Macmillan is plainly untenable. Me- 
 dical practice appears in old times to have gone through 
 much the same phases as in our days. A generation 
 ago the taking of emetics before going to bed was an 
 infliction which many had to submit to : it is now I 
 fancy out of fashion and superseded by homoeopathy, 
 the cold water cure and the like, whether rightly so or 
 not, I do not know. In Caesar's time the * uomitus ' was 
 a common prescription : by and bye Antonius Musa 
 cured Augustus by means of cold water or with the 
 help of nature, and made the former all the rage. 
 Horace had to shiver for it in the depth of winter ; but 
 soon to the gain of invalids, tho' to the world's loss, 
 Musa killed off Marcellus the heir of the empire and 
 extinguished the new fashion. Celsus (i 3) approves 
 of an emetic in certain cases : it is of more use in winter 
 he says than in summer ; and Caesar was with Cicero 
 in midwinter. The latter himself speaks of it on this
 
 94 CATVLLI 
 
 occasion and also in the pro Deiotaro, addressed to 
 Caesar, as quite an ordinary matter. Celsus tells you, 
 if the emetic is taken at night, not to eat much at the 
 meal preceding, to take yesterday's bread, rough dry 
 unmixed wine, roast meat ' cibisque omnibus quam sic- 
 cissimis'. I daresay Caesar followed these rules as far 
 as Cicero's cook would let him ; for all accounts repre- 
 sent him as utterly indifferent to the pleasures of the 
 table. Even his enemies, says Suetonius ch. 53, did 
 not deny that he was most sparing in his use of wine ; 
 and his confidential friend Gaius Oppius relates that he 
 was so utterly careless as to what he ate ' ut quondam 
 ab hospite conditum oleum pro viridi adpositum, asper- 
 nantibus ceteris, solum etiam largius appetisse scribat, 
 ne hospitem aut neglegentiae aut rusticitatis uideretur 
 arguere'. Well does Velleius (n 41) say of him 'Magno 
 illi Alexandro, sed sobrio neque iracundo, siinillinms'. 
 He was indeed the high-bred and kindly gentleman, 
 the same Suetonius telling us that he sent his baker to 
 prison, because he had dared to put before him a finer 
 bread than he had given to his guests. ' These be thy 
 Gods!' I would echo in a different sense; for Mr Smith 
 a few pages later says most justly of Cicero, that ' his 
 vast intellectual industry implies a temperate life'. But 
 how much greater even than Cicero's was the industry 
 of Caesar during the last 15 years of his life, who during 
 that time went through an amount of work physical 
 and intellectual, taking quantity and quality together, 
 such as mortal man probably never performed before or 
 since ! Emperor, minister, generalissimo, lawgiver, cen- 
 sor, restorer of lost rights and creator of new ideas, he 
 was at the same time destroying with his right hand 
 the world that was and building up in his mind the 
 world that was to be. Any excess in any direction
 
 CARM. 29 95 
 
 must have destroyed his delicate organisation. Marl- 
 borough began his great career after middle life, and 
 his letters to his wife shew how soon his work began to 
 tell on his head and to sow probably the seeds of that 
 sad disease which afterwards overtook him. Suetonius 
 in ch. 86 tells us that some of Caesar's friends were 
 persuaded that he did not want to live longer and 
 therefore despised all omens and the warnings of his 
 friends. Perhaps the huge strain upon his brain had 
 destroyed the buoyancy of feeling and enthusiasm of 
 spirit which alone would make life worth having to 
 such a man. 
 
 Of Catullus' next words 'et aleo' I will just say 
 that the same term was applied to Augustus, because 
 he used to give the members of his family small suras 
 of money and then play with them for shilling points 
 during the Saturnalia and on other feast-days, as we 
 learn from Suetonius who in ch. 71 quotes two inter- 
 esting letters of Augustus to Tiberius on this subject. 
 Cicero throughout his confidential correspondence with 
 Atticus puts the worst construction he can on every 
 public act of Caesar and will not be persuaded that 
 he is not going to prove in the end a Sulla or Cinna ; 
 but he never breathes a whisper against his private life, 
 either before or after his death, never hints he was 
 ' impudicus' 'uorax' or 'aleo'; while throughout these 
 letters and in his philippics he charges on Antony over 
 and over again such like enormities. Surely this is of 
 importance : the prodigy's sleepless vigilance and in- 
 dustry appal him ; Antony's licentious habits disgust 
 him. 
 
 A few remarks have now to be made on the only 
 four places in our poem where there is any critical dif-
 
 96 CATVLLI 
 
 ficulty : the first in v. 4 will not detain us long : for the 
 ' Habebat cum te ' of Mss. many editors including Sillig, 
 Doering, Heyse, and both Schwabe and ElHs adopt 
 Faernus' emendation 'Habebat uncti' : Lachmann, Haupt 
 and Mommsen read after Statius ' Habebat ante', which 
 I am disposed to prefer for the following reasons : it 
 comes at least as near to the Ms. reading ; for I observe 
 that some original of all our Mss. often put co for a: 
 thus in 48 4 we find 'inde cor' for 'uidear'; 64 212 
 'moenico' for 'moenia'; 67 42 'conciliis' for 'ancillis'; 
 75 3 'uelleque tot' for 'uelle queat', c and t being con- 
 tinually confused; and on the other hand 36 14 'alcos' 
 for ' Golgos'; 66 45 ' atque' for ' cumque (conque)' : thus 
 ante might at once become con te = cum te. Again I 
 prefer it for the sense; as 'quod uncti' strikes me as 
 somewhat affected and not quite like ' uncta patrimonia' 
 and ' unctius caput', in both of which cases the meta- 
 phor is very obvious. Lastly the passage of Pliny, xxxvi 
 648, already referred to, ' Mamurra quern, ut res est, 
 domus ipsius clarius quam Catullus dixit habere quid- 
 quid habuisset comata Gallia', gives no intimation of 
 any uncti; and 'quidquid habuisset' quite expresses 
 ' quod habebat ante'. 
 
 In v. 8 ' Yt albulus columbus aut ydoneus' Statius 
 and Scaliger read 'aut Adoneus' and are followed by 
 Lachmann, Doering, Haupt, Mommsen, and Ellis among 
 others. I have some doubt whether Catullus, a tech- 
 nical pupil of the Greeks, would have said Adoneus for 
 Adonis: it is true Plautus has it; but in the same line 
 he has Catameitus for Ganymedes, which Catullus would 
 hardly have used, any more than Melerpanta or Patri- 
 coles for Bellerophontes or Patroclus : I should not 
 demur, if the Mss. gave us that form, but they do not. 
 Again I should like to know any Latin writer who as-
 
 CARM. 29 97 
 
 signs to Adonis, born of the wood and bred in the woods, 
 the character which a modern hairdresser connects with 
 him and which would suit Catullus' picture of Mamurra : 
 the ancient conception of him seems rather to be Shake- 
 speare's : ' Hunting he loved, but love he laughed to 
 scorn': thus Ovid, ars I 509, 'Forma uiros neglecta de- 
 cet : Minoida Theseus Abstulit, a nulla tempora comptus 
 acu: Hippolytum Phaedra, nee erat bene cultus, ama- 
 uit : Cura deae siluis aptus Adonis erat' : and certainly 
 you could not couple Theseus or Hippolytus with an 
 'albulus columbus'. Mamurra is effeminate and worn 
 out by debauchery : Adonis is a beautiful boy, the very 
 reverse of effeminate : in Bion he is mourned for by his 
 hounds and the mountain-nymphs, by the hills them- 
 selves, the woods and waters; while Theocritus mates 
 him with Agamemnon and Ajax, Hector, Patroclus and 
 Pyrrhus, and yet older and rougher heroes. I would 
 therefore with Heyse and Schwabe follow Sillig in 
 adopting what is really the Ms. reading ' haut idoneus' ; 
 with which might be compared Horace's ' Vixi puellis 
 nuper idoneus' and ' Si torrere iecur quaeris idoneum', 
 though probably it has in Catullus a more offensive 
 sense illustrated by v. 13. It is really I repeat the Ms. 
 reading: [I have noted some 50 instances in which G 
 and O quite indifferently have y for i, or i for ?/.] 
 Again 'aut' and 'haut' are the same; for not only do 
 our Mss. and therefore their archetype omit or wrongly 
 prefix the initial h in so many cases that it would be 
 idle to enumerate them ; but in the two or three places 
 where Catullus uses haut (haud), we find 66 35 aut in 
 all Mss.: and ib. 16, if any of the corrections, Illaque 
 haut alia, Ilia atque haut alia, Illaque hautque alia, 
 Iliac hautque alia, of various editors be right, haut pro- 
 bably passed into aut in the process of corruption ; but 
 M. c. 7
 
 98 CATVLLI 
 
 for the ' Ilia atque alia' of Mss. I propose ' Iliac (quaque 
 alia?) uiderunt luce' as. a better rhythm and an easy 
 correction. 
 
 We now come to the very corrupt v. 20, though the 
 sense required is plain enough. Is Mamurra to have 
 what long-haired Gaul and farthest Britain had? Was 
 it to feed his lust > O general without peer, you the 
 other day were in the outmost island of the west ? He 
 then in his increasing wrath joins with Caesar his bro- 
 ther-tyrant Pompey who first pampered the wretch : 
 * Vt ista uostra cet. ' : his gormandising and wantonness 
 nothing can appease : first went his own patrimony ; 
 next the spoils taken from Mithridates by Pompey ; 
 thirdly the booty got by Caesar in Further Spain : 
 what next ? he will now have the riches of Gaul and 
 Britain, opened up only yesterday. But many and va- 
 rious have been the methods tried to get the required 
 pure iambic, as may be seen in the critical notes of 
 Schwabe and Ellis : Time Britannia, hunc timete Gal- 
 liae : Timete Galliae, hunc time Britannia : etc. etc. 
 none of them satisfying in sense or keeping near to the 
 Ms. reading. And Schwabe with reason remarks that 
 n.o convincing emendations have been made in Catullus, 
 where this has not been closely adhered to. He ad- 
 mits himself that a pure iambic verse would be very far 
 preferable to any other, if a satisfactory one could be 
 devised; but despairing of this he gives us one which 
 suits the sense and context excellently : Nunc Galliae 
 timetur (timet r ) et Britanniae. But a pure iambic 
 appears to me not only desirable, but necessary ; 
 Ellis too requiring a pure iambic reads 'Neque una 
 Gallia aut timent Britanniae' : I will state my objec- 
 tions to this : it departs rather widely from the Mss. ; 
 nor do I think the plural Britanniae could have been
 
 CARM. 29 99 
 
 used by Catullus, as lie is speaking of the one island, 
 a corner of which was invaded a few months before : 
 Pliny iv 16 102 says 'Britannia insula clara Graecis 
 nostrisque monimentis. ...Albion ipsi nomen fuit, cum 
 Britanniae uocarentur omnes de quibus mox paulo dice- 
 mus' : and then he names a large number of islands, 40 
 Orcades, 7 Acmodae, 30 Hebudes, Mona, Vectis, etc. 
 etc. : a curious passage, but it will not I think support 
 the plural in Catullus, any more than his own ' Mauult 
 quam Syrias Britanniasque', which means of course 
 'prefers to Syrias and Britains', as we say 'to whole 
 worlds' : Ellis might of course read ' timet Britannia' ; 
 but then with ' GalhV and ' Britannia' it is difficult to 
 see how the ae of all Mss. could have come into both 
 words: of course, if it were in one, by attraction it 
 could get into the other. The sense too he gives the 
 verse seems to me very unsuitable : Neque enim Gallia 
 tantummodo aut Britanniae Mamurram timent ; quod 
 post commemoratas ex Ponto atque Hiberia praedas 
 iure uidetur additum. But surely Catullus does not 
 mean to say that Pontus and Hiberia fear they are 
 going to be plundered, because Gaul and Britain fear 
 it: they, if they ever feared him, must like his own 
 patrimony have long ceased to do so; as he had long 
 ago spent all that could be got from them. The poet 
 plainly means that the newly acquired lands, Gaul and 
 Britain, seeing he has already spent his own means and 
 the spoil of Pontus and Hiberia, are now going to be 
 drained to satisfy his greed ; or something like it. 
 
 And, while on this subject, I would say that Ellis 
 in another passage, 11 11, appears to me to have done 
 our island scant justice by reading ' Gallicum Rhenum, 
 horribilem insulam ultimosque Britannos', for the ' hor- 
 ribiles' or ' horribilesefue ultimosque* of Mss. : Caesar a 
 
 72
 
 100 CATVLLI 
 
 few months before had opened Britain up to the ex- 
 pectant Romans : what they then dreamt of, as we see 
 from Cicero and others, was nothing more dreadful than 
 gold, pearls, captives, etc. And surely the landscape 
 would not have looked horrible in English August 
 weather, any more than Cuba or Jamaica to the first 
 Spanish invaders. But what would and did look hor- 
 rible was the stormy channel, the 'beluosus oceanus', 
 between the Gallic Rhine and the Britons : if then 
 'horribilesque' represents the archetype, Haupt's 'hor- 
 ribile aequor' is excellent : if, as seems probable, que is 
 a clumsy interpolation to help the metre, I do not sur- 
 render my former conjecture in the old Journal, vol. 4 
 p. 289, ' horribilem salum' : that is, as there explained, 
 for 'horribilesultimosque', 'horribilesaluultimosque', 
 Ennius having 'undantem salum' and the Greek word 
 being craXos. Ellis similarly explains his reading as a 
 corruption from ' horribile Isula ultimosque', ' quum ex- 
 cidissent litterae uld propter insequentes ul' : but long 
 before this contraction and corruption could have taken 
 place in Mas., the form 'horribileis' was utterly un- 
 known and could not mediate between two readings. 
 
 And now I will try to recommend my own later 
 correction of v. 20 : Ellis having postponed it to his 
 own put me somewhat out of conceit with it, when I 
 was again encouraged by a flattering sentence in a 
 paper read by Dr W. Wagner before the philological 
 society on Dec. 20, 1867: he says 'I am convinced 
 Mr Munro's emendation as mentioned by Mr R. Ellis 
 obviates all difficulties'. If we are to have a pure iam- 
 bic, it seems pretty clear, unless very violent changes 
 be made, that Hunc represents a lost amphibrachys 
 (w_w) : leaving this for a moment, I divide into words 
 in a different way from our Mss. and therefore their
 
 CARM. 29 101 
 
 lost archetype the continuous letters of some original, 
 immediate or not, of that archetype : this original had 
 I assume ' galliaetmetetbritannia' i. e. ' Gallia et metet 
 Britannia' : our Mss. after their archetype give ' Galliae 
 timet et Britanniae' : Britanniae from the attraction 
 of Galliae. I have collected from our Mss. a hundred 
 instances of absurd corruptions owing to a wrong ar- 
 rangement of undivided syllables : a few that seem to 
 apply to the present case I will give here : 28 9 Om- 
 nem mi (for O Memmi), 44 7 expulsus sun (expuli 
 tussim), 44 19 Sestirecepso (Sesti recepso), 54 5 seniore 
 cocto (seni recocto), 93 2 si saluus (sis albus), 98 1 in- 
 quam quam (in quemquam), 108 1 Sic homini (Si Co- 
 mini), 14 9 si ilia (Sulla), 17 24 potest olidum (pote 
 stolidum), 57 5 nece luentur (nee eluentur), 61 198 
 Pulcre res (Pulcer es), 63 23 menade sui (maenades ui), 
 63 47 estuanter usum (aestuante rusum), 65 3 dulcissi- 
 mus harum (dulcis musarum), 66 8 Ebore niceo (E Be- 
 roniceo), 66 11 Quare ex (Qua rex), 69 3 Nos ilia mare 
 (Non si illam rarae), 791 quid inquam (quidni quern) ; 
 and many more besides. Now that we have so much 
 of our verse, the rest will soon follow : out of Hunc we 
 have to get a dative referring to Mamurra and a con- 
 necting particle : the particle shall be et which so often 
 comes into or falls out of the beginning of a verse ; 
 thus in 61 211 we have ' Et ludite' for ' Ludite'. The 
 dative shall be huicne : ' Et huicne Gallia et metet 
 Britannia?' 'and now shall Gaul and Britain reap for 
 him?': 'Et huicne' exactly as in v. 6 'Et ille'. Plau- 
 tus, so different in some respects, is Catullus' own bro- 
 ther in love of familiar idiom; and he shall illustrate 
 our metaphor: mercat. 71 'Tibi aras, tibi oocas, tibi 
 seris : tibi item metes, Tibi denique iste pariet laetitiam 
 labos' ; mostell. 799 ' Sibi quisque ruri metit* ; epid. II
 
 102 CATVLLI 
 
 280* Mihi istic nee seritur nee metitur, nisi ea quae tu 
 uis uolo 1 . Huicne I prefer to Huice which I am not 
 sure Catullus would have used : ' hicne, haecne, hocne, 
 huncne, hacne, hasne', one or the other, I have met 
 with not only in Cicero and the Fronto palimpsest ; but 
 in Propertius, Statius, and again and again in Seneca's 
 tragedies, where the metre confirms them ; and huicne 
 is nearer the huiic of Mss. 
 
 And now for our final critical difficulty: I may 
 mention by the way that all recent editors in v. 21 
 make malum agree with hunc : though I should hesi- 
 tate to contradict them, I must say that I have always 
 thought it more emphatic as an interjection: 'why, the 
 mischief, do you pamper him, both of you?' his wrath 
 ever rising and now involving in it Pompey. In inter- 
 rogative sentences this use of * malum 1 is very common 
 in Plautus, not uncommon in Cicero and the most idio- 
 matic writers: 'qui, malum, bella aut faceta es?' 'quae 
 haec, malum, impudentia est?' and the like. Then in 
 v. 23 for the corrupt ' opulentissime' many conjectures 
 have been made which may be seen in Schwabe and 
 Ellis ; but since Lachmann most have adopted his cor- 
 rection 'o piissime', as completed that is to say by Haupt 
 who reads 'orbis, o piissimei Socer generque, p. o.' : This 
 has never seemed to me quite convincing, though I hesi- 
 tate to reject what so many great scholars have sanc- 
 tioned: but it is the united force of several different 
 objections that weighs with me : l o piissimei' is not 
 very wide of, and yet not so very near the Ms. reading ; 
 then it involves a second alteration of ' urbis ' to ' orbis', 
 slight enough in itself; but thus we have two changes, 
 one in a word which seems genuine: then I must say 
 the ' Socer generque' is to my mind much weakened by 
 having an epithet attached; still more is the force of
 
 OABM. 29 103 
 
 ' perdidistis omnia' impaired by 'orbis' being joined 
 with it : we can see from the letters to Atticus that 
 this was a favourite phrase of the ' boni' during the 
 three-headed tyranny: thus n 21 1 'iracundiam atque 
 intemperantiam illorum sumus experti, qui Catoni irati 
 omnia perdiderunt' ; I 1 65 'uel perire maluerint quam 
 perdere omnia'; xiv 1 1 'quid quaeris? perisse omnia 
 aiebat'; 14 3 * nonne meministi clamare te omnia perire, 
 si ille funere elatus esset': [comp. too Cato ad M. filium: 
 et hoc puta uatem dixisse, quandoque ista gens suas 
 litteras dabit, omnia conrumpet; (Cic.) epist. ad Brut. I 
 3 1 et certe, nisi is Antonium ab urbe auertisset, peri- 
 issent omnia.] How greatly the moral emphasis of these 
 words ' perdidistis omnia' is weakened by the addition 
 of orbis, may be seen from such a passage as this of 
 Livy, praefat. 12, where he is contrasting the present 
 with the good old times : ' nuper diuitiae auaritiam, et 
 abundantes uoluptates desiderium per luxum atque libi- 
 dinem pereundi perdendique omnia inuexere ' : by Mar- 
 tial too, ' Omnia perdiderant' is employed with much 
 effect. Moreover we cannot, to say the least, be sure 
 that Catullus would have ventured to use * piissimus', 
 when ten years later Cicero can say in philip. xm 43 
 ' tu porro ne pios quidem, sed piissimos quaeris, et quod 
 uerbum omnino nullum in lingua Latina est, id propter 
 tuam diuinam pietatem nouum inducis' : later it came 
 more into use, and indeed Pompeius comm. Donat. ap. 
 Keil v p. 154 says that Caper 'elaborauit uehementis- 
 sime et de epistulis Ciceronis collegit haec uerba, ubi 
 dixerat ipse Cicero piissimus' ; but this is very indirect 
 evidence, and Pompeius seems to blunder about this 
 philippic, and the word is not now found in Cicero's 
 letters. Lastly the allusion in the Catalecta 3 5 * Vt 
 iste uersus usquequaque pertinet, Gener socerque, perdi-
 
 104 CATVtLI 
 
 distis omnia' seems to me to speak strongly for the ab- 
 sence of an epithet in Catullus. Ellis, whether for such 
 reasons or others I do not know, does not accept this 
 reading and gives us ' (urbis o pudet meae) '. By this 
 he means I presume Rome, not Verona, though Caesar 
 probably was in Verona at this time: Catullus would 
 naturally so term what was, to use Cicero's phrase, his 
 patria naturae or loci; but for the poet to speak of 
 Rome, his patria ciuitatis or iuris, thus familiarly, strikes 
 me as at least strange. 
 
 What I propose to read is this : ' Eone nomine, 
 urbis ob luem ipsimae (issimae), Socer generque, per- 
 didistis omnia?' When ipsimae became issimae, as I 
 shall presently shew it would be likely to do in Mss. 
 such as those of Catullus, it is manifest how readily 
 obluemissimae would pass into opulentissime : we have al- 
 ready given above examples more than enough of words 
 perversely divided in our Ms. : just as common is it 
 either to divide one word into two or more : so 29 3 Nam 
 murram (Mamurram); 41 1 A me ana (Ameana), etc. 
 etc. : or, as I assume here, to make two or more words 
 into one: 21 5 exiocaris (es iocaris), 44 11 minantium 
 (in Antium), 45 17 sinistrauit (sinistra ut), 68 139 co- 
 tidiana (concoquit iram), 68 124 Suscitata (Suscitat a), 
 68 129 tuorum (tu horum), 76 11 instincteque (istinc 
 teque), 76 26 proprietate (pro pietate), 116 4 mittere- 
 musque (mittere in usque), etc. The prose Catullus, 
 Petronius, who like him at one and the same time 
 carries the language to the highest pitch of grace and 
 refinement and riots in the utmost licence of popular 
 idiom, will illustrate our ipsimae: ch. 63 'ipsimi nostri 
 delicatus decessit'; and 75 'tamen ad delicias femina 
 ipsimi annos quattuordecim fui:...ego tamen et ipsimae 
 satis faciebam. scitis quid dicam : taceo, quia non sum
 
 CARM. 29 105 
 
 de gloriosis: ceterum, quemadmodum di uolunt, domi- 
 nus in domo fact us sum, et ecce cepi ipsimi cerebellum': 
 ipsimus ipsima therefore = dominus domina. Buecheler 
 illustrates it with much learning: his note, p. 74, I 
 will here give the substance of: ipsa is thus used by 
 Catullus of Lesbia's sparrow 'suamque norat Ipsam' 
 =dominam; and in the Casina of Plautus the serua 
 says 'ego eo quo me ipsa misit'; and Buecheler believes 
 with much reason that in Catullus' 'mea dulcis Ipsi- 
 tilla, Meae deliciae' the name is a diminutive of Ipsa, 
 to express fondness. As ipse is a pyrrhic in the old 
 scenic writers, the p seems to have been scarcely 
 sounded, as in uol&ptate, and the vulgar pronunciation 
 appears to have been isse ; for Augustus superseded a 
 legatus consularis * ut rudi et indocto' for writing issi 
 for ipsi: Martial I 109 has an epigram on a lapdog Issa, 
 where seven times over the inferior Mss. read ipsa; and 
 Martial plays on the similarity of sound: 'Hanc...Picta 
 Publius exprimit tabella, In qua tarn similem uidebis 
 Issam, Vt sit tarn similis sibi nee ipsa': and on the 
 walls of Pompeii and on funeral urns are found ' euge 
 Issa', 'Aprodite issa', 'issa haue', 'issae suae', 'issulo 
 et delicio suo', terms all of familiar endearment. Ca- 
 tullus would not perhaps have hesitated to use such a 
 familiar expression, as ipsimae or issimae ; for we find 
 50 expressions like, ' carta loquatur anus', ' fama lo- 
 quetur anus', 'sacer hircus', 'ut decuit cinaediorem', 
 'inepta crura ponticuli', 'suppernata securi', 'iste meus 
 stupor', 'pater esuritionum', 'tuis ab unguibus reglu- 
 tina', ' cum isto Vappa', ' quidquid est domi cachinno- 
 rum', 'cacata carta', 'scabies famesque mundi', 'uetuli 
 Falerni', 'salaputium disertum'; and in our poem 'ista 
 uostra defututa mentula', 'lancinata sunt bona', ' uncta 
 deuorare patrimonia'.
 
 106 CATVLLT 
 
 ' Vrbis ipsimae ' then = dominae urbis or dominae 
 Romae: Ovid has ' dominae conditor urbis', 'domina re- 
 tinebit in urbe', 'dominam uenietis in urbem'; Martial 
 * domina in urbe' and ' domina ab urbe' ; Horace ' donii- 
 naeque Romae ', Martial ' dominae fastidia Romae ', 
 'Moenia dominae pulcherrima Romae', ' septem dominos 
 montes': for I uem compare Seneca's 'luem tantam Troiae 
 atque Achiuis', 'Helena pestis exitium lues Vtriusque 
 populi', 'ista generis infandi lues', 'sacra Thebarurn 
 lues', 'iste nostri generis exitium ac lues': Catullus 
 therefore means 'ob Mamurram, istam pestem dominae 
 urbis' : after shewing that he has ruined or is ruining 
 one province after another, he finishes with this bit- 
 terest of his taunts : ' Was it then on his account, for 
 this plague-sore of the mistress Town, O father- and 
 son-in-law, that ye have ruined all?' It now remains to 
 point out what Catullus probably refers to, and I must 
 quote at length the passage of Pliny twice before spoken 
 of: xxxvi 6 48 ' primum Romae parietes crusta mar- 
 moris operuisse totos domus suae in Caelio monte Cor- 
 nelius Nepos tradit Mamurram Formiis natum, equitem 
 Romanum, praefectum fabrum C. Caesaris in Gallia, ne 
 quid indignitati desit, tali auctore inuenta re ; hie 
 namque est Mamurra Catulli Veronensis carminibus 
 proscissus quern, ut res est, domus ipsius clarius quam 
 Catullus dixit habere quidquid habuisset comata Gallia. 
 namque adicit idem Nepos primum totis aedibus nullam 
 nisi e marmore columnam habuisse, et omnis solidas 
 e Carystio aut Lunensi': in these words Pliny, who 
 dearly loved a scandal and was like his nephew a great 
 admirer of their ' conterraneus' Catullus, makes up his 
 story by uniting with the poet's abuse Nepos' narrative 
 of facts. It is natural enough that Mamurra's wealth 
 and extravagance, combining with that scientific and
 
 CARM. 29 107 
 
 mechanical skill which Caesar's chief engineer officer 
 must have possessed, would induce him to indulge in 
 architectural display and in the invention of new forms 
 of construction and ornament ; and, as Catullus' very 
 abuse proves him to have been many years in the en- 
 joyment of great wealth, that already he had begun 
 the house which Nepos and Pliny speak of. Other 
 kinds of extravagance or pretension may have joined 
 to rouse the jealous and supercilious feelings of Catul- 
 lus' coterie towards the newly enriched upstart, as they 
 might regard him in their antagonism to Caesar and 
 Pompey: this would explain and point Catullus' last 
 and bitterest taunt, that he was the 'lues' of the mis- 
 tress town. The last I say; for to my taste the force 
 and beauty of the poem are greatly impaired by placing 
 either with Mommsen the four, or with Schwabe the 
 two concluding verses after v. 10, or by changing with 
 Ribbeck the order throughout ; nor do I agree with 
 Schwabe that the position which the last verse has in 
 the poem of the Catalecta, is no argument whatever 
 that it had the same place in our piece : the force and 
 point of the parody surely in some measure depend 
 upon that. 
 
 Our argument might have been illustrated by an 
 examination of other poems directed against Caesar or 
 Mamurra or both. I have referred above to the obscure 
 54th, the close of which is a manifest reference to our 
 poem: the 93rd, consisting of only two lines, is written 
 in a defiant tone towards Caesar, probably much about 
 the same time as our 29th. Towards the end there are 
 four obscure, unimportant and uninteresting, but most 
 insulting elegiac epigrams, addressed to Mamurra under 
 the name of Mentula which the 13th line of our poem 
 must have fastened upon him among the ' boni': these
 
 108 CATVLLI 
 
 four with some other of the later elegiac pieces the 
 world would willingly have let die. To one only of 
 them shall I refer in conjunction with the 57th : the 
 latter attacks both Caesar and Mamurra in a tone that 
 would be even more offensive than that of our 29th, if 
 its very excess of ribaldry did not loudly attest that it 
 was only meant for petulant banter, one part of it flatly 
 contradicting the other if taken in earnest. I shall con- 
 descend to say a word on two verses only, 6 and 7, 
 which, illustrated by what we know of Caesar, we shall 
 thus interpret: he and his first scientific officer, at the 
 end of the year 55 and beginning of 54, used to be 
 closeted together for hours every day in Verona, map- 
 ping out Gaul and arranging the march of the legions 
 and the movements of the fleet, so that all should be 
 assembled at the right moment in the Portus Itius for 
 the second invasion of Britain; relaxing themselves at 
 times by sketching out plans for draining the Pomptine 
 marshes and enlarging Rome by changing the course of 
 the Tiber. The 105th poem is as follows: 'Mentula 
 conatur Pipleum scandere montem : Musae furcillis prae- 
 cipitem eiciunt'; which rightly interpreted would mean 
 that Mamurra not only possessed the special acquire- 
 ments befitting Caesar's chief engineer; but had a taste 
 for general literature and poetry as well; and perhaps 
 retorted the insults of Catullus with less success, but 
 equal goodwill, and let him know what ' Ameana puella' 
 thought of him. But enough. 
 
 I have but little to add to the long exposition, re- 
 printed above and written about ten years ago. Thanks 
 to Grote and others we have now got over the habit,
 
 CARM. 29 109 
 
 which once prevailed, of building our judgments of 
 Athenian statesmen on the libels of Aristophanes or 
 Eupolis 1 . But we do not seem to have yet completely 
 learnt to extend the same justice to Romans, greater 
 than Cleon and equals at the least of Pericles, and to 
 treat with merited contempt the calumnies of Catullus 
 and Calvus, which have even a smaller basis of reality 
 than the scurrilous jests of Aristophanes. Catullus how- 
 ever belonged to one of the latest generations to which 
 law and opinion conceded this unbridled licence : he 
 himself can write with jaunty self-complacency ' Nil 
 nimium studeo, Caesar, tibi uelle placere Nee scire 
 utrum sis albus an ater homo' ; and he would have 
 been anything but flattered, if he could have read what 
 the grave Quintilian says of him in xi 1 38, negat se 
 rnagni facere aliquis poetarum, utrum Caesar ater an 
 albus homo sit, insania : uerte, ut idem Caesar de illo 
 dixerit, adrogantia est. Of course the almost unre- 
 stricted licence of assailing living personages which 
 Aristophanes and Catullus possessed or usurped gave 
 life to their attacks; and the strongest proof of Martial's 
 unrivalled genius for epigram is the never-failing vigour 
 and fecundity which his poems exhibit in dealing with 
 wholly fictitious persons and incidents : cum salua in- 
 fimarum quoque personarum reuerentia ludant ; quae 
 adeo antiquis auctoribus defuit, ut nominibus non tan- 
 tum ueris abusi sint, sed et magnis. 
 
 I have to make a few, and only a few, criticisms on 
 the criticisms which have been made on me. 4 ante : 
 I am surprised to see Ellis still argue for uncti. 8 haut 
 idoneus : this, the virtual reading of Mss., I still look 
 upon as giving the most satisfactory sense ; and I can- 
 not, tho' the latest editor Baehrens accepts ' Adoneus ', 
 
 1 Keno\\6irevKat' TOt-yapoiV fr-rfrvp Had.
 
 110 CATVLLI 
 
 see any suitableness in the comparison of the Catullian 
 Mamurra with the beautiful and chaste Adonis. 1 do 
 not deny that this or that passage may be found in 
 Greek, not Latin where one may be called an Adonis 
 for his beauty and youth alone. But Mamurra had 
 neither youth nor beauty : Ellis actually quotes ' niueum 
 Adonern ' from Propertius where the poet is talking of 
 Adonis' death by the boar's tusk ; but Mamurra was 
 not ' niueus ' and was not killed by a boar. 20 Et 
 huicne Gallia et metet Britannia; 1 am vain enough 
 still to prefer this conjecture to any that has been made 
 before or after it. Ellis still argues for his own con- 
 jecture, which wanders away from the Mss. and, as I 
 have endeavoured to shew above, yields no proper sense. 
 But a word an his criticisms of my reading : it ' has 
 always seemed to me unlike Catullus, mot only in the 
 position of ne, but in the place of metet, and the only 
 half-obscured assonance Gallia Britannia . The ' half- 
 obscured assonance ' is too refined for my ear, tho', as I 
 have observed elsewhere, I might, but would not, write 
 ' et metent (metet) Britanniae'. Then as to the ne I 
 protest it has, if not the only, yet far the best place it 
 can have in the verse : it cannot be annexed to Et. I 
 could cite 100 examples from all the best writers of ne 
 having a position such as it has in Horace's Praeter 
 cetera me Romaene poemata censes Scribere posse ? but 
 I will confine myself to two or three examples which 
 closely resemble Et huicne : Ter. Andr. 492 aut itane 
 tandem cet. ; eun. 848 Sed estne hie Thais? hec. 81 
 Sed uideon Philotimum ? Plaut. most. 522 Sed tu etiam- 
 ne rogas ? will this suffice ? But the place of metet ? 
 I presume he means that the natural position would be 
 ' et Britannia metet' : so it would be, but tho' Catullus 
 does not so often indulge, as Horace does, in these and
 
 CARM. 29 111 
 
 much more irregular arrangements of words, yet not 
 only have I cited from him elsewhere several very much 
 harsher collocations, such as: Non, ita me diui, uera 
 gemunt, iuerint : an excessively strange and awkward 
 sentence; but in the very next poem, 30 3 lam me pro- 
 dere, iam non dubitas fallere, perfide ? and also 5 Quom 
 tu neglegis ac me miserum deseris in malis, as I read, 
 exactly resemble our passage : the first of the two Ellis 
 must accept as a parallel. And surely to a criticism 
 like this a tu quoque is allowable : well, this is Ellis' 
 own verse 'Neque una Gallia aut metent Britanniae' ! 
 As I said above, I cannot believe Catullus would have 
 used the plur. ' Britanniae'. 
 
 21 malum : I proposed above with hesitation to 
 take this for the interjection: ' why, the mischief: this 
 usage is common enough in Cicero, and I had marked 
 down a passage, de off. II 53, which I observe is quoted 
 by Eh 1 is, beginning ' quae te, malum ! ratio', where 
 Cicero is translating a royal address of Philip to his 
 son Alexander. But, says Ellis, ' to me this seems be- 
 neath the dignity and the indignation of the poem'. 
 In proceeding to comment on the other half of the 
 verse : quid hie potest Nisi : he says it is a * comic 
 formula' : thus in one and the same verse an expression 
 which Cicero thinks not beneath the dignity and the 
 indignation of Philip r sober and angry, is beneath the 
 dignity and indignation of this verse; while a comic 
 formula is not. Truly Ellis applies a different standard 
 to his neighbour and to himseK The strongest argu- 
 ment perhaps, and one not mentioned by Ellis, for mak- 
 ing malitm the adjective, comes from Catullus himself, 
 64 175 Nee malus hic...hospes : but there the subst. 
 makes a decided difference ; and the repetition here of 
 'quid hie ' seems to me in favour of ' Quid hunc, nmlum ! '
 
 112 CATVLLI 
 
 But as I said above, I look on the point as a doubtful 
 one. 23 : No one I fear will ever decide what is to be 
 read here ; and I shall add nothing to what I have 
 already said. It strikes me now, as it struck me before, 
 to be a positive inanity for Catullus to say of Rome 
 'urbis o pudet meae', as Ellis makes him say; nor can 
 I accept the conjecture of the latest editor Baehrens. 
 
 24 Socer generque : there is certainly much to be 
 said for Baehrens' Gener socerque, as Virgil has it in 
 his parody. At the same time it does not strike me as 
 certainly true : the poet is thinking much more of Caesar 
 than Pompey, and might thus be disposed to put 'Socer' 
 first ; while, as Pompey was the elder, another might 
 be disposed to name him first ; and in the Aeneid ' Ag- 
 geribus socer cet.' the socer coming first is to me not 
 without weight. 
 
 I would now, with somewhat more knowledge on the 
 subject, add a very few words to what I have said above, 
 p. 68, 69, about the poet's praenomen and the time 
 of his birth. Ellis is, I verily believe, the one scholar 
 living who still maintains his first name was Quintus, 
 and not Gaius. Ellis appeals to the authority of Lach- 
 mann and Mommsen, as well as Scaliger. Lachmann, 
 whom Mommsen followed, was ignorant of both G and 
 O ; and took the interpolated Datanus for his chief 
 authority. This codex, written in the latter half of the 
 1 5th century, with one or two satellites, calls the poet 
 Q. Catulus, on the authority I believe of some inter- 
 polated Mss. of Pliny xxxvn 8 1 . But there not one of 
 Detlefsen's codices recognises this 'Q.', which is now 
 banished for evermore from the text of Pliny. But, 
 says Ellis (p. LIV), 'if the scribe of the Datanus was 
 sufficiently educated to take the praenomen from Pliny, 
 it is not likely that he would have made the mistake of
 
 CARM. 29 113 
 
 writing Catuli for Catulli'. Why, of the 3 best out of 
 the four Mss. whose readings Detlefsen gives us in this 
 part of Pliny, one has Catulius, the other two Catulus ; 
 and we find Catullus almost everywhere called Catulus 
 in mediaeval times. ' Besides, if the Q. was taken from 
 Pliny, we might expect to find in some one of the Mss. 
 of Catullus a G. or C. taken from Jerome, of which 
 there is no trace' : this argument I cannot even appre- 
 hend ; much less can I answer it. 
 
 I still hold it to be more probable that he was born 
 in 84 than in 87 B.C. Professor Sellar, in his interest- 
 ing account of Catullus in the Encycl. Britan., observes 
 with justice ' that the age at which a man dies is more 
 likely to be accurately remembered than the particular 
 date either of his death or of his birth. The common 
 practice of recording the ages of the deceased in sepul- 
 chral inscriptions must have rendered a mistake less 
 likely to occur in that respect than in respect of the 
 consulship in which he was born'. Mr Sellar argues 
 too that the ' iuuenalia ' in the passage from Ovid which 
 I have cited above, p. 73, is better suited to the age 
 of 30 than of 33 ; and this also I think with reason. 
 For tho' iuuenis is a very elastic term, and tho' Domitius 
 Marsus in his elegy on Tibullus, who died about the 
 age of 35, caUs him iuuenem, yet we must remember 
 that Marsus was about the same age as Tibullus. But 
 Ovid, when he wrote his epicedium on Tibullus, in which 
 the word in question occurs, was only about 25 ; and a 
 man of 25 does not see youth with the same eyes as an 
 older man does. And to my ear ' iuuenalia ' has a more 
 youthful ring than ' iuuenis.' 
 
 M. c.
 
 114 CATVLL1 
 
 30 16 
 
 Alfene inmemor atque unanimis false sodalibus, 
 iam te nil miseret, dure, tui dulcis amiculi ? 
 iam me prodere, iam non dubitas fallere, perfide ? 
 nee facta impia fallacum hominum caelicolis placent. 
 quom tu neglegis ac me miserum deseris in malis, 
 eheu quid faciant, die, homines cuiue habeant fidem? 
 
 6 quom scripsi, que V. 6 dico V. dice Ellis, perhaps rightly. 
 
 The only change which I have made on my own 
 account in these verses, the last four of which have 
 occasioned a good deal of difficulty to editors and in- 
 duced some of them to make various transpositions and 
 changes in the text, is in 5 to read Quom for Que, and 
 to connect it closely with the next line : this seems to 
 me to remove every difficulty. I assume that, e and o, 
 as I have said, being almost indistinguishable in some 
 predecessor of our Mss., que was copied from it instead 
 of quo: thus 96 3 Que O, Quo G, Quom Guarinus, 
 rightly I think : 66 79 quern V, quom Haupt rightly 
 (Corradinus de Allio) : if Ellis' dice in 6 be the poet's, 
 it is another example of o and e confused. 4 Nee for 
 non, so common in the older writers, I have illustrated 
 very fully on Lucr. u 23 : it has here, as often, the 
 force of ' not at all '. Ellis' defence of Quae shews that 
 he hardly thinks it can be defended. 
 
 31 714 
 
 O quid solutis est beatius curis, 
 
 cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino . 
 
 labore fessi uenimus nostrum ad larem
 
 CAEM. 30, 31 115 
 
 10 desideratoque acquiescimus lecto? 
 
 hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis. 
 salue, o uenusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude : 
 gaudete uosque, o uiuidae lacus undae : 
 ridete, quicquid est domi cachinnorum. 
 
 13 uosque o uiuidae scripsi. uos quoque lidie V. 
 
 This bright poem is in most parts as pellucid as its 
 own beautiful lake. In 1 the rare paene insula or paen- 
 insula is illustrated by Caes. bell. Gall, vi 36 2 paene 
 obsessionem ; and Yictorius uar. lect. ix 9 is worth com- 
 paring on Ocelle in 2. 8 peregr. Lab., ' labour under- 
 gone in foreign parts *, in contrast with 'larem nostrum ' 
 seems quite capable of defence : Baehrens reads 'Ab 
 orbe' for 'Lahore'. But comp. Mart* xm 29 Pruna 
 peregrinae carie rugosa senectae Sume : 'age acquired 
 in foreign parts': Livy in 16 4 id malum.^tum quoque 
 peregrino terrore sopitum uidebatur : 'by terror arising 
 from foreigners'; just as ib. 3 'terror seruilis' means 
 'terror caused by slaves', tho' it might mean 'terror 
 felt by slaves': comp. too 'praetor peregrinus' with 
 
 * mulier peregrina ' ' uir peregrinus'. 
 
 1 3 has given occasion to nearly as many conjectures 
 as 25 5 : ' uosque o lucidae', ' limpidae', ' uos quoque in- 
 citae', have all been proposed, and may any of them be 
 right. But neither Scaliger's ' ludiae ' nor Lachmaim's 
 
 * Libuae ' seems to me admissible ; nor again ' Lydiae' ; 
 for the transference of the epithet to ' undae ' is very 
 unlike Catullus, as well as the obtrusive antiquarian 
 reference, the parts hereabout once on a time having 
 belonged to the Etruscans, and the Etruscans being 
 supposed to have come from Lydia. My reading was 
 suggested by Mart, x 30 11 Hie summa leni stringitur 
 Thetis uento, Nee languet aequor, uiua sed quies ponti 
 
 82
 
 116 CATVLLI 
 
 Pictam phaselon adiuuante fert aura. My 'uiuidae' is 
 the same as the ' Nee languet ' and ' uiuae ' of Martial, 
 and is surely as appropriate to the Benacus as to the 
 Formian coast. Diplomatically too it is as near V, as 
 any of the other readings except ' Lydiae'. 
 
 37 
 
 9 Atqui putate: namque totius uobis 
 frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam. 
 
 Is sopionibus corrupt, as it would appear to be ? and, 
 if so, is any of the numerous conjectures that have been 
 made plausible enough to be received ? One must first 
 of all bring into comparison with it the often cited 
 passage in Petron. 22 cum Ascyltos tot malis in som- 
 num laberetur, ilia quae iniuria depulsa fuerat ancilla 
 totam faciem eius fuligine longa perfricuit et non senti- 
 entis labra umerosque sopitionibus pinxit. The two 
 contexts are so much alike, that it is a most singular 
 * lusus codicum', if there is no real connexion between 
 the two corrupt or apparently corrupt words. If there 
 is such connexion, the word we want must express 
 either the instrument and a very simple instrument 
 or the material employed. The material must have 
 been black to paint the lips ; as the preceding ' fuligine' 
 too implies, scipionibus can hardly be right ; for why 
 the plural ; nor scorpionibus ; for it is absurd to imagine 
 the man's lips painted with scorpions. Whether we 
 may assume an unknown word, as sopionibus with 
 Vossius (or ? sopitonibus) for 'sopitis carbonibus', I will 
 not attempt to decide. 
 
 But the whole resemblance may be a mere lusus, 
 and the editors of Petronius may be right in taking
 
 CABM. 31, 37 117 
 
 sopitionibus for the fragments of two words. This, as 
 might be expected, is a very common phenomenon in 
 Petronius : thus in the preceding line the corrupt 'fu- 
 ligine lenga' may represent something like ' fidiginis 
 linea longa' : in 45 at beg. I would read 'modo sic, 
 modo sic, inquit rusticus suario cum [uarium codices] 
 porcum perdiderat': h. e. suarius; nam rusticus in alieno 
 malo libentius quam in suo philosophari solet : in 77 
 * interim dum Mercurius uigilat, aedificaui hanc domum. 
 ut scitis, caecus career erat [cusuc erat codices], nunc 
 templum est : ' in 46 perhaps ' nee uno loco coiisistit. 
 scit bene [uene] itidem [set uenit dem codices] litteras, 
 sed non uult laborare.' 
 
 If Catullus then and Petronius are quite independ- 
 ent of one another, I will add one more conjecture to 
 the many that have been made on this uncertain verse : 
 namque totius uobis Frontem tabernae pusionibus scri- 
 bam : uobis is then the abl. in apposition with pusioni- 
 bus : ' I will scribble over the front of the whole tavern 
 with you, nice young sparks' probably both with their 
 names and caricatures of their persons. 2310 b of the 
 Pompeian wall-inscriptions ' Euplia hie cum hominibus 
 bellis', and comp. ib. 1473 Martialis uos irrum with 
 v. 8 of our poem. Perhaps CatuUus would write : Lesbia 
 hie cum bellis hominibus, Egnatio, cet. and might give a 
 caricature of Egnatius with his teeth and beard, pu- 
 sionibus would be the same as the ' pusilli et semitarii 
 moechi' of v. 16 : Apul. met. ix 7 at uero adulter, bellis- 
 simus ille pusio ; Cic. pro Caelio 36 (speaking to Clodia) 
 minimum fratrem,...qui te plurimum amat, qui...tecum 
 semper pusio cum minore sorore cubitauit. In v. 5 
 ' hircos ' can only mean ' olidos hircos': comp. the line, 
 applied to tjie 'hirsute atque olido seni' in Suet. Tib. 
 45 hircum uetulum Capreis naturam liguroire. ' Catul-
 
 118 CATVLLI 
 
 lus' says Ellis, 'after upbraiding the taberna and its 
 frequenters for lewdness, would scarcely contrast them 
 with an animal which is a type of this very quality'. 
 I hardly catch the meaning of this : it is not Catullus 
 who 'contrasts' them ; but these fine fellows who draw 
 the contrast themselves. 
 
 42 
 
 Adeste, hendecasyllabi, quot estis 
 omnes undique, quotquot estis omnes. 
 iocum me putat esse moecha turpis 
 et negat mihi uestra reddituram 
 5 pugillaria, si pati potestis. 
 
 persequamur earn, et reflagitemus. 
 quae sit quaeritis ? ilia quam uidetis 
 turpe incedere, mimice ac moleste 
 ridentem catuli ore Gallicani. 
 10 circumsistite earn, et reflagitate 
 'moeoha putida, redde codicillos, 
 redde, putida moecha, codicillos'. 
 non assis facis ? o lutum, lupanar, 
 aut si perditius potes quid esse. 
 
 15 sed non est tamen hoc satis putandum. 
 quod si non aliud pote, ut ruborem 
 ferreo canis exprimamus ore, 
 conclamate iterum altiore uoce 
 
 * moecha putida, redde oodicillos, 
 20 redde, putida moecha, codicillos'. 
 sed nil proficimus, nihil mouetur. 
 mutanda est ratio modusque nobis, 
 siquid proficere amplius potestis: 
 'pudica et proba, redde codicillos'. 
 
 16 pote, tit scripsi. potest V. 17 ore, Conclamate scripsi. ore. Concl. uulgo*
 
 CARM. 37, 42 119 
 
 I have printed the whole of this lively and humor- 
 ous poem, not that I have anything to say, in addition 
 to what has been said by others, on the greater part of 
 it ; but because I have long felt that there is a hitch 
 in one portion, and wish to make my reasons clear for 
 attempting to remove that hitch. I entirely go with 
 Ellis in thinking that Lesbia cannot be the object of 
 attack. 
 
 With vss. 11, 12 and 19, 20 I would compare Plaut. 
 most. 600 Mihi faenus reddat, faenus actutum mihi... 
 Cedo faenus, redde faenus, faenus reddite. Daturin estis 
 faenus actutum mihi ? Daturne faenus ? 141 keep 
 the potes of G and O, that is of V : Cic. ad Att. xi 18 2 
 sed hoc perditius, in quo nunc sum, fieri nihil potest ; 
 Xiv 1 1 nihil perditius, shew * perditius' not to be 
 'unique'. 8 Turpe : surely not ' strictly an adverb', 
 but the neut. ace. of the adjective, so often joined by 
 the poets with verbs denoting any bodily action, as 
 * Perfidum ridens Venus' : in one of the passages which 
 Ellis quotes from Cicero all editors now read 'turpi 
 pace'; in the other the adverb is 'hilare' from 'hilarus*. 
 13 o lutum, lupanar : Cic. in Pis, 62 o tenebrae, 
 lutum, sordes. 
 
 16 the manuscript reading here seems to me to 
 interrupt the simple and natural progress of the poem : 
 the words would properly mean: 'if nothing else can 
 extort a blush from her brazen face'. But even assum- 
 ing they can mean : ' if nothing else can be done, let us 
 extort a blush': even thus the plain purport of this 
 very simple poem is thwarted. The extorting a blush 
 must surely be the same as shaming her into doing 
 what we want. But in that case there is a most awk- 
 ward stop at the end of 17 ; and 18 proceeds as if there 
 was nothing between 15 and it. Westphal seems to
 
 120 CATVLLI 
 
 have sought to remedy this by putting 16 and 17 after 
 23, and reading Qvo, si for Quod si : my remedy is 
 much simpler and I think more efficacious : I change a 
 single letter only and alter the punctuation after ore: 
 ' if nothing else can do so, in order to extort a blush 
 from her brazen face, bawl out once more in louder 
 tones'. Catullus, like the older writers generally, em- 
 ploys pote for potest very freely; as 17 24, 45 5, etc. 
 We might retain potest and read : Ferreo ut canis ex- 
 primamus ore, Concl. ; but I prefer the other remedy. 
 
 45 
 
 Acmen Septimius suos amores 
 tenens in gremio 'mea' inquit 'Acme, 
 ni te perdite amo atque amare porro 
 ornnes sum assidue paratus annos 
 5 quantum qui pote plurimum perire, 
 solus in Libya Indiaque tosta 
 caesio ueniam obuius leoni'. 
 hoc ut dixit, Amor sinistra ut ante 
 dextram sternuit approbationem. 
 
 10 at Acme leuiter caput reflectens 
 et dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos 
 illo purpureo ore sauiata 
 'sic' inquit, 'mea uita Septimille, 
 huic uni domino usque seruiamus, 
 
 15 ut multo mihi maior acriorque 
 ignis mollibus ardet in medullis'. 
 hoc ut dixit, Amor sinistra, ut ante, 
 dextram sternuit approbationem. 
 nunc ab auspicio bono profecti 
 
 20 mutuis animis amant amantur.
 
 CARM. 42, 45 121 
 
 unam Septimius misellus Acmen 
 mauult quam Syrias Britanniasque : 
 uno in Septimio fidelis Acme 
 facit delicias libidinisque. 
 25 quis ullos homines beatiores 
 
 uidit, quis Yenerem auspicatiorem? 
 
 8 ut ante is corrupt. Perhaps sinister astans. 9 Dextra V. 
 
 The whole of this poem too, the most charming 
 picture in any language of a light and happy love, I 
 have printed, in order to make clear the view I take of 
 its action and motive, which seem to me not to have been 
 quite rightly apprehended even by those editors, Scaliger, 
 Vossius, Baehrens, etc,,, who have seen that v. 8 is corrupt. 
 The ut ante has probably, as Baehrens says, come from 
 17, and may have displaced something quite different, 
 such as 'sinister ipse', or 'manu sinistra' but my sug- 
 gested 'sinister astans' gives the sense that is required. 
 The scene which the poet paints is quite distinct to 
 my mind, while from Ellis' notes I cannot gather how 
 he represents the situation to himself; and Baehrens' 
 ' sinistra ab Acme', as well as his punctuation of 17, 
 is not compatible with my view of the matter. 
 
 Septimius is resting on a couch of some kind and 
 is leaning with his right side against it: Acme is re- 
 clining on his bosom. They are both therefore looking 
 more or less towards the left. Septimius declares that 
 he loves her as dearly as mortal man can love. The 
 moment he has said this, Love well-pleased, standing 
 on their left, sneezes at them approval towards the 
 right (as he must do, being as he is on their left). Then 
 Acme, slightly bending back her head and kissing the 
 sweet boy's eyes drunken with passion (which he would 
 hold down to meet her lips), protests that her passion
 
 122 CATVLLI 
 
 is much stronger than his. The moment she had 
 spoken this, Love on the left hand, just as before, 
 sneezed at them approval towards the right. The 
 twice-repeated omen encouraged them in their passion : 
 * Now starting from so fair an augury, soul answering 
 soul, they love, are loved again'. 
 
 The poem, thus explained, is surely simple enough 
 and keeps clear of all the ' difficulty' in which Ellis in- 
 volves himself and it. 3 te perdite amo: 'amare coepit 
 perdite' occurs twice in Terence, amare: this is more 
 emphatic than Froelioh's conjecture ' amore', accepted 
 by Schwabe: 'te' then belongs to 'amo', to 'amare' 
 and to 'perire'; for, since Catullus has in 35 12 Ilium 
 deperit inpotente amore, and in 100 2 'depereunt' 
 with the accus. simply and without 'amore', and as 
 Plautus Poen. iv 2 135 has the less usual 'hie alteram 
 efflictim perit', also without ' amore', there seems no 
 reason to refuse to Catullus the same construction 
 'perire te'; and ' amore' without an epithet would cer- 
 tainly be weak. With the change of word in ' amare 
 ...Quantum qui pote perire, I would compare Mart, x 
 86 1 Nemo noua caluit sic inflammatus arnica, Flagrauit 
 quanto Laurus amore pilae. There is even a greater 
 hitch in Cat. 96 5 non tanto mors inmatura dolorist 
 Quintiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo. 12 comp. 
 
 Apul. apol. 403 oris sauia purpurei. 
 
 54 
 
 [Eeprinted from the Journal of Philology, vol. 5 p. 801 304] 
 
 The lost manuscript of Catullus, from which di- 
 rectly or indirectly all the others are derived, would 
 appear to have handed down this trivial and uninter-
 
 CARM. 45, 54 123 
 
 esting poem in the following shape, if we take no 
 account of two verses repeated without meaning from a 
 former poem, or of the heading which belongs to the 
 next poem and has been wrongly inserted in this one : 
 
 Otonis caput oppido est pusillum 
 et eri rustice semilauta crara 
 subtile et leue peditum libonis 
 si non omnia displicere uellem 
 tibi et sufficio seniore cocto 
 irascere iterum meis iambis 
 inmerentibus unice imperator. 
 
 In the third number of our Journal I examined at 
 some length the 29th poem in which Caesar and his 
 friend Mamurra are assailed with so much wit and tru- 
 culent virulence. The last two lines of our present 
 poem contain a direct reference to the other, the unice 
 imperator here distinctly pointing to the imperator 
 unice there. It is however for critical purposes only 
 that I now discuss this 54th poem, not for any his- 
 torical or personal references, which are altogether un- 
 known and, if they were known, would probably turn 
 out to be of no importance whatever. 
 
 Three slight and manifest corrections were soon 
 made in the manuscript text : Otonis 1 at once became 
 Othonis; for sufficio, which does not appear to be a 
 Latin name, from the time of Scaliger Fufieio or Fu- 
 fecio, a well-known name, has been generally read ; and 
 seni recocto soon took the place of the unmeaning and 
 
 1 Otonis I take to be the reading of the archetype, not the Octonis of most 
 of the existing Mss. The Latin ct became t or tt in Italian; and for this 
 reason an Italian would instinctively translate his own tt back into ct : Giotto 
 calls himself loctus. For otonis then a scribe would at once write octonis, 
 which he would know to be a Latin word. For similar reasons I believe the 
 archetype had eri, not heri, in the second line. [Catullus probably wrote 
 'Otonis', as Baehrens now prints it.]
 
 124 CATVLLI 
 
 unmetrical seniore cocto, Scaliger clinching this emen- 
 dation by these words : ' glossarium interpretatur ciTre- 
 (f)0ov yepovra cum hunc locum in animo haberet*. 
 
 But after these obvious changes have been made, 
 most of the critics, old and new, look upon the poem as 
 mutilated and unintelligible. Victorius speaks of its 
 Cimmerian darkness ; Muretus says that a Sibyl alone 
 could interpret it, that it manifestly consists of muti- 
 lated fragments of different epigrams, incapable of being 
 understood or corrected. Scaliger's emendations are 
 clumsy and his explanations wrong. Of recent editors 
 two of the most eminent, Lachmann and Haupt, as- 
 sume two lacunae, one after the third, the other after 
 the fifth line. I will quote the poem in the shape in 
 which it is presented to us by the two most recent cri- 
 tical editions. Ellis prints it thus : 
 
 Othonis caput oppido est pusillum ; 
 fet Heri rustice, semilauta crura, 
 subtile et leue peditum Libonis. 
 
 at non effugies meos iambos 
 
 si non omnia displicere uellem 
 tibi et Sufficio seni recocto 
 
 irascere iterum meis iambis 
 inmerentibus, unice imperator. 
 
 The verse in Italics is a fragment of Catullus which 
 Ellis supposes to belong to this poem ; which in Lucian 
 Mueller's edition becomes two poems and assumes the 
 following shape :
 
 CARM. 54 125 
 
 LOU 
 
 Othonis caput oppidost pusillum 
 
 * * * 
 
 Neri rustica semilauta crura, 
 
 subtile et leue peditum Libonis. 
 
 * * * 
 
 si non omnia displicere uellem 
 tibi et Fuficio seni recocto 
 
 Irascere iterum meis iambis 
 inmerentibus, unice imperator. 
 
 Though I dissent with diffidence from so many 
 eminent authorities, I cannot conceal my belief that 
 the poem is quite entire and unmutilated, and that the 
 change of one other letter will render it perfectly intel- 
 ligible, dispel the Cimmerian darkness and enable us to 
 dispense with the Sibyl's assistance. Before offering 
 any further explanations I will print the poem as I 
 think Catullus may have written it : 
 
 Othonis caput (oppido est pusillum) 
 et, trirustice, semilauta crura, 
 subtile et leue peditum Libonis, 
 si non omnia, displicere uellem 
 tibi et Fuficio seni recocto : 
 irascere iterum meis iambis 
 inmerentibus, unice imperator. 
 
 The proper interpretation of the whole poem ap- 
 pears to me to depend primarily on the right under- 
 standing of the words si non omnia ; and for this 
 
 uia prima salutis, 
 quod minime reris, Graia pandetur ab urbe;
 
 126 CATVLLT 
 
 or rather, I should say, not from a Greek city, but 
 from the city of the Trojan Antenor. It is not known 
 who Otho or Libo or Fuficius was, but it is plain that 
 the poet means to say that Otho and Libo were fa- 
 vourites of Caesar and Fuficius, standing in the same 
 relation to the former as he had scurrilously described 
 Mamurra as doing in the 29th poem. I could wish, he 
 says, that Otho's head (right puny it is) and, you tho- 
 rough clown, those half-washed legs of his, and Libo's 
 offensive habits, if not everything else about them, 
 should disgust you. Then pretending to recall his for- 
 mer quarrel with Caesar, he breaks off abruptly with 
 the words, ' you will be enraged a second time with my 
 innocent iambics, O general without peer'. 
 
 Vulpius of Padua saw, as I have said, that this was 
 the meaning of si non omnia, and he has illustrated the 
 expression from Cicero pro Sestio 7 ut ille...si non 
 omnem, at aliquem partem maeroris sui deponeret. But 
 the phrase may be illustrated by other passages which 
 I have given in my note on Lucretius in 406 Si non 
 omnimodis, at magna parte animai Priuatus ; n 1017 
 Si non omnia sunt, at multo maxima pars est Consi- 
 milis; Lucil. I 33 Muell. Si non amplius, at lustrum hoc 
 protolleret unum. The at in these passages makes the 
 antithesis more distinct, but it can hardly be necessary 
 in a style like that of Catullus. 
 
 Schwabe, and before him Doering, accept the expla- 
 nation of Vulpius, but like most of the editors they 
 make more than one quite unnecessary alteration in the 
 text. Thus nearly all omit the est of v. 1 ; but the pa- 
 renthesis appears to me to add force to the expression ; 
 and parentheses are a very marked feature of most 
 Latin styles, as I have shewn in my Lucretius. With 
 our present passage compare Seneca Hippol. 35 At
 
 CARM. 54 127 
 
 Spartanos (genus est audax Auidumque ferae) nodo 
 cautus Propiore liga. Then in v. 2 Schwabe with most 
 others changes rustice to rustica ; but the vocative is 
 much more spirited and emphatic, the semilauta crura 
 marking the coarse rustic. Of course I do not pretend 
 that my reading 'Et, trirustice' is more than plausible; 
 but I change but a single letter, and T and E are among 
 the letters most frequently confused. With trirusticus 
 I would compare not only trigeminus, but also Plautus 
 trifur, trifurcifer, triparcus, triuenefica. It is possible 
 Catullus wrote ter rustice ; it is quite possible too that 
 a new name lurks in the manuscript reading, such as 
 Heri, which many adopt. But, I confess, I think that 
 the passage is more spirited without this third name, 
 and that it is more probable Catullus should speak of 
 Caesar and Fuficius as having the same relations with 
 the same two persons than with the same three. This 
 point however must remain uncertain : on the general 
 meaning of the whole poem I feel no uncertainty what- 
 ever ; or rather I would say that I should have felt 
 none, if so many distinguished scholars had not found 
 it so unintelligible. 
 
 I have not much to add to what I have reprinted 
 above. The latest editor of the text Baehrens believes 
 it like me to be one poem; but I confess he makes 
 changes in the text which seem to me to be unneces- 
 sary. Ellis adheres to his former opinion: he gives four 
 pleas for rejecting my arrangement, the third of which 
 I will first examine: 'Even if we allow the first five 
 lines to be consecutive, the aposiopesis before 'Irascere 
 iterum' is immeasurably harsh, not to say unintelli- 
 gible'. I deny that there is any 'aposiopesis' at all;
 
 128 CATVLLI 
 
 and I affirm that, so far from the transition being harsh 
 or unintelligible, on it depends the main point of the 
 poem : the poet in the first five lines makes his charge ; 
 and then bethinking himself of the similar charges he 
 had made in 29, and of the proconsul's wrath which it 
 had excited, he says : Irascere iterum meis iambis In- 
 merentibus, unice imperator : the last words at once 
 recalling that poem and its imperator unice. What is 
 there that is harsh or unintelligible here ? Take the 
 following transition, with an ' aposiopesis' as well, in 
 Cic. pro Mil. 33 : De nostrum omnium non audeo 
 totum dicere. uidete quid ea uitii lex habitura fuerit, 
 cuius periculosa etiam reprehensio est. There you have 
 something harsh and, if not unintelligible, yet not to 
 be cleared up by any one now living, while I think I 
 have made Catullus' meaning clear enough. Take again 
 Mart, x 9 Vndenis pedibusque syllabisque Et multo 
 sale, nee tamen proteruo, Notus gentibus ille Martialis 
 Et notus populis quid inuidetis ? Non sum Andrae- 
 mone notior caballo. Is that less harsh than our poem? 
 His fourth plea is this : ' Nothing is gained by in- 
 terpreting the poem as a complete whole': my answer 
 is that I think something is gained. His first plea, 
 like the fourth, seems merely to be a plea in mitigation 
 of his own most singular arrangement : the Mss. 'repeat 
 here (as is by no means unusual with them) two lines 
 which belong to another poem; therefore they may 
 have also perpetrated the other enormities which he 
 takes them to be guilty of; but from which I have 
 rescued them. The second plea does not touch at all my 
 general argument: 'The Mss point to a proper name'. 
 I have fully admitted that they may; but my reasons 
 for thinking they did not were a quite subordinate, or 
 rather a quite indifferent, point in the general argu-
 
 CARM. 54, 55 129 
 
 ment. But why Et eri, the reading of V, should not 
 come as easily from Et tri rustice, as from a proper 
 name, I confess I do not see. The reason I have given 
 above for my reading is 'that it is more probable Catul- 
 lus should speak of Caesar and Fuficius as having the 
 same relations with the same two persons than with 
 the same three'. I now go farther, and think it likely 
 that Catullus, using a peculiarity of syntax common in 
 Latin, meant to say that Caesar had such relations with 
 Otho alone ; Fuficius with Libo alone : comp. Mart, n 
 2 1 Creta dedit magnum, maius dedit Africa nomen, 
 Scipio quod uictor quodque Metellus habet; VI 13 7 
 Vt Martis reuocetur amor summique tonantis A te 
 luno petat ceston et ipsa Venus; xi 48 Silius haec 
 magni celebrat monimenta Maronis, lugera facundi qui 
 Ciceronis habet. Heredem dominumque sui tumulique 
 larisque (so Mss. ue-ue editions) Non alium mallet Nee 
 Maro nee Cicero. 
 
 I cannot say I approve of Baehrens' correction of 
 v. 1 : is not ' pusillum os' at the end of it an elision 
 unexampled in Catullus? His correction of 4 is cer- 
 tainly not an obvious one : to confirm my own reading 
 I would cite, in addition to those given above, Cic. 
 epist. xvi 24 1 A Flamma, si non potes omne, partem 
 aliquam uelim extorqueas : where, as in Catullus, at is 
 absent. 
 
 55 1, 2 and 710 
 
 % 
 
 Oramus, si forte non molestum est, 
 2 demonstres ubi sint tuae tenebrae.... 
 7 femellas omnes, amice, prendi, 
 
 quas uultu uidi tamen sereno. 
 M.C. 9
 
 130 CATVLLI 
 
 a uel te sic ipse flagitabam: 
 10 'Camerium mihi, pessimae puellael' 
 
 8 sereno. serena V. 9 ipse. perhaps usque, inde Baelirens. 
 
 I will examine one sentence only of this involved 
 and stiff poem, as nearly all the editors seem to have 
 introduced unnecessary and hurtful changes there. 7 'I 
 seized hold of all the wenches, whom I saw notwith- 
 standing wear an untroubled countenance : ah, even so 
 I continued to demand you of them: Camerius I want, 
 you naughty girls', sereno in 8 is the simplest cor- 
 rection: comp. too Mart, n 11 1 Quod fronte Selium 
 nubila uides, Rufe. 9 I keep the Ms. reading, which 
 editors have changed in very various ways. If any 
 change is needed, I would simply read ' A ! te uel sic': 
 but this interposition of te between uel and sic is not 
 I think unidiomatic: comp. Tib. (Sulpicia) iv 11 3 A! 
 ego non aliter tristes euincere morbos Optarim quam te 
 si quoque uelle putem ; Mart, iv 1 9 12 Nee sic in Tyria 
 sindone cultus eris: i.e. ne in Tyria quidem sindone 
 sic: ix 8 9 Dilexere prius pueri iuuenesque senesque; 
 At nunc infantes te quoque, Caesar, amant : quoque has 
 such a position more than once in Lucretius : Illud in 
 his quoque te rebus, tamen : though I thus seized upon 
 them, they were quite untroubled, as if they knew 
 themselves to be innocent. But Baehrens seems to me 
 right in asserting that ipse has no meaning: Ellis says: 
 'with my own lips'; but how else could he ask? my 
 usque suits the imperf. flagitabam well. 10 to illustrate 
 the omission of the verb, see my note on 10 25.
 
 OARM. 55, 57 131 
 
 57 
 
 Pulcre conuenit improbis cinaedis, 
 Mainurrae pathicoque Caesarique. 
 nee rhirum : maculae pares utrisque, 
 urbana altera et ilia Formiana, 
 5 impressae resident nee eluentur : 
 morbosi pariter, gemelli, utrique 
 imo in lecticulo, erudituli ambo, 
 non hie quam ille magis uorax adulter, 
 riuales sociei puellularum. 
 10 pulcre conuenit improbis cinaedis. 
 
 7 lecticulo Baehrens. lectulo G uulgo. 
 
 This short poem is on the same theme, and displays 
 the same amazing impudence, as the 29th. All that I 
 have to say on the personal and historical questions 
 with which they deal has been discussed so fully in my 
 comments on that 29th poem, that I can wholly dis- 
 miss them here. I think it well worth while however 
 to examine the structure of the poem itse]f, as by a 
 better punctuation I can, if I am not mistaken, both 
 add to its point and do away with all occasion for 
 tampering with the text which appears to be perfectly 
 sound. 
 
 And first I would say that in v. 7 the lecticulo of 
 O seems to me, as to Baehrens, to be almost certainly 
 right, and to be one of the many gains for the text of 
 Catullus which we owe to O and to O alone. I do not 
 mean to say that the prosody of lectulS is impossible ; 
 but no scholar will deny I think that lecticulo gives us 
 a rhythm far more in accordance with the technical 
 rules which Catullus observes in his hendecasyllables. 
 
 92
 
 132 CATVLLI 
 
 Bat the form of the word ? The two first declensions 
 form their diminutives as a rule by the addition of 
 -ul : uillula, mannulus, paruulus, pallidulus, puellus 
 (puerulus), and a multitude of like forms : therefore 
 * lectus, -i, lectulus ; pannus, -i, pannulus '. The third 
 adopts a lengthened form, -tcul, sometimes -ecul : cau- 
 liculus, colliculus, tristiculus, nubecula, uulpecula and 
 the like. The fourth declension in this as in many 
 other points follows the laws of the third : uersiculus, 
 articulus, quaesticulus, anicula, manicula, corniculum. 
 Now we learn from the lexicons that ' pannibus ' is 
 quoted from Ennius by Charisius, from Pomponius by 
 Nonius : it was therefore once of the 4th as well as the 
 2nd decl., and consequently we find 'panniculus' as 
 well as 'pannulus'. Ussing on Plaut. Amph. 509 (513) 
 cites Priscian vi 73, who quotes Cornificius for the 
 nom. plur. lectus, and this passage of Plautus for the 
 gen. sing, lectus, and he is supported in this by the 
 Mss. of Plautus : lectus therefore was once of the 4th 
 decl. and conformably with this Catullus uses ' lecti- 
 culo'. 
 
 6 and 7 : The exact force and meaning of these two 
 verses I have brought out by a punctuation differing 
 from that of all the editors, who join 'gemelli utrique', 
 or else have recourse to conjecture, Haupt reading 
 tenelli, Baehrens macelli, for the quite genuine gemelli. 
 ' Tainted alike, true twin-brothers, both together on a 
 single sofa, most learned witlings both*. Horace in his 
 satires and epistles uses gemellus with much the same 
 sarcastic force as Catullus and may have had him in his 
 thoughts: we should compare too 100 3 hoc est, quod 
 dicitur illud Fraternum uere dulce sodalicium ; which 
 shews the expression to be proverbial, utr. uno in lect. : 
 Cic. in Pis. 67 Graeci stipati, quini in lectis, saepe
 
 CARM. 57, 59 133 
 
 plures, ipse solus; Mart, iv 40 5 Tecum ter denas nu- 
 meraui, Pontice, brumas ; Commimis nobis lectus et 
 unus erat. 
 
 I would strengthen my argument on these two 
 verses by calling in one whose aid I have often in- 
 voked already. Martial knew Catullus so thoroughly 
 that I feel he had their words and rhythm in his mind 
 when he wrote the last two lines of his ironical epigram, 
 xii 40; the last 7 verses of which I will cite: Succurras 
 misero, precor, furori Et serues aliquando neglegenter 
 Illos qui male cor meum perurunt, Quos et noctibus et 
 diebus opto In nostro cupidus sinu uidere, Formosos, 
 niueos, pares, gemellos, Grandes, non pueros, sed uni- 
 ones. 
 
 On v. 2 Ellis says : ' The que, joined as it is with 
 pathico and thus standing between Mamurrae and 
 Caesarique, distributes the vice equally to both': I am 
 quite unable to see how que does this ; it seems to me 
 a simple instance of que joined with the 2nd instead of 
 the 1st word of the clause, a usage not uncommon in 
 Lucretius and some other writers: comp. also 76 11 
 atque istinc teque reducis. I doubt too whether Catul- 
 lus meant pathico to refer at all to Caesar, tho' Schwabe 
 also, quaest. p. 189, maintains it does. 1: Comp. 
 Petron. 94 et ego iracundus sum et tu libidinosus : 
 uide quam non conueniat his moribus. 
 
 59 
 
 1 : If rufulum is the true correction of the Ms. 
 rufum, I would read 
 
 Bononiensis rufa rufulum fellat 
 uxor Meneni.
 
 134 CATVLLI 
 
 I feel pretty sure that rufa is an epithet, not a name ; 
 for what point is there in the two names being the 
 same ? rufus was a common term of reproach : Ter. 
 heaut. 1061 rufamne illam uirginem, Caesiam, cet. ; 
 Plant, asin. II 3 20 Macilentis malis, rufulus, aliquan- 
 tum uentriosus, cet.; Mart, n 32 Cur non basio te, 
 Philaeni? calua es: Cur non basio te, Philaeni? rufaes: 
 cet. with a point at the end which recalls our verse, 
 like the Pompeian inscription 2421 rufa, itauale, quare 
 bene felas : Mart, xn 324 uxor rufa crinibus septem ; 
 54 Crine ruber, niger ore, cet. : Catullus himself, 67 46 
 ne tollat rubra supercilia. rufulum I thought of long 
 ago; and Ellis too I see refers to this word, tho' he 
 retains the proper name. These rufvli, a peculiar kind 
 of 'tribuni militum', were often appointed through mere 
 favour by generals or consuls ; often too they were idle 
 young men of fashion. I was prepared to illustrate the 
 subject; but its elaborate treatment by Marquardt, 2nd 
 ed. ii p. 353 foil., supersedes the necessity of doing this. 
 I think it however not improbable that the poet wrote 
 'Rufum anuf fellat': the anvf might easily fall out 
 between um and/ 3 comp. Ter. eun. 491 E flamma 
 petere te cibum posse arbitror. 
 
 61 
 
 What I chiefly wish to dwell upon at present in 
 this long and charming epithalamium is a question 
 with regard to its metre, a question not without inter- 
 est, as much of the beauty of the poem depends on its 
 gay and elastic- rhythm. One of the most striking 
 characteristics of this and of that other gly conic poem,
 
 CARM. 59, 61 135 
 
 the 34th, written in stanzas of four lines, is their strict 
 observance of the Greek law of the synaphia. Every 
 verse of the stanza, except the last which ends with a 
 long or short at pleasure and takes no account what- 
 ever of what follows, must end with a long syllable, and 
 a final vowel or m must not remain unelided before a 
 vowel at the beginning of the next verse. The obser- 
 vance of this law by Catullus gives to his glyconics 
 much of their charm and spirit; and its neglect by 
 Horace is in my opinion one of the gravest defects in 
 his glyconics and asclepiads. It will be seen however 
 that in his fourth book his rhythm does not depart so 
 widely from this law, as in his earlier books. 
 
 The 34th poem offers no metrical difficulty; but in 
 our 61st all the recent editors without exception, obey- 
 ing a ukase of Lachmann, have, greatly I think to the 
 detriment of the poem, divided the stanza of five lines 
 into two of three and two lines respectively. The rea- 
 son for so doing is the following: according to most of 
 their texts, in no less than 10 instances between v. 116 
 and 182 and in one other case of which I will speak 
 farther on this law would otherwise be violated : mo- 
 dum j 0; abstine | O; eat | O; seruiat [ O; annuit | 
 O; forem | O; tibi | O; magis | O; uiri | O; puellularn 
 | 0. In these verses too they change no less than 22 
 times the Ms. io into o : if this be right, it points to de- 
 signed interpolation in our Mss., the motive for which 
 is not easy to detect. I would moreover call attention 
 to the fact, that in vss. 4, 5, 39, 40, 49, 50, 59, 60; 
 as well as in vss. 5, 10, 19, 25, 31, 38, 48, and 66 of 
 the other epithalamium, the 62nd poem, in all of which 
 the metre requires o before Hymen or Hymenaee, the 
 Mss. always give us o, never io. I would further ob- 
 serve that if in the ten instances, enumerated above,
 
 136 CATVLLI 
 
 nunc we will say were substituted for io, the rule of the 
 s jnaphia and of the long final syllable would be observ- 
 ed in every case: if too in the line which. always follows 
 each of those ten lines specified, as well as in v. 1 43 
 (150), this nunc took the place of Io, the collision be- 
 tween io | would be avoided. For mark this : while 
 in 34 the last line of the stanza, and in our 61 every 
 5th line, end quite indifferently with a long or a short 
 syllable: Luna, Hymenaee, nupta", etc.: this is never 
 the case with the third verse of the stanza in 6 1 : here 
 the nunc would always restore the synaphia in full 1 . 
 
 I come now to the main point : in all the 22 verses, 
 affected by it, I substitute Jo for Io as Dawes suggest- 
 ed long ago, at the commencement; but I would not 
 do this at the end of any verse : for example 
 
 Tollite, o pueri, faces: 
 flammeum uideo uenire. 
 ite, concinite in modum 
 jo Hymen Hymenaee io, 
 jo Hymen Hymenaee. 
 
 If this jo be conceded, all difficulty will disappear. 
 Of course io (to>) follows as a rule the Greek usage ; 
 and yet I believe that traces are to be found in popular 
 and idiomatic Latin of the word, in conformity with 
 Latin organs of speech, having become a monosyllable 
 jo at the beginning of a line or a phrase. The word is 
 not a common one in the popular styles : it does not 
 
 1 Ellia and Baehrens retain the io, but yet both of them divide the stanza 
 into two : Ellis observes : ' Sed primum io monosyllabum esse, bisyllabum 
 alterum docent Dawesius Misc. Grit. p. 33, Vmpfenbachius in Melet. Plant, 
 p. 23. cf. Quid. Met. v 625 Et bis io Arethusa uocauit io Arethusa. Mart, xi 2 5 
 Clamant ecce mei io Saturnalia uersus'. What Ellis' precise notion of the word 
 is, I don't quite catch : in the line he quotes from Ovid, as elsewhere in that 
 poet, to is a dissyll.
 
 CARM. 61 137 
 
 occur in Terence; and is found I believe in only two 
 passages of Plautus: Pseudolus 702 and 703 is thus 
 given in the Mss. io | lo tete turanne te rogo qui im- 
 peritas Pseudolo : Bitschl arranges the passage thus : 
 
 io 
 t6, io te, turanne, te uoc6, qui inperitas Pseudolo: 
 
 would not the following be nearer the Mss. and more 
 energetic ? 
 
 io, 
 jo te te, turdnne, te rog<5, qui imperitas Pseudolo 1 . 
 
 The word occurs again in the Casina iv 3 3 and 10: 
 from lack of proper manuscript material I can say 
 nothing of 1 ; but 3 seems to stand thus in the codices : 
 To Hymen Hy menace io Hymen quid agis mea salus: 
 I would propose 
 
 J6 Hymen Hymenae'e, jo jo Hymen ! | Quid agis, mea 
 salus. 
 
 In Bibbeck's Com. frag. p. 273 we have a line of 
 Aprissius (?), preserved by Varro, which rhythm and 
 alliteration surely require to be written, as I have 
 written it : Vt quiritare urbanorum, sic iubilare rusti- 
 corum: itaque hos imitatus Aprissius ait 
 
 Jo bucco! | quis me jubilat? | uicinus tuus antfquus. 
 
 Another popular phrase, found in Petronius 58 and 
 Inscrip. Pompei. 2005 a, was 'io Saturnalia': now Mar- 
 tial writes in xi 2 5 Clamant ecce mei 'jo Saturnalia' 
 uersus : for the conjectures, uos, iam, bona, are all weak 
 and improbable. No doubt the Latins observed the 
 
 1 I have just got the new analecta Plautina : p. 169 Loewe's reading of A 
 gives to it rogo, not uoco.^and supports the te te of FZ against the te tete of 
 BCD. Perhaps we should read 'jo te r6go', which would improve the rhythm.
 
 138 CATVLLI 
 
 general rule of representing a Greek i by i; but io, 
 having been so long in popular use, may have come to 
 be regarded almost as a Latin word. And Horace at 
 the beginning of a verse turns into a j the first syllable 
 of the Greek lulus: Jule, ceratis ope daedalea; while 
 the Romans did not hesitate so to treat foreign words, 
 which came into Latin through the Greek, as Judaeus. 
 
 Another thing is worth noting in regard to io : V 
 all the 11 times that the line 'Io Hymen Hymenaee' 
 recurs, added at the end another ' io '. This is strange, 
 because it is not likely to have been interpolated in 
 any manuscript which was written at a time when 
 metre was understood ; and on the other hand, when 
 our archetype V was written, the world was so entirely 
 ignorant of Catullus' lyrical metres, that, tho' a scribe 
 might by accident have taken it from the preceding 
 verse once or twice, he is not likely to have done so 
 consistently. But another equally curious fact is to be 
 observed : all the four times that the verse ' O Hymen 
 Hymenaee ' recurs, V added ' Hymen ' at the end. I 
 am disposed to explain this curious double phenomenon 
 as follows: this 'io' and this ' Hymen', thus placed 
 extra metrum, perhaps were added in this way to mark 
 the fact that after each stanza ending with ' O Hymen 
 Hymenaee' and with 'Jo Hymen Hymenaee', the 
 chorus made a pause, and shouted in the one case 
 ' Hymen ', in the other ' io r , it may be in a louder tone, 
 it may be more than once. 
 
 This too makes it impossible in my opinion to main- 
 tain that our stanza of five lines is really two stanzas, 
 of three and two lines respectively : one of the essential 
 properties of these glyconic odes is that the stanza end 
 with a completed sentence, the final syllable being 
 quite independent of the stanza following. The same
 
 CARM. 61 139 
 
 general principle holds good in that third glyconic 
 poeni, the 17th, in which each of the long lines is really 
 a stanza of two lines, the first of which is subject to 
 the laws of synaphia, the latter is quite independent of 
 them : Liuidissima maximeque | est proftmda uorago. 
 Insulsissimus cet. Now not only does the synaphia 
 hold, as we have observed, between the 3rd and 4th vss. 
 of our stanza ; but where the same refrain is repeated 
 four times over in the two last lines of the stanza, 
 it is introduced each time with exactly the same general 
 run ; as for instance in the first of these stanzas : 
 Qui rapis teneram ad virum Virginem, o Hymenaee 
 Hymen, O Hymen Hymenaee, the stanza thus as it 
 were ostentatiously proclaiming itself to be one and 
 indivisible. 
 
 The sole exception, or apparent exception, that re- 
 mains to be considered, is in the last stanza but two : 
 
 Sit suo similis patri 
 Manlio et facile insciis 
 noscitetur ab omnibus 
 et pudicitiam suae 
 matris indicet ore. 
 
 Dawes cures this by transposing omnibus and insciis : 
 it is possible Catullus may have lengthened the em- 
 phatic syllable of the verse, as Virgil has so often done 
 with -us ; it is possible too that some one of the cor- 
 rections that have been made, such as obuiis or aduenis, 
 may be the true reading ; for omnibus does not strike 
 me as well suited to its place, and obuiis for instance 
 -might readily pass into an abbreviation of omnibus: 
 compare the double reading obuia and omnia of G in 
 64 109. Anyhow one apparent exception in nearly 50
 
 140 CATVLLI 
 
 stanzas is in my judgment quite insufficient to establish 
 or to upset any law. 
 
 Years ago I was surprised to see the last two lines 
 of the stanza just quoted quite misunderstood in Ellis' 
 translation : ' Mother's chastity moulded in Features 
 childly revealing'. The true meaning ought to be be- 
 yond dispute : however, as a confirmation of that mean- 
 ing, I jotted down Martial's imitation, vi 27 3, Est 
 tibi, quae patria signatur imagine uoltus, Testis ma- 
 temae nata pudicitiae ; and this passage I afterwards 
 found was given by Mr Cranstoun in illustration of his 
 correct and spirited translation. My surprise is now 
 increased to find these very lines cited by Ellis in sup- 
 port of his wrong explanation, to which they are quite 
 irrelevant : ' Suae is emphatic, a mother truly his own, 
 perhaps with some notion of the son repeating the mo- 
 ther's features, as the daughter the father's, Lucr. iv 
 1226' : the words of course mean simply : let him bear 
 witness to his mother's chastity by shewing in his face 
 a strong likeness to his father and thus proving himself 
 to be his father's son. His note too on 201 is not cor- 
 rect, and his illustrations are irrelevant : ' Subducat 
 prius qui uolt ' is not ' unusual '. There is no protasis 
 and apodosis here, and Subducat is not a ' strict sub- 
 junctive', but a simple imperative : * Let him who wills 
 to reckon up your joys, first take the tale of the sands 
 and the stars'. 114 Tollite, o pueri: surely o should 
 be added, not en with Baehrens : it is only another in- 
 stance of the ever-recurring confusion of e and o in our 
 Mss. to which I have so often drawn attention : in the 
 very next line has uido for uideo, where the e is ab- 
 sorbed in o.
 
 CARM. 61, 63 141 
 
 63 111 
 
 Super alta uectus Attis celeri rate maria 
 Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit 
 adiitque opaca siluis redimita loca deae, 
 stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, uagus animi, 
 5 deuolsit ilei acuto sibi pondera silice. 
 
 itaqtie ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine uiro, 
 etiam recente terrae sola sanguine maculans , 
 niueis citata cepit manibus leue typanum, 
 typanum tubam Cybelles, tua, mater, initia, 
 10 quatiensque terga taurei teneris caua digitis 
 canere haec suis adorta est tremebunda comitibus. 
 
 5 Deuolsit Haupt. Deuoluit V. ilei acuto Bergk. iletas acuto V. pondera 
 Auantius. pondere V. 9 tubam corrupt, perhaps ac typum. tuom, Cybebe 
 Lachmann. 
 
 5 has been brought into its present shape by the 
 corrections, in different ages, of Auantius, Bergk (Lach- 
 mann) and Haupt, and has been rightly I think ac- 
 cepted by Mueller, Schwabe and Baehrens. To adopt, 
 with Haupt and Ellis, Lachmann's He is to give to the 
 word an unauthorised sense, nor can Deuoluit I think 
 stand, tho' Ellis retains it: the 'iletas acuto' of Mss. 
 would seem to have come from the doubling of the syll. 
 ac in acuto. I shall, when I come to the 65th poem, 
 give many other examples of this trick from our Mss. 
 Not only does the verse in this form yield a most ap- 
 propriate sense; but it receives very great support 
 from a passage in the fourth book of the Fasti, in 
 writing which Ovid must have had 5 and 6 of our 
 poem in his mind. He is telling at length the story 
 of Attis and Cybele, of the ' Phryx puer in siluis, facie 
 spectabilis, Attis': then in v. 237 we come to: Ille
 
 1 42 CATVLLI 
 
 etiam saxo corpus laniauit ac?<fo...Voxque fuit ' merui 
 ...A! pereant partes quae nocuere mini' : 'A! pereant' 
 dicebat adhuc: onus inguinis aufert, Nullaque sunt 
 subito signet relicta uiri. 
 
 9 ' tubam' carries no sense with it to my mind, 
 either in its literal meaning, or, as Ellis takes it, in a 
 metaphorical: again it is not very obvious how 'tuom, 
 Cy belle' would pass into ' tubam Cybelles'. ' Typanum 
 ac typum Cybelles' has occurred to me from seeing 
 how often the two words are joined together: Dionys. 
 Antiq. II 19 wcnrep avrols e#os, TVTTOVS re irepiK^i^evoi 
 rots oT77#e<Tt.../cat rvfjLTrava Kporovmes : see too Polybius 
 cited by Suidas s, u. TaXXot : irapa "ArrtSos /cat BarTa- 
 KOV ro)V e/c Ilecrcrti'oufTOs lepeaiv rrj<s M^rpos T(OV flew, 
 r/Docrr^^tSta /cat TVTTOV?: ibid. aTrecrretXe veavi- 
 , Siacr/cevacras 19 FaXXov?, jiter' avXi^Twi' as yuvai- 
 (rroXat? l^ovras rv^Trava /cat TVTTOV? : comp. too the 
 very odd story told of Anacharsis by Herodotus VI 9 : 
 rrjv 6pT"fjv Tracrav eVereXet TTJ 6eu, rv^Travd re c^av /cat 
 e/cS^o-a/xevos ctyaX/iara, and the imitation by Clemens 
 Alex, quoted by Wesseling. The plural TVTTOL is used 
 of the Galli; and I infer that the TUTTOI were chiefly 
 medallions of Cybele and Attis. Now Attis naturally 
 would wear only a medallion of Cybele, which he would 
 hang round his neck or perhaps on his left wrist : comp. 
 Suet. Domit. 4 certamini praesedit...capite gestans coro- 
 nam auream cum effigie louis ac lunonis Mineruaeque, 
 adsidentibus Diali sacerdote et collegio Flauialium pari 
 habitu, nisi quod illorum coronis inerat et ipsius imago, 
 typos is found in Cic. ad Att. I 10 3, written 67 B.C.: 
 Jbhe strange typum or tupum would naturally be cor- 
 rupted into a Latin word: thus in Cic. 1. 1. M has lypos, 
 which lenson's edition turns into lippos', and in Pliny 
 xxxv 151 the Bamb. has tyrum for typum. Suidas s. u.
 
 CAEM. G3 143 
 
 has \ovra TvpTrava KCU TVTTCLS: I had something 
 to say on this ; but shall refrain. The ' typanum ac 
 typum' suits 'tua initia' better than 'typanum' by 
 itself. 
 
 ib. 7477 ' 
 
 Roseis ut hie labellis sonitus citus adiit 
 geminas deae tarn ad auris noua nuntia referens, 
 ibi iuncta iuga resoluens Cybele leonibus 
 laeuumque pecoris hostem stimulans ita loquitur. 
 
 74 hie. hinc V. citus addidit Bergk. sonus editus Froelich, Schwabe. 
 perhaps sonus excitus. 75 deae tarn ad scripsi. deorum ad V. 77 pecoris 
 uetu* correctio. pectoris V. 
 
 In 74 perhaps Bergk's citus is the simplest diplo- 
 matic correction, tho' I am not certain that Catullus 
 would have used citus as a partic. But Froelich's sonus 
 editus is also an easy correction; as well as my sonus 
 excitus, and Catullus elsewhere uses excitus no less than 
 three times. In 75 not a few violent corrections have 
 been made, which may be seen in the notes of various 
 editions. I feel confident that Geminas comes from the 
 poet himself: my dee tarn for deorum is certainly not 
 a violent change, when we bear in mind, what I have 
 so often insisted upon, the almost chronic way in which 
 our Mss. interchange o and e, t and r: 'When these 
 sounds, uttered from his rosy lips, came bringing with 
 them to the two ears of the goddess tidings so strange 
 and novel'. With 'deae Cybele' comp. 3 deae, 9 
 Cy belles, geminas auris is very idiomatic: 51 10 sonitu 
 suopte Tintinant aures geminae 1 : Ovid has ' Auribus 
 
 1 I cannot enough wonder at Ellis' continued retention of the absurd 
 gemina, and all to save the change of an a to an < in our Mss.
 
 144 CATVLLI 
 
 e geminis', and 'geminas manus'; the Culex, which 
 often imitates Catullus, 148 'geminas aures'; Virgil 
 * Temporibus geminis': Martial 'geminas manus'. 
 
 64 128 
 
 Peliaco quondam prognatae uertice pinus 
 dicuntur liquidas Neptuni nasse per undas 
 Phasidos ad fluctus et fines Aeeteos, 
 cum lecti iuuenes, Argiuae robora pubis, 
 5 auratam optantes Colchis auertere pellem 
 ausi sunt uada salsa cita decurrere puppi, 
 caerula uerrentes abiegnis aequora palrnis. 
 diua quibus retinens in sum mis urbibus arces 
 ipsa leui fecit uolitantem flamine currum, 
 
 10 pinea coniungens inflexae texta carinae. 
 
 ilia rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten. 
 quae simul ac rostro uentosum proscidit aequor, 
 tortaque remigio spumis incanduit unda, 
 emersere freti candenti e gurgite uultus, 
 
 15 aequoreae monstrum Nereides admirantes. 
 iliac (quaque alia?) uiderunt luce marinas 
 mortales oculis nudato corpore Nymphas 
 nutricum tenus extantes e gurgite cano. 
 turn Thetidis Peleus incensus ferfcur amore, 
 
 20 turn Thetis humanos non despexit hymenaeos, 
 turn Thetidi pater ipse iugandum Pelea sensit. 
 o nimis optato saeclorum tempore nati 
 heroes, saluete, deum gens, o bona matrum 
 23 b progenies, saluete iterumque iterumque, bonarum : 
 
 uos ego saepe meo uos carmine compellabo, 
 25 teque adeo eximie taedis felicibus aucte 
 
 Thessaliae columen Peleu, cui luppiter ipse,
 
 CARM. 64 145 
 
 ipse suos diuum genitor concessit amores. 
 tene Thetis tenuit pulcherrima Nereiiie? 
 
 11 primam G. praeram: in marg. proram 0. 13 Tortaqne Itali. Totaque 
 V. 14 freti Schrader. feri V. 16 Iliac (quaque alia?) scripsi. Ilia atque alia V. 
 uidere V. 23 gens schol. Veron. genus V, uulgo. matrum schol. Veron. mater : 
 al. matre superscr. G. mater 0. 23 b om. V. Progenies saluete iter schol. Veron. 
 28 Nereine Haupt. nectine V. 
 
 I have printed and will discuss only a few lines of 
 this the longest and most elaborate poem of Catullus. 
 His study of the Alexandrine poets would seem to have 
 persuaded him .that an epyllion was needed to make a 
 body of poems complete ; and he has therefore composed 
 this poem which I have given reasons elsewhere for 
 believing to be one of his very latest. Led no doubt 
 by similar motives, his friend Gaius Helvius Cinna, 
 who, as I have argued in my dissection of the 95th 
 poem, was probably somewhat older than Catullus, 
 wrote and published his laboured Zmyrna; and his in- 
 timate associate Gaius Licinius Calvus composed his 
 epyllion lo. 1 and 15 are both imitated by Ovid am. 
 II 1 1 1 Prima malas docuit, mirantibus aequoris undis, 
 Peliaco pinus uertice caesa uias. 11:1 am convinced 
 that the proram of O is a mere delusion, designed or 
 undesigned, of the scribe, which presented itself to his 
 thoughts and pen in connexion with a ship : to my taste 
 it destroys the beauty of the line and leaves Ilia wholly 
 without meaning. Can there be a doubt that Seneca, 
 who has more than once as we have seen had Catullus 
 before him in his tragedies, was thinking of this line 
 when he wrote in Troad. 215 Inhospitali Telephus regno 
 inpotens...Rudem cruore regio dextram inbuit? the 
 very construction of Catullus, which Martial, cited by 
 Ellis, also has: so too Val. Flacc. I 69 ignaras Cereris 
 qui uomere terras Imbuit; who also imitates the syntax 
 
 M. c. 10
 
 14(5 CATVLLI 
 
 of Catullus, and was probably thinking of him, as the 
 ignaras has the exact force of rudem: 'She first hand- 
 selled by this run the maiden. and untried Amphitrite'. 
 Ov. met. I 14 probably got his Amphitrite from Catul- 
 lus. 
 
 13 Tortaque remigio, and 7 Caerula uerrentes abi- 
 egnis aequora palmis: comp. Aen. in 207 remis insur- 
 gimus: haud mora nautae Adnixi torquent spumas et 
 caerula uerrunt: the 2nd v. is repeated in iv 583: if 
 there is one certain correction in Catullus, Torta for 
 Tota must be right. 13 incanduit unda, 14 candenti 
 e gurgite, 18 e gurgite cano : Lucr. n 764 Cur ea... 
 Marmoreo fieri possint candore repente, 767 canos can- 
 denti marmore fluctus, 771 Continuo id fieri ut candens 
 uideatur et album: the repetitions in the two poets are 
 very much alike : Ciris 320 candentes canos. 14 freti 
 forferi seems to me the simplest correction of this verse, 
 which surely needs correction; for fen cannot stand and 
 uultus must be an accus.; not a nom. in appos. with 
 Nereides. To be sure, tho' emersus and emergere se are 
 indisputable, * emergere uultus' is not so certainly ad- 
 missible. Yet I cannot help thinking that the author 
 of the Dirae in 56 and 57 is imitating Catullus and that 
 corpora must, like uultus here, be the accus. not the 
 nomin. which would be very bald: Monstra repentinis 
 terrentia saepe figuris Cum subito emersere furenti cor- 
 pora ponto: for thus Haupt punctuates; and the posi- 
 tion of Cum is a good parallel to 22 9. freti forferi is 
 an easy correction, as r, t, tr, rt, as we have again and 
 again had reason to shew, are among the letters most 
 frequently confounded in our Mss. 16 Iliac (quaque 
 alia ?) : this I think is a more elegant correction and 
 gives a better rhythm than Schwabe's, or older correc- 
 tions, tho' Ellis takes no notice of it : t and c are often
 
 CARM. 64 147 
 
 interchanged in our Mss. and all Mss. alike are apt to 
 omit one syll. of a word like quaque: 36 14 we find 
 Colisque for Colis quaeque: 'on that day and on what 
 other in all time? did mortal men cast eyes on the 
 naked nymphs, as they rose breast-high out of the hoar 
 deep'. I must say both Mueller's and Baehrens* violent 
 corrections to my taste greatly spoil the picture. 
 
 23 : The Virgilian scholia of the Verona palimpsest 
 give us in a correct form the end of this line and half 
 of the next, which has disappeared entirely in our Mss. 
 Ellis alone among recent editors has rejected this gift 
 with contumely : 'The weight of the Veronese Scholia' 
 he says, ' imperfect and full of lacunae as they are, is 
 not to be set against our Mss. ; it is difficult to imagine 
 any mode of filling up the lacuna which would not 
 either be weak or load the sentence unnecessarily'. It 
 is thus he can find in his heart to speak of what was 
 once one of the most glorious codices that have come 
 down from ancient times, written in the full blaze of 
 the old classical world. Not to be set against our Mss. ! 
 bad transcripts all of an archetype written when the 
 gloom of mediaeval barbarism was at its deepest: and 
 where too it preserves a line which they have lost, tho' 
 Ellis does not hesitate to impeach these very Mss. of 
 scandalous absurdity, in the way of omission, when he 
 is dealing with our 5 4th poem. It is true these scholia 
 are now in a very tattered state; but both Mai and 
 after him Keil print : Catullus, Saluete deum gens 
 o bona matrum Progenies saluete iter: without a hint 
 that there is any doubt about any one of the magni- 
 ficent letters of the original. Of the genuineness of 
 this half verse I have no more doubt than of that of 
 any other verse whatever in Catullus. Nay more, I do 
 not see why all editors reject its 'deum gens' for the 
 
 102
 
 148 CATVLLI 
 
 ' genus ' of V ; as I feel pretty sure that Virgil had 
 Catullus in mind, when he wrote ' deum gens, Aenea'. 
 'matrum' too must be the poet's : nay the double read- 
 ing 'mater' and 'matre' in G indicates that the final 
 letters were obscured in Y or in Y's predecessor. Nor 
 do I think it 'difficult' to fill up the verse as the poet 
 may have written it ; tho' none of the editions satisfies 
 my mind : for the 'bona matrum' has no point unless 
 the next line contained an epithet of matrum, which 
 was as emphatic as bona, or more so. My reading then 
 surely gives us what we want: 'right worthy progeny of 
 right worthy mothers'. The joining of the mothers 
 with the fathers is not without a purpose ; for Catullus 
 may well have thought as Euripides did in his Meleager : 
 Stob. OB 12 riy^cra^v ovv el frapa^ev^eue TIS 
 irovypov \eKTpov, ovK av evTtKvelv, 'EcrOXolv 8' a,if a 
 Icr0\ov av <f>vvai yovov. I have never comprehended 
 Ellis' defence of mater. 28 Nereine : this is nearer the 
 Mss. and in other respects far preferable to the very 
 suspicious Neptunine. All the patronymics quoted by 
 Ellis are from Greek words : Neptunus is a pure Latin 
 word. 
 
 31 optatae finito. optato finito G, optato finite O: 
 another of the many many proofs of o and e being 
 almost indistinguishable in our Mss. : this fact makes 
 Guarinus' correction in 309 'roseae niueo' for the 'roseo 
 niuee' of Y highly probable. 
 
 48 Indo quod dente politum : 'which formed of the 
 Indian tusk and finely wrought'. Comp. Virgil's 'pictas 
 abiete puppes*. 
 
 82 quam talia Cretam Funera Cecropiae nee fun era 
 portarentur: comp. Ov. met. vm 231 At pater in- 
 felix nee iam pater ' Icare' dixit: the nee seems really 
 the same as non, of which I have spoken at 30 4 : it
 
 CAEM. 64 149 
 
 may therefore perhaps be compared with the ' per non 
 medium', the 'a non sensu' and the like which I have 
 illustrated in my note on Lucr. I 1075. 
 
 ib. 10511 
 
 Nam uelut in summo quatientem bracchia Tauro 
 quercum aut conigeram sudanti cortice pinum 
 indomitus turbo contorquens flamine robur 
 eruit (ilia procul radicitus exturbata 
 prona cadit lateque comeis obit obuia frangens), 
 sic domito saeuum prostrauit corpore Theseus 
 nequiquam uanis iactantem cornua uentis. 
 
 109 comeis obit obuia scripsi. cum eius obnia V. 
 
 I confess to setting some store on my emendation 
 of 109, on which so many conjectures have been made. 
 comeis might pass at once into cum eius, especially 
 when the latter was written compendiously, as it is in 
 O at all events ; and obit might readily be absorbed in 
 obuia: nay it may represent the double reading 'omnia' 
 in G: comp. my emendation obit for omnia (ouit for OWL) 
 in Lucil. xxvn 35 M. Whoever has seen a tree fall to 
 the ground with its leaves on, must have marked the 
 sweep and crash made by them as they first come into 
 contact with the ground and spread themselves out. 
 With 105 bracchia, and 109 comeis, comp. Aen. xn 209 
 posuitque comas et bracchia ferro ; Georg. II 368 turn 
 stringe comas, turn bracchia tonde. 
 
 ib. 272, 273 
 
 Quae tarde primum dementi flamine pulsae 
 procedunt leuiterque sonant plangore cachinni. 
 
 leuiterq ; sonant 0, leviter sonant G. leni resonant uulgo.
 
 150 CATVLLI 
 
 That O here too is right against G and other Mss. 
 we have a strong confirmation in Sen. Agam. 680 licet 
 Alcyones Ceyca suum Fluctu leuiter plangente sonent: 
 see my note on 23 10 for this and other apparent 
 reminiscences of Catullus' language in Seneca. 
 
 Catullus must have taken great pains to improve 
 the rhythm and prosody of his two hexameter poems, 
 as we may see if we compare him with any of his pre- 
 decessors, such as Ennius or Cicero. In respect of 
 elisions he is much less harsh than he is either in his 
 hendecasyllables or in his elegiacs ; and comes much 
 nearer in these two poems to the rules which prevailed 
 after his time. This is very remarkable and contrary 
 to the usage of subsequent masters, Virgil for instance, 
 if he be compared with Ovid and Martial. It is another 
 proof too, in addition to those which I have given in 
 my Lucretius, that 64 is one of his latest poems. In 
 his elegiacs, even in the last half of the pentameter, he 
 has the very harshest rhythms and elisions, such as 
 'perdito amore fore'. In his hendecasyllabic poems, 
 even in the sweetest of them, his elisions are quite as 
 harsh, judged by the standard of Martial and Statius: 
 even in his 45th he does not balk at such rhythms as 
 'Ni te perdite dmo dtque amare porro', where a long 
 vowel is elided before the accentuated short syllable of 
 an iambus, while the final syllable of this very iambus 
 is elided before another accentuated syllable. When 
 we observe how cautious Martial is in his elisions, it 
 is a strong proof of the charm of Catullus that even 
 these excessive harshnesses, as they must have been 
 to Martial's ear, do not seem to have lessened in the 
 least his love for his great master. Still more striking 
 will this love and admiration appear, when we remem- 
 ber that to Martial the first foot of a hendecasyllable
 
 CARM. 64 151 
 
 must be a spondee, while Catullus most freely substi- 
 tutes for it both trochees and iambi. We are used to 
 learn our hendecasyllables from Catullus, our elegiacs 
 from Ovid: therefore we look on Catullus' elegiacs as 
 excessively harsh in rhythm and prosody ; but do not 
 feel his hendecasyllables to be so. This is the mere 
 result of habit : to Martial and Statius the rhythms 
 and elisions of the one class of poems were just as 
 harsh as those of the other, while the elisions of the 
 hexameter poems would have seemed much more 
 modern and regular. So intolerable to the prosaic 
 Pliny the elder was an iambus for the first foot of the 
 hendecasyllable that, in quoting a verse from the first 
 poem of Catullus, he coolly transposes the words and 
 writes : Nugas esse aliquid meas putare 1 . 
 
 1 hist, praef. 1 'namque ta solebas Nugas esse aliquid meas putare', nt 
 obiter emolliam [so Barbarus, Gronovius, Mommsen in Hermes i p. 128, and 
 others: obicere molliam codices} Catullum conterraueum meum (agnoscis et 
 hoc castrense uerbum). ille enim, ut scis, permutatis prioribns syllabia 
 duriusculum se fecit quam uolebat existimari a Veraniolis suis et Fabullis. 
 Pliny ' softens in passing the harshness of his conterraneus Catullus ' by trans- 
 posing meas and nugas. ' For he, as you know, by his way of changing the 
 quantity of one or other of the two first syllables of the verse, shewed himself 
 in this to be somewhat more rough than he would have liked to be accounted 
 by his dear Veranioli and Fabulli '. It will be seen that Detlefsen's Mss., which 
 are all late in this part of Pliny, while they give the 'namque tu solebas', which 
 would be also the prose order of the words, without any variation, all arrange 
 the following line in a way which is not verse, and each of them has a different 
 arrangement. This is a proof that, finding the words in what struck them as a 
 most unnatural order, they tried each in its own way to give them a more 
 natural arrangement : see my note on Lucil. n 22, Journ. Philol. vn p. 298, 
 where I simply read ' quae nunc ego praecanto Aemilio [quae ego nuno Aemilio 
 praecanto codices] atque exigo et excanto'. Haupt's very obvious correction 
 therefore seems to me almost a certain one. When Baehrens on Catullus 1. 1. 
 gives to Pliny 'Istas esse aliquid putare nugas', he appears to me to depart 
 more widely from the Mss. than Haupt and Mommsen do. Again I do not see 
 the necessity of his 'primoribus'; for 'prioribus' I think signifies 'the two first 
 syllables' of the verse; just as Lucil. xxvm 7 uses ' posterioribus orotxfots' to 
 express the 'last two' in contradistinction to the other two elements. 
 
 Ellis in his first volume has an excursus on this passage of Pliny, to which 
 he still adheres in his commentary. He follows an antiquated reading, which
 
 152 CATVLLI 
 
 Catullus has done much to improve the cadences 
 of the Latin hexameter, if the small compass of his 
 poems be taken into consideration; and, tho' all his 
 innovations may not be improvements, Virgil's obliga- 
 tions to him are by no means insignificant. That he 
 has effected these improvements mainly by a careful 
 study, and by a partial adoption, of the rhythm of the 
 Greek heroic, will not escape any competent observer. 
 I will call attention here to one point only, which I 
 have never seen noticed by any one else. One of the 
 most striking features of the Greek hexameter, which 
 marks the verses of all poets alike from Homer to 
 Nonnus, is the free use of trochaic cadences in the first 
 half of the verse and the systematic avoidance of them 
 in the middle of the fourth dactyl : Avrts | en-ewa | rre- 
 Soz'Se j KvXu/Sero Xaas avaiS^?. Yirgil and other careful 
 writers of Latin verse employ this trochaic rhythm 
 very much less than the Greeks do, in the first part 
 of the verse. But on the other hand they, most of 
 them, do not shun this trochaic rhythm in the middle 
 of the fourth dactyl: auditque uocatus Apollo uolu- 
 crique simillima somno; tho' the Greeks, unless in the 
 most exceptional circumstances, entirely reject this 
 cadence. And Catullus too never once admits it in 
 his two hexameter poems, containing between them 
 474 verses. Ennius is careless enough in this as in 
 many other matters: he has this cadence some 25 times 
 in about 500 verses. Lucretius avoids it most in his 
 
 ia much farther from the Mss. than Mommsen's; and his whole explanation 
 thwarts completely in my judgment the plain sense of Pliny's words. By 
 'agnoscis et hoc castrense uerbum' Pliny simply means 'in this term con- 
 terraneus too (as in other terms which I have employed in former letters to 
 you) you will recognise a word of the camp'. Again, tho' to us Catullus' 
 elegiacs may be harsher than his hendecasyllables, it does not follow that they 
 were so to Pliiiy.
 
 CARM. 64, 65 153 
 
 most poetical and most carefully written parts. Cicero, 
 unless I am mistaken, throughout about 750 verses 
 always observes this Greek rule, except once only : 
 Cum caeloque simul noctesque | diesque feruntur: and 
 'noctesque diesque' may be almost regarded as a single 
 word. Ovid uses this cadence very freely, much more 
 freely than Virgil: he has 70 instances in the 778 lines 
 of Metam. I. Perhaps the more careful Latin poets so 
 often employ this cadence, because they dislike, or 
 seldom use, what is with the Greeks the most favourite 
 of all rhythms : Aeternum frangenda bidentibus : omne 
 leuandum; and words like 'bidentibus', 'simillima', etc. 
 can hardly be brought into the verse, without employ- 
 ing one or other of these two rhythms. Where how- 
 ever he has Greek names to deal with, Virgil luxuriates 
 in this Greek cadence: in Geor. iv 336 343 he has 
 four instances of it within eight verses, and again in 
 463 Atque Getae atque Hebrus et Actias Orithyia 1 . 
 
 65 118 
 
 Etsi me assiduo defectum cura dolore 
 
 seuocat a doctis, Ortale, uirginibus, 
 nee potis est dulcis Musarum expromere fetus 
 
 mens animi (tantis fluctuat ipsa malis : 
 
 1 We can hardly be wrong in assuming that Catullus, in respect of the 
 hexameter as well as of his other metres, would take counsel with Cinna and 
 Calvus. Pseudo-Probus p. 226 5 Keil : is syllaba nominatiui casus breuis est 
 masculino siue feminino genere atque communi...: feminino, ut Caluus in lo 
 Trigida iam celeris uergatur. uistinis ora': so the Ms. 'oeleri peragrata 
 Borysthenis ora' Parrhasius. l fartasse celeri superata' Keil. This makes 
 Calvus violate the law which Catullus observes so carefully. Why not rather 
 'celeri superatur Bistonis ora', or something such? By this we shall also save 
 the credit of the poor grammarian, whom the other readings impeach of most 
 scandalous ignorance, as a feminine nominative is the cause of his quoting the 
 verso.
 
 154 CATVLLI 
 
 5 namque mei nuper Lethaeo gurgite fratris 
 
 pallidulum manans alluit unda pedem, 
 Troia Rhoeteo quern subter litore tellus 
 
 ereptum nostris obterit ex oculis. 
 numquam ego te priinae mihi ademptum in flore 
 
 iuuentae, 
 
 10 numquam ego te, uita frater amabilior, 
 aspiciam posthac. at certe semper amabo, 
 semper maesta tua carmina morte canam, 
 qualia sub densis ramorum concinit umbris 
 
 Daulias absumpti fata gemens Itylei) : 
 15 sed tamen in tantis maeroribus, Ortale, mitto 
 
 haec expressa tibi carmina Battiadae, 
 ne tua dicta uagis nequiquam credita uentis 
 effluxisse meo forte putes animo. 
 
 1 confectum G. 2 Seuocatltah', uulgo. Sed uacat V. Deuocat Baehrens. 
 3 dulcissimus barum Y. 9 om. V. 12 morte canam Itali. morte tegam V. 
 
 The Ortalus here addressed is probably the famous 
 orator Q. Hortensius Ortalus, the friend and rival of 
 Cicero, whose name Hortensius by some strange freak 
 of chance has got mixed up with our 95th poem. Our 
 present poem must have been composed much about 
 the same time as 68 a, and probably at Verona, where 
 that poem was written, in his father's house we may 
 surely assume. He has no books to send to Manlius 
 and will not write him love-poems. But we see he is 
 ready to divert his sorrow by translating for Ortalus 
 Callimachus' Coma Berenices. 
 
 9 : The verse I have given probably comes pretty 
 near the sense of the one which is lost : if its com- 
 mencement was the same as 10, its falling out can 
 readily be accounted for. The strange 'Datanus' has a 
 barbarous ungrammatical interpolation : Alloquar, au-
 
 CARM. 65 155 
 
 diero numquam tua loquentem : which Ellis in my 
 opinion vainly tries to explain. 12 morte canam : this 
 seems a certain correction of the Ms. 'morte tegam': 
 from the great similarity of letters canam became cam, 
 and the te of morte was attached to it to make a word. 
 This phenomenon is common in our and in all Mss. : 
 comp. 3 'dulcissimus harum' for 'dulcis Musarum': still 
 better 76 11 animum offirmas : animo offirmas V: I 
 might give 20 instances of syllables wrongly doubled : 
 see 68 91 where I propose 'Quae taetre' for 'Que uetet* 
 of Mss.: 58 5 magnanimi E/emi: magna amiremini O. 
 Plaut. Trin. 540 Sues moriuntur angina acerrime : ? an- 
 gina taeterrime: first 'teterrime' became 'terrime'; and 
 then the a of angina attached itself to make a word l . 
 
 I am really sorry to see Ellis retain ' tegam': this is 
 his note : ' tegam, I will muffle or veil in silence. That 
 this- is the meaning is shown by the comparison with 
 the nightingale singing veiled from sight amid the 
 leaves'. As if the nightingale ever muffled or veiled in 
 silence its song, or as if 'tegam carmina' had any 
 meaning at all. Why, the shrill ringing out of the 
 nightingale's notes, their filling the air with sound, is 
 the prime notion the poets connect with its music : 
 Qualis populea maerens philomela sub umbra Amissos 
 queritur fetus... at ilia Flet noctem rawoque sedens 
 miserabile carmen Integrat et moestis late loca questi- 
 bus implet : comp. this with 12 and 13 of our poem. 
 Nay Homer, whom Catullus had in mind, refutes him 
 too : ar$a>v KaXoi> det8i7crt^...AevSpea>^ ev TreraXoicrt 
 a'iv, v Hre Oa^a TpoiTrotcra X^ L 7ro " 
 IlatS* 6\o<f>vpo[Jievrj *!TV\OV <j>l\ov'. 
 'muffle or veil in silence'!: comp. too Sen. Agarn. 670; 
 Here. Get. 199. 
 
 1 Comp. my Iliac quaque ' for ' Ilia atque ' in 64 16.
 
 156 CATVLLI 
 
 66 1518 
 
 Estne nouis nuptis odio Venus ? an quod auentum 
 
 frustrantur falsis gaudia lacrimulis, 
 ubertim tlialami quas intra limina fundunt ? 
 
 non, ita me diui, uera gemunt, iuerint. 
 
 15 an quod auentum scripsi. atque parentum V. anne parentum uulgo. 
 anne pauentes Baehrens. 
 
 There is much, that is harsh and obscure in this 
 poem, the translation of an original which no doubt 
 was itself somewhat involved. I intend however to 
 touch only on a very few points. 15 : That parentum 
 has no place here is to me a self-evident fact, which 
 Baehrens has rightly acknowledged; tho' I think his 
 correction by no means a happy one. Manifestly, the 
 * husbands' must take the place of the 'parents'; and 
 my correction is I think really nearer V than is the 
 vulgate 'anne parentum': I have over and over again 
 called attention to the astonishing frequency with which 
 o and e are interchanged in our Mss. : the confusion be- 
 tween d and p, which occasionally occurs, probably goes 
 back to some original written in uncials or in capitals : 
 161 and 14 Pedicabo. Dedicabo V. 21 9 id si. ipsi V. 
 64 104 succepit. succendit V: this correction by Statius 
 is adopted by all recent editors except Ellis alone. 
 10 7 quomodo se. quomo posse O. 
 
 This an quod (an quid) is an elliptical expression 
 for an eo fit quod, much resembling the quod for quod... 
 hoc fit quod, which I have explained and illustrated at 
 10 28. It recurs below in v. 31 Quis te mutauit tan- 
 tus deus ? an quod amantes Non longe a caro corpore 
 abesse uolunt ? : the phrase is a favourite one with
 
 CARM. 66 157 
 
 Terence : hec. 662 Censen te posse reperire ullam nrnli- 
 erem Quae careat culpa? an quia non delincunt uiri? 
 784 Quid mihi istaec narras ? an quia non tute dudum 
 audisti? Phorm. 602; eun. 907: in heaut. 505 we have 
 the full form : an eo fit, quia re in nostra aut gaudio 
 Sumus praepediti nimio aut aegritudine ? 18 is one 
 of those very harsh collocations of words, of which I 
 have given other examples from Catullus, as below, 
 vss. 40 and 41. 
 
 77 Quicum ego, dum uirgo quondam fuit, omnibus 
 
 expers 
 unguentis, una milia multa bibi. 
 
 I have never felt much doubt that the sole corrup- 
 tion in these two verses lies in the word expers, for 
 which we want a word with the exactly opposite mean- 
 ing, ' abounding ' ' steeped in '. Of the numerous cor- 
 rections which have been made, the best seems to be 
 Doering's, who often takes a straightforward common- 
 sense view of a corrupt passage : omnibus explens Se 
 unguentis : perhaps ' explens Vnguentis se ' would be 
 slightly nearer the Mss. : 'una' I think should cer- 
 tainly not be tampered with. 
 
 93 Sidera corruerint, utinam coma regia fiam ! 
 proximus Hydrochoi fulgeret Oarion. 
 
 93 corruerint Lachmann. cur iterent V. 
 
 Ellis rightly states the essential meaning of these 
 verses ; but I don't think he explains correctly the con- 
 struction, in which there is nothing irregular : ' Tho' the 
 stars shall all have to tumble down for it, I pray I may 
 become again a royal lock. Orion, if he liked, might 
 then shine next to Aquarius ' : all the stars between
 
 158 CATVLLI 
 
 them having fallen down, to let the lock make its 
 
 O ' 
 
 escape among them, fulgeret is an instance of that use 
 of the imperf. and pluperf. subj. which Madvig (de fin. 
 II 35) illustrates from Cicero and others, and of which 
 I have collected numerous examples from Virgil and 
 Ovid : Obruerent Rutuli telis ! animam ipse dedissem ! 
 Atque haec pompa domum me, non Pallanta, referret ! : 
 corruerent cannot well be right, fulgeret : v. 6 1 fulge- 
 remus : Lucr. varies the conjugation in the same way : 
 Virgil in the inf. has only fulc/ere, effulgence, feru^re. 
 
 67 
 
 O dulci iucunda uiro, iucunda parenti, 
 
 salue, teque bona luppiter auctet ope, 
 ianua, quam Balbo dicunt seruisse benigne 
 
 olim, cum sedes ipse senex tenuit, 
 5 quamque ferunt rursus uoto seruisse maligne, 
 
 postquam es porrecto facta marita sene : 
 die agedum nobis, quare mutata feraris 
 
 in dominum ueterem deseruisse fidem. 
 ' non (ita Caecilio placeam cui tradita nunc sum) 
 1 culpa mea est, quamquam dicitur esse mea, 
 
 nee peccatum a me quisquam pote dicere quicquam; 
 
 uerum astu populi ianua quippe facit. 
 qui, quacumque aliquid reperitur non bene factum, 
 
 ad me omnes clamant : ianua, culpa tua est'. 
 15 non istuc satis est uno te dicere uerbo, 
 
 sed facere ut quiuis sentiat et uideat. 
 'qui possum ? nemo quaerit nee scire laborat'. 
 
 nos uolumus : nobis dicere ne dubita. 
 ' primum igitur, uirgo quod fertur tradita nobis, 
 20 falsum est. non illam uir prior attigerit,
 
 CARM. G6, 67 159 
 
 languidlor tenera cui pendens sicula beta 
 
 numquam se mediam sustulit ad tunicam : 
 sed pater illius gnati uiolasse cubile 
 
 dicitur et miseram conscelerasse domum, 
 25 slue quod impia mens caeco flagrabat amore, 
 
 seu quod iners sterili semine natus erat, 
 ut quaerendum unde unde foret neruosius illud, 
 
 quod posset zonam soluere uirgineam'. 
 egregium narras mira pietate parentem, 
 30 qui ipse sui gnati minxerit in gremium. 
 
 ' atqui non solum hoc dicit se cognitum habere 
 
 Brixia chinea suppositum specula, 
 flauus quam molli percurrit flumine Mella, 
 
 Brixia Veronae mater amata meae, 
 35 sed de Postumio et Cornell narrat amore, 
 
 cum quibus ilia malum fecit adulterium. 
 dixerit hie aliquis : qui tu isthaec, ianua, nosti, 
 
 cui numquam domini limine abesse licet, 
 nee populum auscultare, sed hie suffixa tigillo 
 40 tantum operire soles aut aperire domum ? 
 saepe illam audiui furtiua uoce loquentem 
 
 solam cum ancillis haec sua flagitia, 
 nomine dicentem quos diximus, ut pote quae mi 
 
 speraret nee linguam esse nee auriculam. 
 45 praeterea addebat quendam, quern dicere nolo 
 
 nomine, ne tollat rubra supercilia. 
 longus homo est, magnas quoi lites intulit olim 
 
 falsum mendaci uentre puerperium'. 
 
 5 maligne O. maligno G. 6 es Itali. est V. 12 astu scripsi. istius V. 
 quippe scripsi. qui te V. 27 Vt Girard, Ellis, quaerendum unde unde Statins. 
 quaerendus unde V. is unde Lachmann. 31 hoc dicit se 0, Baehrens. se dicit 
 (Jr. hoc se dicit uulgo. 32 is corrupt. 37 40 Schwubc, Baehrens give to Catullus. 
 
 This oddly humourous poem has greatly perplexed 
 the commentators. Muretus says : stultum est, quae
 
 160 CATVLLI 
 
 ita scripsit Catullus ut ne turn quidem nisi a paucis 
 quibus hae res cognitae essent uoluerit intelligi, ea se 
 quemquam hodie credere coniectura assecuturam ; while 
 Turnebus adv. xvi 1 calls it ' aeque ac folium Sibyllae 
 obscurum et tenebricosum' and refers it to Clodia and 
 her husband Caecilius Metellus ! Schwabe I p. 346 
 quotes the words I have cited and admits their truth : 
 he does not expect to clear away the difficulties of the 
 poem : nos non id agimus ut tenebras omnes nostris 
 explicationibus dispellamus, sed ut non nullos saltern 
 errores quos interpretes superiores non euitarunt effu- 
 gere conemur : and certainly his theory strikes me as 
 involved and improbable. Ellis begins by saying ' that 
 the obscurities which surround this poem are so con- 
 siderable that it seems hopeless to do more than sketch 
 in outline the story which it contains, leaving the sub- 
 ordinate points undecided' ; and his comments through- 
 out shew his utter embarrassment. 
 
 I may be under a strange hallucination; but for 
 years the poem has seemed to me quite simple and in- 
 telligible. Two lines, 12 and 32, the former of which 
 I have attempted to correct, the latter I have left un- 
 touched, are so corrupt that the text must remain un- 
 certain ; but they do not obscure in the least the general 
 meaning of the poem. I will first briefly state its sub- 
 ject; next I will give a paraphrase of the whole, which 
 will mask the coarsenesses without detriment to the 
 sense; I will then add such critical and exegetical com- 
 ments as may seem advisable. I may say that I have 
 now before me a letter, in which two years ago I gave 
 to Professor Sellar the same explanation as that which 
 I now offer. 
 
 This is a dialogue carried on in Verona between the 
 poet and the door of a house in that city. This house
 
 CARM. 67 1C I 
 
 had been in good repute, while it was owned by a worthy 
 widower, Caecilms Balbus the elder, now dead. It was 
 now in the possession of his son and heir, Caecilius 
 Balbus the younger. He was a worthy man like his 
 father; but the house had forfeited its good name; for 
 this Caecilius had married after his father's death. The 
 wife had lived in Brixia with a former husband; but 
 when she entered Caecilius' house in Yerona, she was 
 believed to be a maid. It was not so : the former hus- 
 band it is true had not consummated the marriage ; but 
 that husband's father had debauched his own daughter- 
 in-law, either through foul lust or from a wish to get 
 an heir for his son. Brixia saw and can tell of this; 
 yes, and of many other deeds of shame. The door learnt 
 all this by often overhearing her recounting to her maids 
 these enormities. 
 
 1 8 : (Catullus) door, may heaven shower all its 
 blessings upon you, door, well-pleasing to the husband 
 and master of the house, well-pleasing too to his father 
 before him : you are reported to have served old Balbus 
 well and faithfully erewhile, when he was master in the 
 house ; but then on the other hand it is told of you that 
 you have carried out but scurvily his wish and prayer, 
 when the old man was in his coffin and you had come 
 to be a bridal door. Tell us why you are so changed, 
 it is said, as to have renounced your old loyalty to your 
 lord. 9 14 (Door loq.) As I hope to please Caeci- 
 lius to whom I now belong, the fault is not mine, tho' 
 it is said to be mine; and no man can pretend that I 
 have done any wrong ; and yet through the people's un- 
 derhand malice the door forsooth is brought in guilty. 
 For when aught is found anyhow to turn out wrong, 
 they all call out at me 'Door, the fault is yours'. 15 
 and 16 (C.) It won't do merely to say that; you must 
 
 M. C. 11
 
 162 CATVLLI 
 
 make the world feel it and see it too. 17 (D.) How 
 can I? nobody asks or cares to know. 18 (C.) Yes, I 
 do: don't hesitate to tell me. 19 28 (D.) Well then, 
 to begin with this, the story is false, that she was hand- 
 ed over to us a maid. Her first husband, it is true, is 
 not likely to have touched her, for he was incapable; 
 but the father of that husband is said to have violated 
 the bed of his son and to have plunged into guilt the 
 unblest house, either because his sinful mind burned 
 with unlawful passion, or because he wished to beget 
 an heir for his son. 29 and 30 (C.) An exemplary 
 father this, of whom you tell, to cuckold his own son ! 
 31 48 (D.) Yes, and, Brixia tells us, this is not the 
 only sin of that woman's which she has espied from her 
 o'erlooking height, Brixia whom the yellow Mella tra- 
 verses with his gentle stream, Brixia loved mother of 
 Verona mine. She has to speak of Postumius as well, 
 and of the intrigue with Cornelius, with both of whom 
 the woman committed foul adultery. Should any one 
 ask, ' Door, how do you know all this, who never may 
 be away from your master's threshold, nor overhear the 
 people; but, fastened here to the post, have for sole 
 duty to open up or close the house?' my answer is that 
 I have often heard her talking in stealthy tones, alone 
 to her maids, of these scandals of hers, and mentioning 
 by name those whom I have mentioned, hoping the 
 while that I had neither tongue nor ear. To these 
 lovers she used to join one more, whom I do not choose 
 to name, lest he up with his red eyebrows. He is the 
 long fellow who got ere while into such a costly law- 
 business by that trumped up case of lying in with its 
 mendacious birth. 
 
 I do not know how this statement of the case may 
 strike others : to me it is quite simple and intelligible.
 
 CABM, 67 163 
 
 I must now append some comments and explanations. 
 1 iucunda to me of course is not 'ironical'. 5 maligne : 
 another great and undoubted service which O has con- 
 ferred on Catullus. As I have already so often observed 
 and shall hereafter have cause to observe, no letters are 
 so perpetually confused in our Mss. as o and e : 77 1 
 amice O, rightly, amico G; 76 11 instincteque O, in- 
 stinctoque G: istinc teque I believe is to be read, uoto 
 I think is right, tho' Froelich's nato may be simpler, 
 and a and o, u and n are often confused. I take uoto 
 to express the old man's dying wish. Baehrens' con- 
 jecture natae proves he does not apprehend the poem 
 as I do. 6 marita : Schwabe well illustrates this from 
 Livy xxvii 315 per maritas domos : comp. too Mart, 
 x 19 12 Sed ne tempore non tuo disertam Pulses ebria 
 ianuam uideto. 
 
 12 Every one I presume will have his own conjec- 
 ture for this verse. Certainly the older corrections, in- 
 cluding Lachmann's, are far too venturesome: istius 
 and qui te the metre declares to be corrupt; all the 
 other words in the line appear to me quite genuine. 
 Tho' I offer my own corrections with diffidence, I do not 
 think they are wide of the Ms. reading : with astu 
 comp. Plaut. Pers. 148 praecipe astu filiae Quid fabu- 
 letur : if quippe be written with one p it will readily 
 pass into qui te : comp. 1415 oppinio O for optimo, 62 
 54 apsi T for at si, 64 tuignare T for pugnare. Compare 
 with its use here some words from the striking passage 
 in Cic. pro Mil. 33 mouet me quippe lumen curiae, said 
 in bitter irony of Sex. Clodius. Baehrens' est uox and 
 cuncta are rather wide of the Mss. Ellis' est os cannot 
 mean sermo est : in the passage from Cicero which he 
 cites in his 1st volume, os means ' impudence' 'face' : 
 a common sense, as Mart, ix 94 2 os hominis! In the 
 
 112
 
 184 CATVLLI 
 
 passage from Persius ' os populi meruisse ' means ' me- 
 ruisse in ore populi esse', ' to be in the mouths' 'on the 
 tongues of men' : quite another thing. As I hold it to 
 be certain that Catullus was named Gaius, not Quintus, 
 of course I think Quinte false : it is in vain to appeal to 
 Scaliger, Lachmann and Haupt, as they were without 
 the convincing evidence which we possess. But this 
 question of name has been fully discussed elsewhere, 
 facit : facio is used thousands of times in Latin without 
 an object: in my Lucretius I have given many examples: 
 comp. too Virgil's Me me adsum qui feci; Sen. controu. 
 i 1 19 non feci; 714 sciebam enim piratas non facturos; 
 Martial's witty epigram ix 1 5 Inscripsit tumulis septem 
 scelerata uirorum Se fecisse Chloe; x 75 13 fecit; xn 
 63 8 Ferrem, si faceret bonus poeta. 
 
 27 this reading, which Ellis has adapted, seems to 
 me too the best : querendus for quaerendum is an in- 
 stance of that very common confusion in our Mss. be- 
 tween final m and s of which I have already spoken 
 more than once. 32- the reading must remain uncer- 
 tain here, as no one can tell whether chinea is corrupt; 
 or, if it be corrupt, what word we are to substitute for 
 it : specula must denote some height, with or without a 
 watch-tower on it, which overlooked Brixia. But sup- 
 posita cannot, as Ellis will have it, be followed by an 
 abl. instead of a dative : the commonly accepted ' sup- 
 posita speculae ' is not a very violent correction. Yet 
 I feel that an abl. too is wanted, and that chinea is 
 probably the corruption of some simple epithet. If so, 
 cannot a dat.be then understood? 'supposita ei speculae', 
 * Brixia uicina suppositS ab [au] specula' would not be 
 so wide of the Ms. 'chinea suppositu specula': Virgil 
 has ' specula ab alta' twice. On the next two verses, 
 about the present or past course of the Mella, why
 
 CARM. 67 165 
 
 Brixia is called Verona's mother, I have nothing new 
 to tell ; but can only refer to Ellis, to Vulpius and the 
 multitudinous older Italian authorities whom the latter 
 appeals to. The scholars of Verona, of Padua and other 
 Venetian cities looked on it as a piece of impertinence 
 for a second-rate Lombard town like Brescia to claim 
 to be mother of their own Verona. 
 
 34 the door may well say * Veronae meae'; and yet 
 perhaps Catullus was unconsciously thinking of himself. 
 35 and 36 Ovid, speaking there of Catullus, had the 
 language and the meaning of these two verses in his 
 thoughts, when he wrote trist. II 429 Nee content us 
 
 O 7 
 
 ea, multos uulgauit amores In quibus ipsa suum fassus 
 adulterium est : in the second line he adopts the Catul- 
 lian rhythm, and not his own : Fassus adulteriumst in 
 quibus ipse suum. 
 
 37 40 are given to Catullus by Schwabe, followed 
 by.Baehrens; but I prefer the old arrangement which, 
 leaves them to the door. 44 Speraret: grammar and 
 metre alike call for this reading, which G and O in- 
 directly point to: 'speret' ought not to be defended. 
 46 com p. Petron. 91 supercilium altius sustulit. rubra: 
 this refers to the colour of the hair, so common a re- 
 proach with the Romans : comp. 59 1 Bononiensis rufa, 
 and my illustrations there, and Mart, xn 54 Crine 
 ruber, niger ore, breuis pede, lumine laesus. 
 
 47 and 48 : see Ellis, who means I presume that a 
 vexatious action was brought against the man for the 
 'stuprum' of a free virgin or widow. Before the Julian 
 law on the subject, proceedings at Rome against a man 
 for 'stuprum' were so uncertain and variable, that I am 
 loth to give any opinion. Certainly a Roman had such 
 perfect liberty to own or disown a child, that none 
 could be fathered on him against his will ; and I do not
 
 166 CATVLLI 
 
 see for instance what all this parade of a fictitious lying 
 in could effect, more than the simple oath of the woman 
 or of others that she had been debauched or outraged. 
 Upon the other theory which Ellis combats, we might 
 imagine it to be a trick for evading the lex Voconia : 
 either the man's father and mother, having no son, in 
 order not to forgo the property of the mother's father 
 had got up this fictitious lying in and asserted the sup- 
 posititious child was their own ; or else this man was 
 the father who, with his wife, played the same trick in 
 order to keep the property of the wife's father. In 
 either case the 'gentihV or nearest agnate would bring 
 the action, and Cat. 68 120 123 would be in point : 
 Yna caput seri nata nepotis alit, Qui cum diuitiis uix 
 tandem inuentus auitis Nomen testatas intulit in tabu- 
 las, Impia derisi geiitilis gaudia tollens. olim perhaps 
 tells for the first of these two hypotheses, uenter has 
 the meaning which it has in Horace, quoted by Ellis. 
 
 68 a 
 
 Quod mihi fortuna casuque oppressus acerbo 
 
 conscriptum hoc lacrimis mittis epistolium, 
 naufragum ut eiectum spumantibus aequoris undis 
 
 subleuem et a mortis limine restituam, 
 5 quern neque sancta Venus molli requiescere somno 
 
 desertum in lecto caeh.be perpetitur, 
 nee ueterum dulci scriptorum carmine Musae 
 
 oblectant, cum mens anxia peruigilat : 
 id gratum est mihi, me quoniam tibi dicis amicum 
 10 muneraque et Musarum hinc petis et Veneris. 
 sed tibi ne mea sint ignota incommoda, Manli, 
 
 neu me odisse putes hospitis officium,
 
 CARM. 67, G8 167 
 
 accipe, quis merser fortunae fluctibus ipse, 
 
 ne amplius a misero dona beata petas. 
 15 tempers quo primum uestis mihi tradita pura est, 
 
 iucundum cum aetas florida uer ageret, 
 multa satis lusi : non est dea nescia nostri, 
 
 quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiem. 
 sed totum hoc studium luctu fraterna mihi mors 
 20 abstulit. o misero frater adempte mihi, 
 tu mea tu moriens fregisti commoda, frater, 
 tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus, 
 omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, 
 
 quae tuus in uita dulcis alebat amor. 
 25 cuius ego interitu tota de mente fugaui 
 
 haec studia atque omnes delicias animi. 
 quare, quod scribis 'Veronae turpe, Catulle, 
 esse, quod hie, quisquis de meliore notast, 
 frigida deserto tepefecit membra cubili': 
 30 id, Manli, non est turpe, magis miserum est. 
 ignosces igitur si, quae mihi luctus ademit, 
 haec tibi non tribuo munera, cum nequeo. 
 nam, quod scriptorum non magna est copia apud me, 
 
 hoc fit, quod Romae uiuimus : ilia domus, 
 35 ilia mihi sedes, illic mea carpi tur aetas: 
 
 hue una ex multis capsula me sequitur. 
 quod cum ita sit, nolim statuas nos mente maligna 
 
 id facere aut animo non satis ingenuo, 
 quod tibi non utriusque petenti copia praestost: 
 40 ultro ego deferrem, copia si qua foret. 
 
 11 Manli. mail V. 27 Catulle V, rightly. Catullo all editors. 28 nota 
 est Perreius. nota V. 29 tepefecit scripsi. tepefacit V. tepefaxit uel tepefactet 
 uulgo. 30 Manli. mali V. 39 praesto est Froelich. poeta est V. facta uel parta 
 uel porcta uel aperta alii. 
 
 I have not hesitated to print the whole of this poem 
 as well as the next and longer one, because I believe
 
 168 CATVLLI 
 
 that I have something to say about them worth saying 
 in addition to so much that has been already well said 
 by others, and that these two poems are of some mo- 
 ment for determining the question who Lesbia was. 
 Two years back from the time I am now writing I in- 
 terchanged a series of letters with Professor Sellar of 
 Edinburgh about this and some other of Catullus' poems. 
 Both his letters and my own are now before me : in mine. 
 I argued with some fulness and this argument I in- 
 tend to repeat and develop here that Manlius had 
 written to Catullus, not from Borne as the commenta- 
 tors generally assume, but in all probability from Baiae. 
 This I state at once, because Ellis in his comment on 
 v. 27 of our poem, after dilating upon the common theory 
 observes: 'Prof. Jowett has suggested to me an entire- 
 ly different interpretation. He supposes Allius to re- 
 monstrate with Catullus on remaining at Verona, when 
 he might imitate the example of the fashionable world 
 by taking a course of hot baths, L e. at Baiae or some 
 other well-known watering place'. And in an excursus 
 appended to the next poem he remarks: 'It is not how- 
 ever necessary to suppose Baiae alluded to. There were 
 hot sulphur springs near Verona, etc.' It is gratifying 
 to me that Professor Jowett and I, thus independently 
 of one another, should have hit upon Baiae, tho' in 
 other respects we completely diverge from one another, 
 my theory having nothing to do with the hot baths, 
 which Ellis emphasises by Italics. 
 
 Nearly every commentator of Catullus is now agreed 
 that this 68th poem forms two entirely distinct poems, 
 addressed respectively to two quite different persons, 
 1 40 to a Manlius, 41 160 to an Allius: external 
 and internal evidence alike demand this separation. 
 The fact of the Mss. joining them together tells abso-
 
 CARM. 68 160 
 
 lately nothing against this, as a large portion of the 
 poems are similarly thrown together without any sepa- 
 ration in our Mss. In my judgment Schwabe (Quaest. 
 p. 340 344) has proved so convincingly that this Man- 
 lius is L. Manlius Torquatus, the bridegroom of the epi- 
 thalamium, the friend of Cicero and the epicurean cham- 
 pion in the De Finibus, who was slain in Africa in 46 
 B. c. at the close of the civil war there, that I can add 
 nothing to his demonstration nor hope to convince any 
 one who may question it. In 61 16 V hasmallio; 215 
 G has Manila, Manila \ 68 11 and 30 V has mall for 
 Manll: such corruptions are intelligible enough, as Mss. 
 perpetually confound Manlius, Malllus, Malms: if it 
 be argued that external evidence is for Mallius or 
 Mallus, I should demur to this ; but if it be so, then 
 Mallius or Mallus must be only another form of Manlius. 
 But says Ellis 'I assume here what it seems out- 
 rageous to deny, that the Mallius of the first part is the 
 Allius and Mallius of the second '. I doubt whether he 
 is not the one scholar in the world who would deny 
 that it is well, bold to assert that any one in Catul- 
 lus' days could have borne two gentile names. Allius 
 and Mallius are both common nomlna and an Allius 
 Mallius or Mallius Allius is not less odd than an Allius 
 Tullius Cicero, or a Mallius lulius Caesar. Or are we 
 to resort to the hypothesis that some Allius had adopt- 
 ed Mallius, or some Mallius "had adopted Allius, and that 
 in the same poem Catullus calls the man by his new 
 and his old name? just as if somebody in one page had 
 chosen to speak of the younger Africanus sometimes as 
 Cornelius, sometimes as Aemilius, or to name his brother 
 at one time Aemilius, at another Fabius. But my a- 
 mazement is increased when I find Ellis writing thus 
 in the Academy (March 24, 1877): 'The Cujacianus is
 
 170 CATVLLI 
 
 now before me : if I doubt the genuineness of the tra- 
 dition Q. Valerii Catulli, I must also doubt that of 
 the Sexti Aurelii Propertii Nautae, which it equally 
 contains'; as if every scholar but himself did not scout 
 the 'Aurelii Propertii' or 'Propertii Aurelii', and the 
 'Nautae' to boot, as absurd figments; as if the poet had 
 any other known names besides Sextus Propertius; as 
 if Mommsen and Haupt had not proved the 'Aurelius 
 Propertius' to have passed from a forged inscription into 
 some interpolated Mss. ; as if the testimony of the Cuja- 
 cianus were worth the material on which it is written. 
 This is ominous indeed for his 'Q. Valerius Catullus'. 
 
 With the exception of some of the shorter epigrams 
 this is to me one of the least pleasing of all Catullus' 
 poems : it strikes me as prosaic, ill-conceived and ill- 
 put together. He seems to be unhinged by grief for 
 the loss of his brother; under some constraint too per- 
 haps; for he was surely living with his father, a man 
 of importance in Verona, whose hospitality Caesar, 
 when proconsul of the Gauls, did not disdain. I can- 
 not help also fancying that he had hardly caught the 
 full meaning of Manlius' epistle, which I believe to 
 have been written in elegiac verse and to have been 
 perhaps somewhat obscure. Our poem produces on 
 my mind the impression of some degree of coarseness 
 in the character of Manlius, tho' Cicero extols so highly 
 his accomplishments. Manlius, suffering from the loss 
 of his wife Aurunculeia, had written to Catullus that 
 he found no pleasure in the old poets, probably the 
 Greeks; that he wanted him to send love-poems of his 
 own, as well as any such-like productions of others 
 which he had with him. Cicero tells us of Manlius' 
 great love of poetry. But evidently I think Manlius' 
 main purpose in writing was to entice him away from
 
 CARM. 68 171 
 
 Verona to Baiae, or wherever he himself then was, by 
 exciting his passion and jealousy with tales of Lesbia's 
 infidelities. Else why should he lacerate his feelings 
 by dwelling on so torturing a theme? The poet, being 
 probably as I have said under some paternal constraint 
 and also preoccupied by his grief for his brother, will 
 not see this, will not quit Verona, and employs himself 
 in parrying what were perhaps only feints on the part 
 of Torquatus. At least I so read the poem : let us see. 
 
 5 foil. Schwabe has well shewn that 'sancta Venus' 
 and 'in lecto caelibe' refer to the death of Vinia Auran- 
 culeia, the heroine of the epithalamium : the very fact 
 that there must have been a great intimacy between 
 the poet and the Manlius Torquatus of that poem, and 
 between the poet and the Manlius of this, while all 
 other circumstances chime in so well, makes the identity 
 of the two to my mind more than probable. 7 and 
 8, 19, 25 and 26 recall Ovid trist. v 12 1 Scribis ut 
 oblectem studio lacrimabile tempus, Ne pereant turpi 
 pectora nostra situ. Difficile est quod, amice, mones. 
 quia carmina laetum Sunt opus et pacem mentis habere 
 uolunt. 10 refers back to 7: 'you ask from me here 
 (hinc) what you do not find in your own library, love- 
 poems of my own and of others' : 'musarum et Veneris* 
 seems to me almost a hendyadis. 
 
 17 Multa satis lusi: 'I wrote light love-poems 
 enough' : the 'hoc studium' of 19, the 'haec studia' of 26. 
 That this is the meaning, the whole poem proves to me : 
 no doubt they were the result of his experience of love- 
 intrigues. Compare too the many similar expressions, 
 some probably allusions to Catullus: Mart. I 113 1 
 Quaecumque lusi iuuenis et puer quondam, Apinasque 
 nostras quas nee ipse iam noui cet. : the last line 'Per 
 quern perire non licet meis nugis' is also a reminiscence
 
 1 72 CAT VLLI 
 
 of Catullus: ix 26 9 Ipse tuas etiam uerltus Nero dici- 
 tur aures, Lasciuum iuuenis cum tibi lusit opus : to 
 Nerva of Nero's poetry which Martial admired : I have 
 other passages of Martial at hand, as well as of Ovid : 
 comp. for instance trist. v 1 7 Integer et laetus laeta 
 et iuuenalia lusi; I 9 61 Scis uetus hoc iuueni lusum 
 mihi carmen ; Virgil Carmina qui lusi pastorum audax- 
 que iuuenta: Catullus himself 50 2 and 5. 20 24, 
 compared with 91 96, three in each set being word 
 for word the same, prove that the two sets cannot 
 have belonged to the same poem: nay, as the poems 
 must have been written nearly about the same period, 
 they can hardly have been addressed to the same man. 
 26 Haec studia: the writing of love-poems, spoken of 
 above. 
 
 26 29: following the Mss. I preserve here the 
 oratio recta : all editors from the very earliest to the 
 very latest turn the sentence, I know not why, into 
 the oratio obliqua by reading 'Catullo', and make it 
 to me unintelligible. First as to the grammar: is it 
 not odd that esse should do double duty: 'turpe esse 
 Veronae esse ? turpe, like suaue, nee mirum, pote, etc. 
 the old writers often use without est; but could they 
 write 'scribis turpe' for 'turpe esse'? In that case too 
 the simplest correction of 28, notast for nota, is made 
 impossible, as sit is called for 1 . Then hie must mean 
 a.t Verona, where Catullus was, just as in 10 hinc, in 
 36 Hue both refer to Verona; and this Baehrens takes 
 it to mean here, tho' to me that is out of the question. 
 With my reading hie of course refers to the place from 
 which Manlius is writing: therefore when you write, 
 
 1 Because Lucretius uses 'unum primum summum quicquid qua quic- 
 quid' for 'quicque', Ellis should not jump to tho conclusion that Catullus 
 could use ' quisquis ' for ' every body ' in a totally different connexion.
 
 CARM. G8 173 
 
 ' it is a shame Catullus to be at Verona, because here 
 where I am whoever is a man of fashion has been 
 warming his limbs on the bed you have abandoned': 
 this, Manlius, is no shame, but rather a cruel sorrow. 
 As I have already remarked, I believe that Manlius' 
 letter was in verse and that Catullus is quoting his 
 actual words. But if this be disputed for of course 
 there is no positive evidence for it or against it surely 
 it will not be disputed that the poet could put his 
 words into verse, and prosaic verse enough, and yet 
 profess to be quoting him. Thus Mart. IX 70 1 Dix- 
 erat 'o mores ! o tempora' Tullius olim: but Tullius at 
 the beginning of his Catilines really said 'o tempora! 
 o mores!': n 41 1 'Ride, si sapis, o puella ride' Paelig- 
 nus, puto, dixerat poeta: but Martial did not mean 
 that Ovid wrote in hendecasyllables : Phaedr. in Intr. 
 27 Sed iam quodcumque fuerit, ut dixit Sinon : but 
 Sinon said 'fuerit quodcumque '. 
 
 Most take hie of 28 to be Rome where Manlius 
 then was. This cannot surely be right : how then could 
 the poet say what he says in 33 36 : ' I have no books 
 to send you because I usually live at Rome : that place 
 is my home and abode' ? First of all he would hardly 
 express himself as he does to one then in Rome: Ro- 
 mae ilia ilia : byista or some other turn of phrase, 
 he would let that be known. Most certainly too he 
 would not say ' I cannot send you books from Verona, 
 because all my books are at Rome' : he would have 
 said ' my books are at Rome, where you are ; go to my 
 library and choose what you want' : on every consider- 
 ation a simpler affair than sending books from Verona 
 to the very place where his friend was, and that place 
 Rome, the library of the world. We see Jiow Cicero 
 uses his friends' libraries as freely as if they were his
 
 174 CATVLLI 
 
 own, in town and country alike. But, as I have already 
 argued, what Manlius really wanted was to get Catul- 
 lus to come to him, where Lesbia too was. 
 
 By and bye I will return to this question ; but, as- 
 suming for the moment, what I firmly believe to be the 
 fact, that Lesbia is the notorious Clodia, I conjecture, 
 as I said in my letters to Professor Sellar, that hie is 
 Baiae. That it denotes some place which was neither 
 Rome nor Verona, I have no doubt. I refer to nume- 
 rous passages in Cicero's speech for Caelius, which shew 
 that, when Clodia was away from Rome, Baiae was her 
 favourite resort ; there she pursued her pleasures, there 
 she used 'alere adolescentes', ' entretenir' her favourites 
 such as Caelius. I need only refer to the pro Caelio 
 32 foil, such as 38 quae se omnibus peruulgaret, quae 
 haberet palam decretum semper aliquem, cuius in hor- 
 tos, domum, Baias iure suo libidines omnium commea- 
 rent, quae etiam aleret adolescentes et parsimoniam 
 patrum suis sumptibus sustentaret : since many refer- 
 ences will be found in Schwabe, and Ellis has now 
 quoted at length the main passages in an Excursus, 
 p. 344. 28 'qu. de mel. notast' will then be these 
 'adolescentes', young men of fashion: (Curius) Cic. 
 epist. vn 29 Sulpicii successori nos de meliore nota 
 commenda ; Petron. 83 ut facile appareret eum ex hac 
 nota litteratorum esse quos odisse diuites solent; 116 
 urbanioris notae homines ; 126 ex hac nota domina est 
 mea ; 132 seuerioris notae homines. 29: Ov. her. 
 
 I 7 Non ego deserto iacuissem frigida lecto ; Stat. sil. 
 ii 6 4 deserti praerepta coniuge partem Conclamare 
 tori. 
 
 32 Haec munera : ' the love-poems', the ' Haec stu- 
 dia' of 26, the 'hoc studium' of 19, the 'Multa satis 
 lusi'. 33 Nam : he now passes to the demand for
 
 CARM. 68, G8 b 175 
 
 books of amatory poetry, in addition to poems of his 
 own: of this I have said enough above. This elliptical 
 force of nam in passing from one topic to another : ' but 
 to leave that, and come to the matter of books' : is very 
 common in Latin. I have collected very many exam- 
 ples; but will refer to Draeger hist. synt. I p. 154 for 
 Cicero. The usage is common in that storehouse of 
 idiom, the supper of Trimalchio : 52 habeo capides M, 
 quas reliquit patrono meo Mummius, ubi Daedalus Nio- 
 bam in equum Troianum includit. nam Hermerotis 
 pugnas et Petraitis in poculis habeo. quod Hoc 
 
 est quod R. uiuimus : this is the full form of that 
 idiom which I illustrated above at 10 28 Istud quod 
 cet. : if he had omitted ' Hoc est quod', he would have 
 expressed exactly the same thing ; but the fuller phrase 
 is in harmony with this stiff and prosaic poem. 
 
 39 utriusque : this on the other hand is a very brief 
 and obscure way of expressing ' utriusque rei quam pe- 
 tisti', both the poems and the books : this has induced 
 Baehrens to accept Parthenius' petiti for petenti. 
 praestost (pstost) seems to me better in sense and 
 nearer to the Ms. reading than any of the many other 
 conjectures offered ; for posta est of Mss. has no sense. 
 40 I would grant both requests without any asking, if 
 I had the means. 
 
 68 b 
 
 Non possum reticere, deae, qua me Allius in re 
 iuuerit aut quantis iuuerit officiis, 
 
 ne fugiens saeclis obliuiscentibus aetas 
 illius hoc caeca nocte tegat studium ; 
 45 sed dicam uobis, uos porro dicite multis
 
 176 CATVLLI 
 
 milibus et facite haec carta loquatur anus 
 
 notescatque magis mortuus atque magis, 
 nee tenuem texens sublimis aranea telam 
 50 .in deserto Alii nomine opus faciat. 
 
 nam, mini quam dederit duplex Amathusia curam, 
 
 scitis et in quo me torruerit genere, 
 cum tantum arderem quantum Trinacria rupes 
 
 lymphaque in Oetaeis Malia Thermopylis, 
 55 maesta neque assiduo tabescere lumina fletu 
 
 cessarent tristique imbre madere genae, 
 qualis in aerii perlucens uertice mentis 
 
 riuus muscoso prosilit e lapide, 
 qui, cum de prona praeceps est ualle uolutus, 
 60 per medium densi transit iter populi, 
 dulce uiatori lasso in sudore leuamen, 
 
 cum grauis exustos aestus hiulcat agros. 
 Me, uelut in nigro iactatis turbine nautis 
 
 lenius aspirans aura secunda uenit, 
 65 iam prece Pollucis, iam Castoris implorata : 
 
 tale fuit nobis Allius auxilium. 
 is clausum lato patefecit limite campum 
 
 isque domum nobis isque dedit dominae, 
 ad quam communes exerceremus amores. 
 70 quo mea se molli Candida diua pede 
 
 intulit et trito fulgentem in limine plantam 
 
 innixa arguta constituit solea, 
 coniugis ut quondam flagrans aduenit amore 
 
 Protesilaeam Laudamia domum 
 75 incepto a ! frustra, nondum cum sanguine sacro 
 
 hostia caelestis pacificasset eros. 
 nil mihi tarn ualde placeat, Rhamnusia uirgo, 
 
 quod temere inuitis suscipiatur eris. 
 quam ieiuna pium desideret ara cruorem,
 
 CARM. 68 b 177 
 
 80 docta est amisso Laudamia uiro, 
 
 coniugis ante coacta noui dimittere collum 
 
 quam ueniens una atque altera rursus hiemps 
 noctibus in longis auidum saturasset amorem, 
 
 posset ut abrupto uiuere coniugio, 
 85 quod scibant Parcae non longo tempore abesse, 
 
 si miles muros isset ad Iliacos : 
 nam tum Helenae raptu primores Argiuorum 
 
 coeperat ad sese Troia ciere uiros, 
 Troia, nefas, commune sepulcrumAsiae Europaeque, 
 90 Troia uirum et uirtutum omnium acerba cinis, 
 quae taetre id nostro letum miserabile fratri 
 
 attulit (ei misero frater adempte mihi, 
 ei misero frater iucundo e lumine adempte, 
 
 tecum una tota est nostra sepulta domus ; 
 95 omnia tecum una perierunt gaudia nostra, 
 
 quae tuus in uita dulcis alebat amor ; 
 te nunc tarn longe non inter nota sepulcra 
 
 nee prope cognatos compositum cineres, 
 sed Troia obscena, Troia infelice sepultum 
 100 detinet extremo terra aliena solo): 
 
 ad quam tum properans fertur simul undique pubes 
 
 Graeca penetralis deseruisse focos, 
 ne Paris abducta gauisus libera moecha 
 
 otia pacato degeret in thalamo. 
 105 quo tibi tum casu, pulcherrima Laudamia, 
 
 ereptum est uita dulcius atque anima 
 coniugium : tanto te absorbens uertice amoris 
 
 aestus in abruptum detulerat barathrum, 
 quale ferunt Grai Pheneum prope Cylleneum 
 110 siccare emulsa pingue palude solum, 
 
 quod quondam caesis mentis fodisse medullis 
 
 audit falsiparens Amphitryoniades, 
 tempore quo certa Stymphalia monstra sagitta 
 M. c. 12
 
 178 CATVLLI 
 
 perculit imperio deterioris eri, 
 115 pluribus ut caeli tereretur ianua diuis, 
 
 Hebe nee longa uirginitate foret. 
 sed tuus altus amor barathro fuit altior illo, 
 
 qui tuum doniitum ferre iugum docuit. 
 nam nee tarn carum confecto aetate parent! 
 120 una caput seri nata nepotis alit, 
 
 qui, cum diuitiis uix tandem inuentus auitis 
 
 nomen testatas intulit in tabulas, 
 impia derisi gentilis gaudia tollens 
 suscitat a cano uolturium capiti ; 
 125 nee tantum niueo gauisa est ulla columbo 
 
 compar, quae multo dicitur inprobius 
 oscula mordenti semper decerpere rostro 
 
 quam quae praecipue multiuola est mulier. 
 sed tu horum magnos uicisti sola furores, 
 130 ut semel es flauo concilia ta uiro. 
 
 aut nihil aut paulo cui turn concedere digna 
 lux mea se nostrum contulit in gremium, 
 quam circumcursans hinc illinc saepe Cupido 
 
 fulgebat crocina candidus in tunica. 
 135 quae, tamenetsi uno non est contenta Catullo, 
 
 rara uerecundae furta feremus erae, 
 ne nimium simus stultorum more molesti. 
 
 saepe etiam luno, maxima caelicolum, 
 coniugis in culpa flagrantem concoquit iram, 
 140 noscens omniuoli plurima furta louis. 
 
 at quia nee diuis homines componier aequm est, 
 
 ingratum tremuli tolle parentis onus, 
 nee tamen ilia mini dexstra deducta paterna 
 
 fragrantem Assyrio uenit odore domum, 
 145 sed furtiua dedit muta munuscula nocte,
 
 CARM. 68 b 179 
 
 ipsius ex ipso dempta uiri gremio. 
 quare iJlud satis est, si nobis is datur unis, 
 
 quern lapide ilia, dies, candidiore notat. 
 hoc tibi, quo potui, confectum carmine munus 
 150 pro multis, Alii, redditur officiis, 
 
 ne uestrum scabra tangat rubigine nomen 
 
 haec atque ilia dies atque alia atque alia, 
 hue addent diui quam plurima, quae Themis olim 
 
 antiquis solita est munera ferre piis. 
 155 sitis felices et tu simul et tua uita 
 
 et domus, in qua nos lusimus et domina; 
 et qui principio nobis te et eram dedit Afer, 
 
 a quo sunt primo mi omnia nata bona ; 
 et longe ante omnes, mihi quae me carior ipso est, 
 160 lux mea, qua uiua uiuere dulce mihi est. 
 
 43 Nei Baehrens. Nee V. 50 alii 0. all G. 52 torruerit Turnebus. 
 corruerit V. 55 lumina uulgo. numula G. nGmula 0. pupula Baehrens from 
 Ellis' conj. 56 Cessare ne tristiq; V. 60 densi seems corrupt, sensim Haupt 
 Schwabe Baehrens. 61 uiatorum O, perhaps rightly, lasso uulgo. basso V. 
 uiatorum crasso Baehrens. 65 implorata Itali. implorate V. implorati (-ei) 
 uel imploratu alii. 66 allius 0, in margin manllius. manlius G. 68 dominae 
 Froelich. dominam V. 75 Incepto a scripsi. Incepto Froelich Baehrens. 
 Incepta V. Inceptam uulgo. 85 abesse Itali. abisse V. 91 Quae taetre id 
 scripsi. Que uetet id V. Quaene etiam Heinsius Haupt etc. 102 Graia L. 
 Mueller. 118 tuum domitum corrupt, tamen indomitam Heyse, perhaps rightly. 
 128 Quam quae Vossius. Quamquam V. 139 concoquit Irani Lachmann. coti- 
 diana 0, quotidiana G. 140 furta Itali. facta V. 141 At quia Itali. Atq ; V. 
 Atqui alii : post hunc desunt duo uersus. 145 muta Heysius. mira V. 148 dies 
 V. diem uulgo. 149 quo Muretus. quod V. 150 Alii Scaliger. aliis V. 156 nos 
 Itali. om. V. 157 te et eram scripsi. terrain V. Met scripsi. aufert V. Anser 
 Heysius. 158 mi Haupt. om. V. 
 
 The whole of this long poem 1 have printed, not that 
 I intend to comment on every part of it, which would 
 only defeat the purpose I have in view; but because I 
 shall thus be able to set forth most simply and clearly 
 what I have to contribute towards its criticism and 
 illustration. It must, as we have shewn, be entirely 
 
 122
 
 180 CATVLLI 
 
 separated from the preceding poem : that was addressed 
 to the well-known friend of Cicero, L. Manlius Torqua- 
 tus ; this to one Allius, a man of position as the poem 
 itself declares, but known to posterity by it alone. Ca- 
 tullus has given him the immortality he promised, tho* 
 but a shadowy and not altogether enviable one. That 
 an Allius Mallius or Mallius Allius was an impossible 
 monster in republican Rome, history and its best expo- 
 sitors all declare. The evidence of our Mss. forces on 
 us the same conclusion: while in the last poem they 
 offered a corrupt form, clearly pointing to the Manlius 
 of the epithalamium ; in this one O, our most trusty 
 guide, gives us in two of the four places where his name 
 occurs the precise form Allius, in the other two, corrup- 
 tions which just as plainly indicate the true form, while 
 G is misleading in one case only. 
 
 Very conflicting are the judgments which have been 
 passed on the merits of our poem. While Muretus and 
 some modern critics have extolled it as one of the 
 grandest productions of the Latin Muse, the poet's ac- 
 complished translator Theodore Martin declares it to 
 be far inferior to the letter to Manlius, to be 'hopelessly 
 obscure in many of its allusions and clumsy in construc- 
 tion': 'its illustrations are far-fetched and the style 
 generally inferior to the other serious efforts of Catullus. 
 Its merits scarcely repay the labour of construing it'. 
 My judgment refuses to accept either of these extreme 
 views. The poem strikes me as awkwardly and inarti- 
 ficially put together; I see no excellence in the arrange- 
 ments and transitions of the conflicting episodes; but a 
 carelessness often amounting to downright clumsiness. 
 I do not know whether it be owing to want of practice 
 or want of power; but the beauty of the Peleus and 
 Thetis is somewhat marred by a like disproportion in
 
 CARM. 68 b 181 
 
 its parts. At the same time I look upon this as vastly 
 above the preceding poem. That was written at Ve- 
 rona, probably in his father's house, under the eyes of 
 the whole household then mourning for the death of 
 his brother. To Manlius' importunities about Lesbia a 
 single line (30) serves for hifl curt, almost peevish an- 
 swer. 
 
 Here we find all changed : a vein of coarseness in- 
 deed runs through this as through the last, but of a dif- 
 ferent kind. The 'amour-passion', what phlegmatic 
 Verulam flouts at as 'the mad degree of love', is once 
 more master of his soul. This mighty force is able to 
 purify and sublimate his furious passion for a tainted 
 adulteress, false even to her paramour. We almost ex- 
 cuse the outrage of his likening her to so pure and noble 
 a heroine as Laodamia; we almost forgive his unmeasured 
 praises of a man guilty of as base an action as a gentle- 
 man could well commit, who lent his house to conceal an 
 adulterous intrigue between a woman of high rank and 
 a vicious youth, and covered with dishonour one of the 
 noblest and most virtuous patricians of the time. When 
 and where this poem was composed, there is nothing to 
 shew : I cannot think it was written in Verona, in tone 
 and colour it differs so much from the last. I feel that 
 it is somewhat later in time, tho' probably not much 
 later, than that other; for the lines about his brother, 
 common to both, have a more artificial collocation here 
 than they have there, at least that is the impression 
 on my mind. Vss. 105 and 106 are no proof to me that 
 the husband was living at the time, as they refer en- 
 tirely to the past. I proceed now to comment on par- 
 ticulars. 
 
 41 50 sufficiently declare Allius to have been a 
 man of rank. 43 Baehrens' correction of Ne (Nei) for
 
 182 CATVLLI 
 
 Nec of Mss., when once made, seems so certain that 
 one wonders it was not thought of long before : in Mss. 
 like ours the change is nothing: comp. 103 Ne G, Nec 
 O; 6 14 Ne. Nec V; 99 9 Ne. Nec V; 114 4 Nequi- 
 quam. Nec quicquam O, Ne quicquam G. I cannot 
 pass in silence the favours Allius has shewn me, lest 
 this kindness of his should be forgotten ; but I will tell 
 them to you, Muses etc. With Nec 43 and 44 utterly 
 destroy the connexion. Ellis' remark that tegat is a 
 potential, 'nor can time conceal', doesnt help me at all. 
 If the thing do not prove itself, I would appeal to 
 the exact parallel in 149 foil: Hoc tibi...Pro multis, 
 Alii, redditur officiis, Ne uestrum scabra tangat rubigine 
 nomen cet. 46: with this and 78 10 comp. Mart, xn 
 4 4 Fama fuisse loquax cartaque dicet anus : Martial is 
 fond of this adjectival use of the word. 49 and 50 I 
 take to refer to the nomina and tituli written under the 
 waxen masks or imagines in the atrium: see Mayor on 
 Juv. 8 1 and Marquardt v (l) p. 247, and the many 
 passages they cite. The neglect of these imagines would 
 indicate the decay of the family. 
 
 51 54: 'You know what pain the wily Amathu- 
 sian gave me, and in what a fashion she burnt me up, 
 when I felt as fierce a heat as the Trinacrian hill or the 
 Malian wells in Thermopylae of Oeta'. 51 'duplex' 
 must surely have the meaning it has in Horace's 'du- 
 plicis Vlixei': this might be illustrated not only from 
 the Greek SivrXovs and from Ovid cited by Ellis after 
 Fore., but also by Plaut. true, iv 3 6 edico prius, Ne 
 duplicis habeatis linguas, ne ego bilinguis uos necem. 
 Vossius' explanation, quoted by Ellis, is preposterous; 
 for of course the poet is speaking and can be speaking 
 only of Lesbia. 52, tho' Lucr. uses 'corruere' as an 
 active, there can be no question that 'torruerit' is to
 
 CARM. 68 b 183 
 
 be read. Our Mss. are of small weight on such a 
 point: 100 7 torreret O, correret G. inquogenere: 
 quo is not the relative, as in the passages quoted by 
 Ellis : it is here the indirect interrogative, and just as 
 'in omni genere' for instance is often synon. with 'omni 
 ratione': Cic. ad Q. fr. n 2 4 innumerabiles enim res 
 sunt, in quibus te cotidie in omni genere desiderem: 
 so here 'in quo genere' equals 'quali ratione'. 53 rupes: 
 61 27 Thespiae rupis, for the large hill of Helicon. 55 
 the ductus litterarum of lumina are nearer than those 
 of pupula to numula, espec. if we compare 64 32 Adu- 
 enere. Adlenire V; 183 lentos O, uentosG; 332 Leuia 
 G, Venia O: and in 56 'Cessarent' is nearer the Mss. 
 than 'Cessaret'. With the rhythm compare 99 12Non 
 cessasti omnique excruciare modo. 
 
 60 'densi' can hardly be right. I know nothing 
 better than Haupt's 'sensim', so generally accepted, but 
 it is not convincing to me. The poet appears to de- 
 scribe the stream as flowing across the path. But in 
 'the neighbourhood, if not' in 'the actual streets of a 
 town' this could scarcely be the case. Again the stream 
 must have had some volume of water, which seems a- 
 gainst 'sensim'. In the next v. too O and G leave the 
 question undecided between uiatori and uiatonim, tho' 
 I dont like to give up lasso for crasso. 65 imploratS: 
 this, the old vulgate, appears to me better than the other 
 conjectures : e and a are so often confused in our Mss. 
 
 67 69 'Allius it was who threw open a fenced 
 field and made a broad way through it ; who gave to 
 me, who gave to my lady, a house in which we might 
 indulge our loves together' : 'lato limite' seems prover- 
 bial : Aen. ix 123 lato te limite ducam; x 513 latum- 
 que... limit em agit ferro. 68 refers to and is referred 
 to by, explains and is explained by 156 Et domus in
 
 184 CATVLLI 
 
 qua nos lusimns et domina : where nos is a far simpler 
 supplement than any other: here as there, and 147 
 nobis unis, and 157 nobis, the plural is Catullus alone 
 as opposed to Lesbia : he seems to have thought it 
 more tender than the singular. He loves to oscillate 
 between nos and ego, as in the impassioned 107 3 nobis 
 quoque...mi cupido : in 8 5 Amata nobis, tho' in the 
 rest of the poem it is tu, te, tibi, Catulle. How any 
 critic, after it has once been offered to him, can refuse 
 dominae for dominam, a change so simple with Mss. 
 like ours, I do not understand : 128 they have Quam- 
 quam for the unquestionably right Quam queue, tho' 
 that too Ellis will not see : dominam has absolutely no 
 place here. Admitting it would seem in theory, he 
 will not sufficiently recognise in practice the glaring 
 fact that our Mss., where not interpolated, corne one 
 and all from a single obscure ill- written codex, in which 
 the ends of words times without number were illegible 
 or already corrupt. One might fancy he was dealing 
 with Virgil or Horace. 
 
 These words reveal to us the inestimable service for 
 which the poet sounds so loudly the praises of AUius. 
 Allius, a man of rank, and his wife (155 et tu simul et 
 tua uita) for he must of course have had a wife, and 
 a consenting wife, to make the service possible had 
 opened his house for Catullus and Lesbia to meet. It 
 was no doubt a very great act of friendship, whatever 
 else we may say of it ; for the social, if not the legal, 
 penalties attached to being found out must have been 
 serious. It proves too beyond dispute that Lesbia was 
 a woman of position ; for of course in such a case it was 
 the woman, not the man, who had to be considered. 
 To a woman of the position to which some would re- 
 duce Lesbia Rome must have offered many accessible
 
 CARM. 68 b 185 
 
 resorts. On the other hand women of rank, so long as 
 their character was of any account to them, had to be 
 exceedingly circumspect in their conduct ; but it must 
 have been open to them to visit a lady of respectability 
 and of rank equal, or not much inferior, to their own. 
 To appreciate the service rendered by Allius, comp. 
 Tac. ann. XI 4 uocantur post haec patres, pergitque 
 Suillius addere reos equites Romanos illustres quibus 
 Petra cognomentum. ac causa necis ex eo quod domum 
 suam Mnesteris et Poppaeae congressibus praebuissent. 
 In Athens too the consequences might be serious : 
 'AcTTracria SLKTJV e<f>evyei> dcre/3eias 'E/tytwrTrov TOV /caj/xwSo- 
 TTOLOV Stw/covTO? Kal Tr/aocr/caT^yojOOui'TO?, <us Ilepi/cXet yv- 
 vcu/cas ekevOepas ets TO avro <oira>cras uTroSe^otro (Plutarch 
 Per. 32). Dates and his own reiterated hints prove 
 beyond any reasonable doubt that Ovid's disaster was 
 connected with the detection of the younger Julia. 
 
 70 76 'Thither my lustrous goddess entered with 
 soft step, and planted her bright foot on the well- trod 
 threshold, as she pressed on her creaking sandal : just 
 as of yore came Laodamia to the house of Protesilaus, 
 burning with love for her spouse, love handselled alas ! 
 in vain, since the burnt-sacrifice had not yet atoned 
 the lords of heaven with its offered blood'. 70 Can- 
 dida: transfigured, verklaert, with the sheen of divinity 
 on her: the epithet of a god or a deified mortal : 133 
 Cupido Fulgebat crocina candidus in tunica ; Virg. eel. 
 V 56 Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi Sub 
 pedibusque uidet nubes et sidera Daphnis. 72 arguta: 
 Statius and Ellis are surely right ; the poet seems to 
 have taken the creaking for a good omen : ' Their black 
 and neat slipper or stertup with the creaking allureth 
 young men' A. Willet cited by Todd in Johnson. The 
 epithet thus greatly intensifies the ez^e/ayeta of the
 
 186 CATVLLT 
 
 scene. Theocr. vn 25 ws rev Trocrt via-a-opevoLo II euro. 
 Xt$og Trratoto'a TTOT dpj3v\i$ecra'Lv aetSet. 75 Incepto a : 
 this is as near the Ms. reading as Inceptam, and surely 
 gives a better meaning, as what follows seems clearly 
 to refer frustra to ' incepto amore' : Tj/uTeX^s in its true 
 meaning cannot come into question ; tho' I do not deny 
 the poet may have misunderstood the word. Catullus 
 is fond of a I and it is not otiose here : I propose in 76 
 10 Quare cur te iam a! amplius excruciem, as a simple 
 and good correction. These six verses are sweet in 
 their flow and rhythm, beautiful and impassioned in 
 their diction; as indeed is much else in the poem, 
 which on the whole is more flexible and easy in its 
 movement, and less harsh in its elisions than most of 
 the poet's elegies : it makes us see that the Ovidian 
 elegiac has lost much, while gaining more. 
 
 If we fancy ourselves in the poet's place, we can 
 well imagine how this scene would stamp itself on his 
 soul for ever, and give inspiration to his verse when 
 the occasion came for describing it. While he was able 
 to see her only perhaps at rare intervals and under all 
 the restraints of social decorum in her husband's house, 
 his love had risen to the pitch of delirium; he had ad- 
 dressed to her some of his most impassioned verse such 
 as the second poem, and the translation from Sappho 
 in which he exaggerates the frenzy of his original : 
 Ille, si fas est, superare diuos. He had come to look 
 on her as his lawful bride ; and he now saw her face to 
 face with nothing between them and fruition. If she 
 was Clodia, as I believe she was, he saw before him 
 one of the most beautiful and accomplished women of 
 the day, not yet branded with infamy. If, as is pro- 
 bable, her husband was now consul, he saw before him 
 the first. lady in the world, to whom queens and kings'
 
 CAKM. 68 b 187 
 
 daughters would hasten to yield place. No wonder the 
 poet's imagination should transfigure her into a glorified 
 divinity. 
 
 79 130: There may be some subtle symmetry and 
 refinement of proportion pervading this part of the 
 poem, in which the poet commences the story of Lao- 
 damia, passes to the Trojan war, from it to his brother's 
 death, then back to Troy, from it once more to Lao- 
 damia's love, which he compares with the abyss of 
 Pheneus, drained by Hercules, and so on to Hercules 
 and Hebe ; and then compares the same love to a 
 grandfather's for a g'randsoii born unexpectedly, and 
 next to that of a dove for its mate, and finds it greater 
 than all these there may be some Callimachean har- 
 mony running through all this; but my sense is too 
 obtuse to perceive it. I will only touch on a few points 
 of this part of the poem, which does not strike me as 
 very successful. 
 
 84 abrupto: 'the idea seems to be that of a thread 
 broken off' Ellis: most certainly not; abrupto is the 
 older form of abrepto: thus Plautus has 'subruptum, 
 subrupias, and subrapuisse' : see Wagner Plaut. aul. 39 ; 
 see too my note on Lucr. in 1031 : the antiquarian 
 Fronto has 'corruptus' and 'surrupuisse' and their best 
 Mss. shew that both the Senecas, and even that hater 
 of archaisms Martial, all use the same form. If any 
 one be unreasonable enough to deny to Catullus this 
 form, then he must read abrepto, not with Baehrens 
 absumpto: comp. below 106 Ereptum est uita dulcius 
 atque anima Coniugium; Ov. met. vn 731 desiderioque 
 calebat Coniugis abrepti. 85 abisse V: I am convinced 
 this word cannot stand here for 'fore ut abiret' : the 
 examples quoted from Draeger by Ellis of the rhetori- 
 cal use of the perfect for the future in Cicero and Livy
 
 188 CATVLLi 
 
 are such as any language could parallel, and to my 
 mind quite different from our passage. Nor can abisse, 
 I think, in a sentence like this take the place of perisse, 
 tho' I know that in certain combinations abire and ire 
 have nearly the meaning of 'to perish'. Baehrens' 
 obisse obviates this, but not the other difficulties. Nor 
 does Mueller's scirant improve matters; for surely scis- 
 cere cannot be thus followed by an infinitive, notwith- 
 standing the solitary passage which lexicons cite from 
 Silius, to which I know no parallel. It seems to me 
 that the old correction abesse is the simplest and best; 
 for Quod most naturally refers to 'abreptum coniugium' 
 * the loss of her husband': 'which loss the Fates well 
 knew was not far away, if once he went as a soldier to 
 the Ilian walls'. The use of 'non longo tempore' to 
 express duration of time is known to the best writers : 
 Georg. in 565 nee longo deinde moranti Tempore; Ov. 
 ars I 38 ut longo tempore duret amor; Mart, x 36 7 
 Non uenias quare tarn longo tempore Romam, Haec 
 puto causa tibi est; Juv. 9 16 quern tempore longo 
 Torret quarta dies; 11 152 Suspirat longo non uisam 
 tempore matrem: even Cicero has 'tempore infinito' in 
 this sense : see my note on Lucr. v 1 6 1 : and Mart. I 
 88 8 Hie tibi perpetuo tempore uiuet honor; I 36 5 
 Diceret infernas et qui prior isset ad umbras, Viue tuo, 
 frater, tempore, uiue meo. I could say something for 
 apiscei; a conjecture of my own; but will surrender to 
 abesse. If scirant be adopted, I would suggest 'Quod 
 scirant Parcae non longo tempore abesset'. 
 
 91 Quae taetre id: this I read for 'Que uetet id' of 
 Mss. Heinsius' ' Quaene etiam', which many accept, 
 never commended itself to me. If my reading be 
 approved, comp. the very similar case of 65 12 'morte 
 canam', a certain correction of the Ms. reading 'morte
 
 CARM. 68 b 189 
 
 tegam', in which one syll. is doubled, another lost, 
 through similarity of form: see my illustrations there. 
 I have already more than once see my notes on 25 5 
 and 10 32 spoken of the frequency with which r, t, 
 tr, etc. are interchanged in our Mss. ; and this confusion 
 would still more readily arise through contractions at 
 the end of words : comp. 50 12 Versarer. Versaretur V; 
 12 7 Fratri. Frat O. With the expression comp. 99 
 Troia obscena, Troia infelice sepultum: comp. too Cic. 
 de diuin. I 60 multaque facere impure atque taetre; 
 ad Att. vii 122 nam istum quidem...omnia taeterrime 
 facturum puto. 102 Graeca : 'immo Graia, ut infra 
 109, supra 66 58. neque enim Catullus magis quam 
 plerique poetarum in mythis huius populi referendis 
 Graecorum uocabulo usus est' L. Mueller; and perhaps 
 he is right. 118: It is clear to me that in this corrupt 
 verse Laodamia is made to bear the yoke, and that 
 Ellis and Baehrens are wrong in referring it to the 
 husband. Throughout the whole of this long and in- 
 volved episode it is the consuming love of the heroine 
 which is glorified: comp. espec. 119 130. It is indeed 
 a strange incongruity of this intricate story, that the 
 transcendent beauty of Laodamia is compared with 
 Lesbia's beauty ; but her overpowering passion for her 
 husband illustrates the poet's love for Lesbia, not 
 Lesbia's for him. To my mind the best of all correc- 
 tion is Heyse's : Qui tamen [tn] indomitam f. i. d. : 
 tamen is more than once corrupted in Catullus : ' but 
 your deep love was deeper than that abysm, the love 
 which taught you, tho' indomitable, to bear the yoke'. 
 This use and position of tamen is very idiomatic : Lucr. 
 Ill 553 Sed tamen in paruo licuntur tern pore tabe: and 
 see my illustrations there which I could now add to: 
 for instance Plaut. Stich. 99 quom tamen absentis uiros
 
 190 CATVLLI 
 
 Proinde habetis, quasi praesentes sint. 128 Quam 
 quae: this must surely be read: Ellis devotes a long 
 note to inprobius ; but it is in the absurdly irrelevant 
 Quamquam that the hitch lies: the diplomatic change 
 is very slight: see my note on 68 dominae. 
 
 131 134: After this very long digression he now 
 takes up again what he quitted at 70 72, and pictures 
 her as advancing from the door, until the lovers are in 
 each other's arms, in verses almost rivalling those earlier 
 ones. 131 Aut nihil aut paulo: 22 4 we had aut aut 
 for aut aut etiam: here they mean aut aut certe, a 
 usage quite as common as the other: Cic. diu. in Caec. 
 41 aut nemo aut pauci plures causas defenderint; I 
 Yerr. 31 aut nulli aut perpauci dies ad agendum futuri 
 sunt. But tho' the expression is not 'curious', it does 
 strike me as curious that he should admit the possibility 
 of his divinity being a little inferior to any heroine 
 whatever. 
 
 135 foil.: But now a vein of coarseness comes to 
 trouble our enjoyment. 136 and 137: Catullus is in a 
 state of exaltation, in glaring contrast with the depres- 
 sion and constraint of the last poem : comp. with 
 these lines the plaintive 'Id, Manli, non est turpe, magis 
 miserum est' of the other poem. 136 : A sort of paral- 
 lelism runs through much of this unequal and strangely 
 constructed poem: here 'Kara uerecundae furta erae' 
 answers word for word to 'omniuoli plurima furta louis': 
 we will bear with the few transgressions of our decorous 
 mistress, since Juno, tho' she knows the many and many 
 transgressions of Jove who lusts after all alike, yet 
 digests the rage excited by his infidelity. 137: The 
 feeling of this line is well illustrated by his contempo- 
 rary Lucretius: iv 1188 Nequiquam, quoniam tu animo 
 tamen omnia possis Protrahere in lucem atque omnis
 
 CARM. G8 b 191 
 
 inquirere risus, Et, si bello animost et non odiosa, uicis- 
 sim Praetermittere et humanis concedere rebus: comp. 
 too Ov. am. II 2 7 cur non liceat quaerenti reddita causa 
 est, Quod nimium dominae cura molesta tua est. Si 
 sapis, o custos, odium (mini crede) mereri Desine. 139 
 concoquit iram: This conjecture of Lachmann exactly 
 hits the meaning and probably gives the actual words 
 of the poet. I^Ofurta, even more than in 23 10, is a 
 certain correction offacta. Baehrens' concipit and per- 
 fida facta in my opinion ruin the point of the antithesis. 
 
 141: That two verses are lost here, and not more 
 than two, is clear to my mind: nee might possibly, tho' 
 not probably, be for non; but there must have been a 
 Catulle in what is lost, to make tolle intelligible. But 
 to assume with Ellis a lacuna of 18 vss. would be an 
 insufferable drag on the poem which has at length done 
 with its tiresome episodes, and can have nothing now 
 to say to 'pius Aeneas' or to his wife and father. Here 
 we are concerned with Aeneas' brother, not with Aeneas 
 himself; with his mother, not with his wife or father. 
 As quia would be written compendiously, At quia seems 
 the best correction of Atq; : in the next verse tolle must 
 have the usual sense of this imperative: 'away with' 
 'have done with': a sense so common as to need no 
 illustration. 'But, as mortals should not be compared 
 with gods, [and as Juno's wrongs too are far greater than 
 mine, do not indulge, Catullus, in bootless complaints, 
 and] have done with the thankless task of an over- 
 anxious father': tremulus is a very favourite word with 
 Catullus: here it seems to have much the sense it has 
 in 61 51 Te suis tremulus parens Inuocat: 'tremulous 
 with anxiety'. Give her the liberty she wishes. 
 
 143: Yes, and besides all this, remember too that I 
 have not the claims of a lawful spouse: 'she came not
 
 192 CATVLLI 
 
 to my house, led thither by her father's hand'. Ellis 
 quite misapprehends the meaning of 'Nee tamen', and 
 Baehrens reads tandem, which ruins the sense. I have 
 illustrated this use of tamen at length in my note onLucr. 
 v 1177 (and I 1050); and I could here add many more 
 instances, as Cic. epist. x 1 3 et, praeterquam quod rei 
 publicae consulere debemus, tamen tuae dignitati ita 
 fauemus cet. : where Wesenberg changes tamen to etiam, 
 as other editors do or wish to do in more than one of 
 the passages which I have quoted in my Lucretius. 
 145: 'But she gave me stealthy favours in the silent 
 night, snatched from her own lord's very bosom', muta 
 seems to me unquestionably right : I have spoken again 
 and again of the repeated confusion in our Mss. of t and 
 r; and mira has to me no meaning: comp. 64 138 mi- 
 serescere. mirescere O, mitescere G. 147 nobis unis; 
 i.e. mini uni: so above in 68 nobis: below in 156 and 
 157 nos, nobis: he must have felt some charm of pathos 
 in this use of the plural, which he so strangely mixes 
 up with the singular. See the 107th poem, in which 
 he expresses ecstatic delight at an unexpected revival 
 of Lesbia's love: Quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque 
 carius auro, Quod te restituis, Lesbia, mi cupido. Res- 
 tituis cupido atque insperanti, ipsa refers te Nobis. o 
 lucem candidiore nota ! : a seeming reminiscence of our 
 passage : ' Therefore 1 am content, if to me alone is given 
 one happy day, which my lady marks with a whiter stone 
 than usual'. 148: Tho' diem is a simple correction 
 generally adopted, I choose to keep dies, because to my 
 taste the involved sentence adds a piquancy, and is not 
 alien to Catullus' style : 44 8 Non inmerenti quam mini 
 meus uenter, Dum sumptuosas appeto, dedit, cenas; 
 66 18 Non, ita me diui, uera gemunt, iuerint; 40 adiuro 
 teque tuumque caput, Digna ferat quod siquis inaniter
 
 CARM. 68 b 11)3 
 
 adiurarit: Lucan I 13 much resembles our passage but 
 is harsher : quantum terrae potuit pelagique parari Hoc, 
 quern ciuiles hauserunt, sanguine, dextrae. 
 
 149 152 refer back to the first ten lines; as in- 
 deed this part of our poem generally has a parallelism 
 with the first part. 155 160 : ' A blessing on you all, 
 you and her who is dear to you as life, your wife ; and 
 on your house in which my mistress and I have toyed ; 
 and on Afer who in the beginning gave to me you and 
 my lady, him from whom all the happiness of my life 
 was first derived ; and first and chiefest on her, who is 
 dearer to me than my own self, my light, who while 
 she lives makes it sweet to me to live'. 155 tua uita : 
 the countenance of the wife was all-important, nos: 
 see my note on 68, to which this v. refers. 156 Either 
 Ellis is or I am much out here. 157 te et eram is got 
 readily from terrain, and I think gives a fuller meaning 
 than other corrections : Afer of course is uncertain, but 
 it comes very easily from aufert, and is a known name ; 
 tho' I am quite ready to surrender it for Anser : l qui 
 principio nobis terrain dedit, aufert' would occur very 
 naturally to the pen of a monk, dreaming that it re- 
 ferred to our Maker. By introducing Catullus and 
 also Lesbia to Allius, Afer may truly be said to have 
 first given to Catullus both Allius and Lesbia : eram : 
 so 'erae' in 136. The elision te et eram is a very easy 
 one ; as the strictest metrists, such as Ovid, freely elide 
 me, te, se before short vowels : in Catullus himself comp. 
 8 16 te adibit; 12 4 te inepte; 14 3 te odio; 66 25 at 
 te ego certe; 114 2 in se habet: all before short vowels. 
 Whether the pronoun be emphatic or not, makes not 
 the slightest difference : 6 1 6 uolo te ac tuos amores ; 
 66 75 quam me afore semper, Afore me a dominae; 
 Aen. xi 410 Nunc ad te et tua, magne pater, consulta 
 M. c. 13
 
 194 CATVLLI 68 b 
 
 reuertor ; Ter. Phor. 442 Gnatus qui me et se hisce im- 
 pediuit nuptiis. 158 mi is necessary to metre and 
 sense. 159 : surely Ellis quite misapprehends the con- 
 struction here. 
 
 LESBIA 
 
 This seems a not unsuitable place to say a few 
 words on the question who Lesbia was. I have already 
 more than once in the preceding pages, in the article 
 for instance which was written for the Journal of Phi- 
 lology ten years ago and is now reprinted, expressed 
 my firm belief that she was no other than the notorious 
 Clodia. This belief was held in the 16th century by 
 such scholars as Victorius, Muretus and Achilles Sta- 
 tius ; but, like much else, was suffered to lie in abey- 
 ance until it was again revived in the present genera- 
 tion, especially by the ' Quaestiones' of Schwabe, in 
 which this question, as well as others appertaining to 
 the life of Catullus, has been discussed with elaborate 
 fulness. Since then it has been accepted by the ma- 
 jority of scholars, tho' impugned by more than one 
 German critic who has flattered himself that he has 
 disproved or at least invalidated it. My belief in it 
 has remained quite unshaken, nay has acquired new 
 strength ; tho' I frankly admit the prima facie unlike- 
 lihood of a lady of Clodia's exalted rank having been 
 the mistress of a young poet an unlikelihood however 
 which Clodia's life and character vastly lessen the force 
 of. The question no doubt will still remain a dispu- 
 table one: Mr Nettleship says for instance with refer- 
 ence to it, in the short but excellent notice which he
 
 LESBIA 105 
 
 has given in the Academy of Ellis' commentary : ' We 
 confess, in spite of the authority against us, to having 
 our doubts on this point'. I shall be as concise as I 
 can, both for the sake of clearness and because I rest 
 of necessity mainly on the authorities so fully cited by 
 Schwabe and on the inferences which he and others 
 draw from these authorities ; tho' I may be able to set 
 one or two matters in a different point of view which 
 may help to throw some fresh light upon them, 
 
 Lesbia, Ovid tells us, and we should all have sur- 
 mised it for ourselves, was a feigned name. Where 
 did Catullus get the name from? all will answer with 
 Vossius, from his love and study of Sappho. But on 
 this I would say one thing more. No one can doubt 
 that his 51st poem, the translation of Sappho's famous 
 ode, is among the earliest of his extant poems and was 
 conceived and done in the rapture of first love, when 
 he saw his divinity through the golden haze of yet un- 
 satisfied passion. The only two poems referring to 
 Lesbia which we can well suppose to be as early as, or 
 earlier than, this one, the 2nd ' Passer deliciae', and 
 the 3rd ,' Lugete o Veneres', contain neither of them 
 Lesbia' s name. May we not then conceive that, even 
 as his ecstasy had impelled him to heighten his original 
 by the ' Hie, si fas est, superare diuos', so in continuing 
 his version it may have struck his fancy how far better 
 the burning words of passion which Sappho squanders 
 so sadly on her Lesbian girl, her 'mistress minion', 
 would fit themselves to his own bright goddess ? He 
 would then write down ' nam simul te, Lesbia, aspexi', 
 and she would become once and for ever his 'Lesbian 
 maid'. 
 
 The bond which connects Lesbia with Clodia ap- 
 pears to me not to be formed by a series of links, the 
 
 132
 
 196 CATVLLVS 
 
 failure of one of which renders the whole chain useless, 
 but rather to consist of several quite independent chains, 
 some of greater, some of less strength, which severally 
 attach the two together, and mutually strengthen and 
 are strengthened by each other. Apuleius acquaints us 
 with the important fact that Lesbia's actual name was 
 Clodia. This may go but a little way to prove her to 
 be the Clodia we want ; and yet the mere name is 
 something I think, and for the following reasons. The 
 father Appius Claudius Pulcher and his two eldest sons 
 spelt their name in the traditional manner : why the 
 youngest son Publius and the three daughters were 
 called or called themselves Clodius and Clodia, I do not 
 know. But clearly after this the form Clodius and 
 Clodia became more common among liberti and libertae; 
 tho' of course there were Clodii before this ; and Cicero 
 in his speech for Cluentius speaks of a L. Clodius, an 
 itinerant quack-salver of Ancona. I may observe that 
 Lesbia cannot be either of the two sisters of the more 
 famous Clodia, as one was dead and the other already 
 divorced and prosecuted by her husband at a time 
 when Lesbia was still living with her husband. 
 
 With the 79th poem however we make an impor- 
 tant, to my mind a quite decisive, advance towards 
 the identification of the Clodia in question : 
 
 Lesbius est pulcher : quid ni ? quern Lesbia malit, 
 quam te cum tota gente, Catulle, tua. 
 
 sed tamen hie pulcher uendat cum gente Catullum, 
 si tria notorum sauia reppererit. 
 
 4 notorum 0. natorum G. 
 
 ' Lesbius is a pretty fellow : no doubt, since Lesbia 
 prefers him to you, Catullus, with all your kith and
 
 LESBIA 197 
 
 kin. But this pretty fellow is welcome to sell Catullus 
 with kith and kin, if he can manage to get three kisses 
 of acquaintances '. notorum of is clearly right : no- 
 tus is often used as a substantive : Caes. B. C. I 74 
 hi suos notos hospitesque quaerebant. 
 
 There can be but one meaning to this : Lesbia was 
 a Clodia, therefore Lesbius must be a Clodius. The 
 poem points to foul charges of incest between Lesbius 
 and Lesbia, resembling those which were current against 
 Publius Clodius and his sister Clodia : the last line 
 points to still fouler charges, the same as those which 
 Cicero does not hesitate to bring against Clodius. 
 Then the 'pulcher': surely this points to Clodius' cog- 
 nomen Pulcher, and recalls Cicero's repeated jests on 
 the same name : surgit pulchellus puer furor Pulchelli 
 Pulchellum nostrum postquam speculum tibi alla- 
 tum est, longe te a pulchris abesse.sensisti. When we 
 compare the 2nd v. with 58 2 Ilia Lesbia, quam Catul- 
 lus unam Plus quam se atque suos amauit omnes : the 
 two passages would seem to refer to one another, and 
 to something which the poet had said to Lesbia in 
 the heyday of their passion. It is possible, not I think 
 probable, that the Clodius here alluded to is Sextus, 
 whose character Cicero paints in much the same colours 
 as that of Publius. Anyhow a Clodius it was. 
 
 I would now again call attention to the poem 68 b, 
 on parts of which I have just discoursed at such length. 
 If that poem does not prove Lesbia to have been a 
 woman of position, I have no more to say on the whole 
 question. Who then was she, if she were not Clodia, 
 wife of Q. Metellus Celer ? Dates, as I have already 
 said, declare that she was not either of Clodia^s two 
 sisters. And this I need not follow out, as both the 
 sisters were married to men of equal rank with Metel-
 
 138 CATVLLVS 
 
 lus, to L. Lucullus and to Marcius Rex respectively, 
 and no one will resort to either of these, who rejects 
 the third. What other woman of rank was there in 
 Rome, named Clodia ? I look through the lists of the 
 Appii Claudii and the Claudii Marcelli and find that, 
 before P. Clodius and his sisters, they were one and all 
 called Claudius, tho' once or twice a coin or inscription 
 may casually present the vulgar form Clodius. 
 
 I now go on to another indication : in more than 
 one poem Catullus inveighs fiercely against one Rufus, 
 whom the poet had believed to be among his dearest 
 friends, but who had in some way atrociously wronged 
 him. Turn especially to the 77th poem : Rufe mihi 
 frustra ac nequiquam credite amice : Frustra ? immo 
 magno cum pretio atque malo Sicine subrepsti mi 
 atque intestina perurens Ei! misero eripuisti omnia 
 nostra bona ? Eripuisti, eheu nostrae crudele uenenum 
 Vitae, eheu nostrae pestis amicitiae. Look at the 
 whole of this ; compare the words in Italics with G8 b 
 157 Et qui principio nobis te et eram dedit Afer, A 
 quo sunt primo mi omnia nata bona : Rufus had taken 
 from him, what Afer had first given, the greatest bless- 
 ing of his life surely nothing else but the love of 
 Lesbia. 
 
 Now Cicero's speech in defence of M. Caelius Rufus, 
 from which we learn so much about Clodia, true or false, 
 lets us see that the orator and would-be politician, M. 
 Caelius Rufus, a man a year or two younger than Ca- 
 tullus, a friend and correspondent of Cicero, his letters 
 occupying the whole of the 8th book of the Epistles, 
 was entangled in a long intrigue with Clodia, lodged 
 in her house on the Palatine, and finally came to an 
 internecine quarrel with her. These events took place 
 from about the end of 59, soon after the death of Clo-
 
 LESBIA 199 
 
 dia's husband, to 57 B.C. ; and during this period of 
 time the poet must have gone through the various 
 phases of estrangement from Lesbia and of reconciliation 
 with her, until the final rupture took place before his 
 departure for Bithynia in the beginning of 57. Was 
 not Rufus then M. Caelius Rufus ? 
 
 I would finally appeal to my dissection of 68 a : 
 Catullus informs us that he was writing from Verona. 
 Manlius, we have proved, could not, as is usually main- 
 tained, have written from Rome. He was writing from 
 some place where there were many people of fashion, 
 ' de meliore nota'. Lesbia was there, and unfaithful to 
 Catullus. May not this place have well been Baiae, 
 the favourite haunt of Clodia and the scene of her pro- 
 fligacy, whenever she was away from Rome ? 
 
 But many scholars I am aware feel the same as 
 Mr Nettleship feels when he says : ' Can Clodia ever 
 have sunk so low as the triuia and angiporti of Rome? 
 Does Cicero, in all his invective, ever hint as much as 
 this?' Well, Cicero and her sometime lover Caelius 
 Rufus both called her 'Quadrantaria'; and that smacks 
 very much of the iriuia and angiporti: nay, Catullus 
 himself never taunts Lesbia with being a mercenary 
 prostitute, like the Ameana puella. We must not for- 
 get too the poet's passionate nature, and how he often 
 convicts himself in his envenomed attacks on those 
 who have offended him. Take for instance the 91st 
 and 11 6th poems: if Gellius was, and was known to 
 Catullus to be, so abandoned a profligate and villain, 
 why did Catullus degrade himself by trying so hard to 
 gain his friendship ? If he was not such a man, then 
 the poet's inhuman invective is no less ignominious for 
 himself. But in truth Clodia would seem, like many 
 other women of high rank in ancient Rome, as in the
 
 200 CATVLLVS 
 
 Italy and France of the loth and 16th and the Russia 
 of the 18th century, when her husband's death had 
 freed her from constraint, to have drained every pleasure 
 to the dregs, and finding them one after the other to 
 be but vanity and vexation of spirit, to have come to 
 'feed on garbage' in the very recklessness of satiety. 
 Seneca in his Hippolytus (206) well depicts such a state 
 of things : 
 
 Tune ilia magnae dira fortunae comes 
 subit libido : non placent suetae dapes, 
 non tecta sani moris aut uilis cibus. 
 cur in penates rarius tenues subit 
 haec delicatas eligens pestis domos ? 
 cur sancta paruis habitat in tectis Venus, 
 mediumque sanos uulgus affectus tenet ? 
 
 I have dwelt longer on. this question than I had 
 intended to do ; but at the risk of being tedious I will 
 bring into the comparison with Clodia two ladies, one 
 of them her equal, the other even higher in rank ; one of 
 them belonging to the same, the other to the next gene- 
 ration. It is not an embittered poet, but the philo- 
 sophical historian Sallust who (Catil. 25) thus paints 
 the character of Sempronia, the mother of Decimus 
 Brutus : haec mulier genere atque forma, praeterea 
 uiro, liberis satis fortunata fuit ; litteris Graecis et 
 Latinis docta, psallere saltare elegantius quam necesse 
 est probae, multa alia quae instrumenta luxuriae sunt. 
 sed ei cariora semper omnia quam decus atque pudi- 
 citia fuit ; pecuniae an famae minus parceret, haud 
 facile discerneres ; lubido sic accensa, ut saepius peteret 
 uiros quam peteretur...uerum ingenium eius haud ab- 
 surdum : posse uersus facere, iocum mouere, sermone 
 uti uel modesto uel molli uel procaci ; prorsus multae fa-
 
 LESBIA 201 
 
 cetiae multusque lepos inerat. Take away the 'liberis', 
 and you have Clodia here painted to the life ; even the 
 fine dancing and the verse-making suit her. 
 
 The other lady is Julia, the only child of Augustus, 
 'dis genita et genitura deos', married three times suc- 
 cessively, the first and second time to the two destined 
 heirs, the third time to the actual heir of the empire, the 
 mother of many children, marked out to be emperors or 
 mothers of emperors, a lady who retained the love of 
 the Roman people even to her cruel end. Macrobius 
 (Saturn. II 5), following some old authority, describes 
 her, as she was in her thirty-eighth year, speaks of her 
 as a strange compound of vice and excellence, winning 
 the affections of all by her 'mitis humanitas' and her 
 varied accomplishments. But hear now what Seneca, 
 a younger contemporary, says (de breuit. uitae 4 6) : 
 filia et tot nobiles iuuenes, adulterio uelut sacramento 
 adacti, iam infracti [Augusti] aetatem territabant. The 
 angry poet in his bitterest lampoon is not more merci- 
 less to Lesbia, than the angry old father shews himself 
 towards his only child in the public edict which he made 
 the Praetor read before the Senate, and which Seneca 
 (de benef. vi 32) has preserved for us. When the deed 
 was past recall, and, with his daughter's, he had laid 
 his own honour in the dust, he deplored his headstrong 
 folly, and often cried out : 'horum mihi nihil accidisset, 
 si aut Agrippa aut Maecenas uixisset'. But read his 
 own words: Admissos gregatim adulteros, pererratam 
 nocturnis comissationibus ciuitatein, forum ipsum et 
 rostra, ex quibus pater legem de adulteriis tulerat, 
 filiae in stupra placuisse, cotidianum ad Marsyam con- 
 cursum, cum ex adultera in quaestuariam uersa ius 
 omnis licentiae sub ignoto adultero peteret. Does not 
 the first part of this edict remind us of the 'salax taber-
 
 202 CATVLLVS 
 
 na uosque contubernales', the 'boni beatique' and 'omnes 
 pusilli et semitarii moechi' of our 37th poem? Both 
 Augustus and Catullus are really speaking of young 
 men of fashion about town. And do not the words 
 printed in Italics paraphrase in language rather less 
 coarse the 'Nunc in quadriuiis et angiportis Glubit 
 magnanimi Retni nepotes' of our 58th poem? 
 
 71 
 
 Siqua iure bono sacer, o Rufe, obstitit hircus 
 aut siqua merito tarda podagra secat, 
 
 aemulus iste tuus, qui uestrum exercet amorem, 
 
 mirifice est a te nactus utrumque malum. 
 5 nam quotiens futuit, totiens ulciscitur ambos: 
 illam affligit odore, ipse perit podagra 
 
 1 Siqua V. Siquoi uulgo. iure Palladius. uiro V. sacer o Eufe scripsi. 
 sacrorum G. sacratorum 0. sacer alarum uulgo. 2 siqua scripsi. siquam V. 
 siquem uulgo. 
 
 In order to apprehend the meaning of this unat- 
 tractive poem, one should consult Haupt's Quaest. p. 9 1 
 foil, tho' I do not agree with all he says, and he himself 
 indeed in his edition has withdrawn his Ate. I have 
 tried hard, but have been quite unable to. understand 
 and realise Ellis' conception of the poem. I have a 
 strong suspicion that it is addressed to Rufus, as the 
 69th is expressly and the 73rd no less certainly. West- 
 phal somewhere draws attention to the fact that Catul- 
 lus not unfrequently thus alternates poems on the same 
 persons or on similar subjects with others of quite a 
 different complexion: comp. for instance 3, 5 and 7 ; 
 16, 21 (only 17 intervenes) and 23; 41 and 43. My 
 correction sacer, o Rufe of the sacrorum (sacratorum)
 
 LESBIA, CARM. 71 203 
 
 of Mas. is not so harsh as it might appear at first sight 
 to be; and I avoid two or three further changes made 
 by the editors. As I have already so often remarked, 
 final m and s are again and again interchanged in our 
 Mss. from having been written with very similar com- 
 pendia : f and f are often nearly ^indistinguishable, and, 
 as e and o are oftener confused than any other two 
 letters in our Mss., sacer o Rufe obstitit might easily 
 pass into sacrorum, quite as easily I think as sacer 
 alarum. It may be said, Rufus need not be named 
 here any more than in 73. But there is a great differ- 
 ence between the two cases: 73 tells its tale clearly 
 enough; but 71 would be pointless and unintelligible 
 without a name. Haupt, Mueller and Schwabe most 
 properly I think accept iure for the Ms. uiro : e and o, 
 as I have so often repeated, being perpetually confused, 
 the ductus litterarum are almost the same. I do not at 
 all like Virro of Parthenius, which both Ellis and Baeh- 
 rens adopt; for bono has then no meaning to me; and I 
 much doubt Virro in Catullus: he writes Naso, while 
 Ovid always says Nas8. The 'sacer hircus' is of course 
 the same thing as the 'trux caper' of 69 6. Haupt I.e. 
 p. 92 quotes Isidore's illustrations of sacer in its bad 
 sense: 'leno sacer' et 'sacer hircus', and with some rea- 
 son concludes that Isidore is referring to our verse. 
 This would go far to disprove alarum, as otherwise 
 alarum too would naturally have been quoted to com- 
 plete the phrase; just as he cites in illustration of sacer 
 in a good sense 'inter flumina nota et fontes sacros', 
 and 'Auri sacra fames' and 'sacrae Panduntur portae' 
 for its bad sense 1 . 
 
 1 At the same time it cannot be denied that Isidore may refer to Georg. n 
 395 stabit sacer hircus ad aram : espec. if we compare 380 Non aliam ob culpam 
 Baccho caper omnibus axis Caeditur : even if he is forcing Virgil's word.-;.
 
 204 CATVLLI 
 
 In v. 1 I keep the Siqua of Mss. while all editors read 
 Siquoi ; and in 2 my siqua merito is a somewhat slighter 
 change than the siquem of all editions. The omission of 
 the object in these two lines seems to add point to the 
 expression : ' If in any way, Hufus, the accursed he- 
 goat has with full justice given offence, or if in any 
 way the laming gout deservedly scourges, your rival 
 has with marvellous adroitness caught from you both 
 mischiefs : for he thus punishes both, himself and her ; 
 her he stifles with the smell, he is martyred himself 
 with the gout': the last two verses are rightly ex- 
 plained by Haupt 1. c. p. 92. 1 o Rufe : Catullus 
 generally omits o ; but 87 5 o Gelli : for the meaning 
 of obstitit comp. Aen. vi 64 quibus obstitit Ilium et 
 ingens Gloria Dardaniae, and Plautus cited by Ellis, 
 where too the object is omitted as here. Manifestly 
 I think the vague generality which the absence of an 
 object gives to the first two lines, improves their point, 
 such as it is ; because it is the woman who is offended 
 in 1, the man who is scourged in 2 ; and yet the poet 
 does not wish to reveal that till the last line : in 4 too 
 a te, which most editors alter, seems to me quite neces- 
 sary to the point of the epigram. If this poem be 
 addressed to Rufus, i. e. M. Caelius Kufus, then the 
 'uestrum amorem' of 3 would seem to be Lesbia, and 
 the 'Aemulus iste tuus' one of her many lovers. This 
 and 69 would then have been written at a later time 
 than 73 and 77, which express the first anguish of 
 jealousy and of friendship betrayed. In the last line 
 of 69 the fugiunt of Mss. should I believe loefugiant; 
 for the best writers always employ the indie, after 'mi- 
 rari, admirari si, quod' but the subjunct. after 'cur' : 
 
 Anyhow Virgil would help to shew that ' sacer hircus ' was a marked expression ; 
 and it is more emphatic without 'alarum'.
 
 CARM. 71, 73, 76 205 
 
 the 'downrightness and coarseness' which 'the indie, 
 adds/ I do not apprehend. 
 
 73 3 and 4 I would thus complete : 
 
 Omnia sunt ingrata, nihil fecisse benigne 
 
 iam iuuat : immo etiam taedet obestque magis. 
 
 My Iam iuuat would be more likely to fall out 
 before the similar letters that follow, than either Pro- 
 dest of most editions or Baehrens' luuerit : I feel little 
 doubt that the lost word or words belong to what pre- 
 cedes; not to what follows, as Haupt, and some others 
 assume. My Iam seems to have force, when we con- 
 sider the Desine of 1, and the modo of 6. 
 
 76 
 
 Siqua recordanti benefacta priora uoluptas 
 
 est homini, cum se cogitat esse pium 
 nee sanctam uiolasse fidem nee foedere in ullo 
 
 diuum ad fallendos numine abusum homines : 
 5 multa parata manent iam in longa aetate, Catulle, 
 
 ex hoc ingrato gaudia amore tibi. 
 nam quaecumque homines bene cuiquam aut dicere 
 
 possunt 
 
 ' aut facere, haec a te dictaque factaque sunt : 
 omnia quae ingratae perierunt credita menti. 
 10 quare curte iam a\ amplius excrucies ? 
 
 quin tu animum offirmas atque istinc teque reducis 
 
 et dis inuitis desinis esse miser ? 
 'difficile est longum subito deponere amorem '. 
 difficile est, uerum hoc qualubet efficias :
 
 206 CATVLLI 
 
 15 una salus haec est, hoc est tibi peruincendum, 
 hoc facias, sine id non pote siue pote. 
 
 o di, si uestrum est misereri, aut si quibus umquam 
 extrema iam ipsa in morte tulistis opera, 
 
 me miserum aspicite et, si uitam puriter egi, 
 
 20 eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi. 
 heu ! mihi subrepens imos ut torpor in artus 
 
 expulit ex omni pectore laetitias ! 
 non iam illud quaero, contra me ut diligat ilia 
 
 aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica uelit: 
 25 ipse ualere opto et taetrum hunc deponere morbum. 
 o di, reddite mi hoc pro pietate mea. 
 
 5 manent iam in longa scripsi. manetu inlonga 0, manenti * in longa G. 
 manent in longa uulgo. manent cum longa Baehrens. 10 cur te iam a amplius 
 scripsi. a om. V. iam te cur uulgo. cur te iam iam Baehrens. 11 Quin tu 
 animum offirmas Statius. Qui tui animo oiSrmas V. Quidni animum Baehrens. 
 istinc teque Heinsius. instincteque O, istinctoque G. 18 ipsam morte V. 
 
 21 Heu Meleager. Seu V. 23 me ut Heyse. me ut me V. ut me uulgo. 
 
 No other poem of Catullus brings more vividly 
 before us the fierce earnestness of his impassioned na- 
 ture, which made him one of the great lyric poets of 
 the world. We heard him above, in 68 70 72, 
 dwelling with rapt enthusiasm on the moment, which 
 had stamped itself on his memory for ever, when Les- 
 bia appeared on the threshold of Allius' house, and 
 there was now no barrier of convention between him 
 and her. We saw how, by his total absorption in self, 
 he could regard himself, the paramour, as an innocent 
 bridegroom, and her, the faithless wife, as a pure and 
 virgin bride. Just so in our present poem he can pic- 
 ture himself to his own heart as the virtuous and out- 
 raged husband, and Lesbia as the well-beloved and 
 
 O 
 
 traitorous wife of his bosom : ' Such tricks hath strong 
 imagination' when it belongs to a Catullus. To no
 
 CARM. 76 207 
 
 other of his poems may we more justly apply the words 
 of an accomplished writer in the North British Review 
 (vol. 36 p. 232) : 'He is one of the very few writers in 
 the world who, on one or two occasions, speaks directly 
 from the heart. The greater number even of great 
 poets speak only from the imagination;... but this one 
 speaks as nature bids him the joys and sorrows of his 
 own heart' : a criticism at once original and most true. 
 I heartily agree with all that Ellis writes in praise 
 of this poem ; but I do not feel that 'it must have been 
 written late ' ; it may have been written late ; but so 
 fiercely vacillating were the moods of the poet's mind, 
 that I am not at all sure it was composed much later 
 than the two parts of 68. This and many similar cases 
 I acknowledge myself totally unable to decide upon. 
 
 5 : my reading here is I think nearer the Mss. than 
 others which have been proposed: iam is by no means 
 otiose. 10 my insertion of a is a very simple correc- 
 tion : Catullus is fond of this interjection ; which is 
 unelided, as here, in Hor. epod. 5 71 A, a solutus; Tib. 
 (Lygdamus) in 4 82 A ego ne; (Sulpicia) iv 11 3 A ego 
 non aliter. 11 animum offirmas: this I take to be a 
 quite necessary correction of 'animo off.'; the absorp- 
 tion of um in the like letters which precede, and the 
 doubling of o exactly resemble the examples given at 
 65 12 morte canam. The instances cited by Ellis of 
 offirmo followed by an infin., occurring too only in 
 Plautus and Terence, scarcely warrant 'animo offirmas' 
 here : I suspect too that Ovid was thinking of Catullus 
 when he wrote met. ix 745 Quin animum firmas teque 
 ipsa recolligis, Iphi, Consiliique inopes et stultos excu- 
 tis ignes: which might support 'Quin tu' as well as 
 'animum'. istinc teque: this I am convinced is the 
 right reading here: for the position of que comp. my
 
 208 CATVLLI 
 
 note on 57 2 Mamurrae pathicoque: in our passage 
 indeed que could not well have any other position : for 
 que Et comp. 102 3 Meque...Et, by no means a rare 
 combination in Latin. 18 'ipsa in morte' and 'ipsa 
 morte' are equally near the 'ipsam morte' of V: twice 
 in Virgil we find 'Extrema iam in morte', and he was 
 perhaps more likely to omit the prepos. than Catullus : 
 tho' Virgil has also 'extrema hora'. 21 Heu, mihi s. 
 (not Heu mihi, s.) seems the simplest correction of Sen : 
 68 12 Neu O, Seu G. 23 tne ut me of V for ut me 
 resembles 110 3 quod promisisti mihi quod V. 
 
 92 
 
 Lesbia mi dicit semper male nee tacet umquam 
 de me: Lesbia me dispeream nisi amat. 
 
 quo signo? quia sunt totidem mea: deprecor illam 
 assidue, uerum dispeream nisi amo. 
 
 If Gellius had not chanced to preserve the last two 
 verses, we should have depended on O alone for them; 
 one instance out of so many in which it shews its 
 superiority over G. 3 sunt totidem mea: Ellis' sug- 
 gestion that 'the expression is perhaps drawn from the 
 language of games' is probable enough. However that 
 may be, the quite parallel expression in Hor. sat. n 298 
 Dixerit insanum qui me, totidem audiet atque Respi- 
 cere ignoto discet pendentia tergo, helps to shew that 
 Catullus' words are not to be tampered with, tho' no 
 one has given a precise explanation of either Catullus 
 or Horace.
 
 CARM. 92, 95 209 
 
 95 
 
 Zmyrna mei Cinnae, nonam post denique messem 
 
 quam coepta est nonamque edita post hiemem, 
 milia cum interea quingenta Hatrianus in uno 
 
 uersiculorum anno putidus euomuit, 
 5 Zmyrna cauas Satrachi penitus mittetur ad undas, 
 
 Zmyrnam cana diu saecula pemoluent: 
 at Yolusi annales Paduam morientur ad ipsam 
 
 et laxas scombris saepe dabunt tunicas, 
 paraa mei mihi sint cordi monumenta Phalaeci : 
 10 at populus tumido gaudeat Antimacho. 
 
 3 Hatrianus in (uel is) scripsi. Hortensius V. 4 hunc u. addidi : om. V. 
 9 Phalaeci addidi : om. V. sodalis Auantius, uulgo. 
 
 Haupt first, at the end of his Quaestiones, and 
 next Schwabe in his most elaborate dissection of this 
 difficult and corrupt poem (Quaest. p. 278 288) have 
 dispelled much of the darkness which long rested on it. 
 I flatter myself lean make some further contribution 
 to its criticism and elucidation. I regret to add that 
 either I am quite wrong in this assumption, or else 
 Ellis in his commentary, instead of advancing, has made 
 a step backward, especially in his defence of the absurd 
 * Hortensius'. This unlucky word has caused Lach- 
 mann, and after him Haupt, to separate vss. 9 and 10 
 from the rest, and make them into a distinct poem. 
 Schwabe has clearly proved that they cannot form a 
 complete whole, and that 'Hortensius' must be corrupt. 
 I will state as briefly as I can what Haupt, Schwabe 
 and others have already made clear, and will then go 
 on to what I have to add of my own. 
 
 The Zmyrna or Myrrha is an epyllion, or short 
 hexameter poem, of his friend Gaius Heluius China, 
 
 M. c. 14
 
 210 CATVLLI 
 
 mentioned above in our 10th poem, on the story of 
 Myrrha, the daughter and paramour of Cinyras and 
 the mother of Adonis. Catullus throughout presents 
 this short but excellent epic in contrast with the vo- 
 luminous but worthless ' Volusi annales'. These ' an- 
 nales' were a long chronicle in hexameters written by 
 Volusius, a pseudonym for one Tanusius Geminus, as 
 has been demonstrated beyond dispute from a passage 
 in Seneca. Already in his 36th poem Catullus has 
 mercilessly jeered at these 'annales Volusi', whether 
 with full justice or not, it is impossible for us to say. 
 
 To judge from their punctuation and comments, all 
 previous editors would seem to make the sentence end 
 with the lost 4th line. This cannot be so ; for Catullus 
 certainly would not use edita for edita est: the 5th 
 verse takes up the ' Zmyrna' of the first : ' The Zmyrna 
 of my Cinna, published ten summers and ten winters 
 after it was begun, when all the time the putid Hatrian 
 has been belching forth verses at the rate of 500,000 
 a year, the Zmyrna, I say, will be sent as far as the 
 waters of the Satrachus ; Zmyrna the hoar ages will 
 long peruse : but the annals of Volusius will perish be- 
 fore they get across the Padua and will many a time 
 furnish roomy coats for mackerel'. Catullus' first coup- 
 let, and this nine years' incubation over a poem of a 
 few hundred lines became proverbial: not only Quin- 
 tilian, but also Philargyrius and Seruius on EcL ix 35, 
 and Porphyrion and Pseudo-Acron on the Ars poet. 
 388 speak of this nine years travail: Philargyrius 1. 1. 
 refers to Catullus and to Quintilian, and adds that 
 Horace's ' nonumque prematur in annum ' is said to be 
 an allusion to it. 3 : Of the * Hatrianus' I will speak 
 presently : my supplement must give the general sense, 
 some decided antithesis to the first couplet. The 'milia
 
 CARM. 95 211 
 
 quingenta' was proverbial perhaps for a large number; 
 for Trimalchio in his laughable way talks of 'sublata 
 in horreum ex area tritici milia medium quingenta' in 
 a single day from his Cuman estate. 
 
 5 is well explained by Haupt who shews from seve- 
 ral ancient authorities that Satrachus was the name of 
 a town and river in Cyprus, and Zmyrna or Myrrha 
 belonged to Cyprus. Cinna's Zmyrna will get as far as 
 the distant home of the heroine herself, i. e. will have 
 a world- wide fame; and (6) will live through long ages. 
 I have little doubt that 'cauas Satrachi undas' is 
 taken from Cinna's poem, because Catullus imitates 
 him in 6 as well. For Cinna (Suet, de gramm. 11) says 
 in like manner of Valerius Cato's Diana : Saecula per- 
 maneat nostri Dictynna Catonis. Catullus' ' saecula 
 cana' for remote posterity seems a strange use of the 
 phrase : Ellis remarks, what I had myself noted, that 
 Martial uses it in its more natural sense of ages long 
 gone by: x 19 16 he uses 'saecula posterique' to ex- 
 press what Catullus says here: yet Catullus' follower, 
 the author of the Ciris, in v. 41 clearly imitates our 
 verse : Nostra tuum senibus loqueretur pagina saeclis. 
 They seem to have anticipated Bacon's philosophical 
 remark : mundi enim senium et grandaeuitas pro anti- 
 quitate uere habenda sunt ; quae temporibus nostris 
 tribui debent, non iuniori aetati mundi, qualis apud 
 antiques fuit. 
 
 I now come to v. 7 : Haupt 1. 1., followed by the 
 later commentators, rightly observes that, as Satrachus 
 is a river, the antithesis requires that Padua shall be 
 also a river : what river it is he proves by quoting, after 
 an older critic, Polyb. II 1 (> o 8e ITctSos cr;(iTai eis Svo 
 pepy Kara TOWS Trpoo-ayopeuo/xeVov? TpiyaJSoXovs. TOVTUV 
 St TO p.ev Tpov oTOfia Trpotroi/o/jta^erat riaSoa, TO Se 
 
 142
 
 212 CATVLLI 
 
 Ire/301/ "O\ava : my reason for repeating all this, will 
 appear presently. Polybius says that the two streams 
 into which the Po divides below Ferrara, are named 
 the IlaSoa and the *O\ava. If we compare with him 
 Pliny in 119 foil., it will appear that Smith's Diet, of 
 Geogr. is wrong in identifying the IlaSoa with the 
 Padusa, mentioned in the Aeneid. The Padusa, Pliny 
 tells us, was the name given to the mouth of the 
 'Augusta fossa', an artificial cut, and that the older 
 name of this mouth was Messanicus. Then enume- 
 rating the different mouths, beginning with the most 
 southern, he comes to ' dein Volane, quod ante Eolane 
 uocabatur' : now whether ' Eolane' should or should not 
 be ' Olane', we must connect this name with Polybius' 
 "OXava. Pliny, still advancing northward, says the lar- 
 gest and most northern branch was called at its mouth 
 * Septem Maria', no doubt from the seven mouths look- 
 ing like so many seas: omnia ea [ostia] fossa Flauia, 
 quam primi a Sagi fecere Tusci, egesto amnis impetu 
 per transuersum in Atrianorum paludes quae Septem 
 Maria appellantur, nobili portu oppidi Tuscorum Atriae 
 a quo Atriaticum mare ante appellabatur quod nunc 
 Hadriaticum. This 'fossa Flauia' carried the super- 
 fluous water from the other mouths northward into the 
 'Septem Maria'; and these were the mouths of the 
 northern or chief branch of the Po, and were also called 
 the ' Atrianorum paludes', from Atria, the only place of 
 importance among these 'paludes', already in Catullus' 
 time greatly decayed, tho' it had once been a famous 
 emporium of the Etruscans, before the Gauls had broken 
 their power in those parts; and by the testimony of 
 Greek and Roman authors alike it had given name to 
 the 'ASpia? or Hadriatic. 
 
 It follows then that Polybius' IlaSoa and Catullus'
 
 CARM. 95 213 
 
 Padua was the larger and northern branch of the Po ; 
 for as Catullus wrote just midway in time between 
 Polybius and Pliny, what was common to the Po in 
 their time, must have existed in his : it follows too 
 that Volusius, or Tanusius Geminus, was born or re- 
 sided near it; belonged therefore to Atria or its vicinity, 
 the marshy district between the Padus and the Athesis. 
 The poet therefore says his annals will perish before 
 they have been able to get across the Padua. As now 
 the symmetry of the poem requires Volusius to be 
 named in 3, I have ventured to write there Hatrianus, 
 'the native of Hatria'; an admissible form I think, since 
 it gave name to the 'Hadriaticum mare'; which always 
 had the aspirate in Catullus' time; though Atria is the 
 usual name of the town : see Mommsen Inscr. L. V p. 
 220. I may assume too that the a is short ; for Pro- 
 pertius writes 'H&driae mare', and 'HMrianus' is the 
 emperor's name, which he derived however from the 
 Hadria or Atria of Picenum. 
 
 We now come to the last two vss. : 'Be it for me to 
 find enjoyment in the short works of my own Phalaecus; 
 for the people to delight in their bulky Antimachus'. 
 In these two vss. the antithesis is still maintained be- 
 tween Cinna and Volusius. All commentators admit 
 that the 'bulky', or it may be 'turgid, long-winded, re- 
 dundant', 'Antimachus' is Volusius: for the reasons 
 why he should be so called see Ellis. To me it is equally 
 clear that, to produce the due antithesis, we need a 
 name, and the name of a Greek poet, in the imperfect 
 9th verse. This has been seen by more than one critic, 
 and 'Philetae' and 'Phanoclis' have both been pro- 
 posed: certainly the 'sodalis' of most editors and the 
 'Cinnae' of Baehrens are very pointless. I prefer my 
 'Phalaeci' to anything else: Cinna must, I should infer,
 
 214 CATVLLI 
 
 have been somewhat older than Catullus and Calvus ; 
 for he had just published his epyllion after nine years' 
 elaboration. Now his very scanty fragments shew that,, 
 besides this epyllion and the 'Propempticon Pollionis' 
 which must have been written many years later, he 
 wrote Phalaecian hendecasyllables, scazons and elegiac 
 epigrams. Catullus had not I believe at this time 
 finished his own epyllion ; and, if he had, he could not 
 have taken China's, which was only just published, for 
 a model. He had however written just in those other 
 metres in which we know that Cinna too wrote. If 
 Cinna then were their senior, it is more than probable 
 that Catullus and Calvus looked up to him as one of 
 their teachers in poetry. We learn from the equally 
 scanty fragments of Phalaecus that he not only wrote 
 and gave name to the Phalaecian hendecasyllable, but 
 also composed elegiac epigrams and verses which have 
 much the halting effect of the scazon. There can hardly 
 be any doubt then that Phalaecus was a prime model 
 for all the three friends. What more natural now than 
 that Catullus should fondly call Cinna his own Pha- 
 laecus \ 
 
 Scholars have proved for a good summary of the 
 arguments see Teuffel's Eom. Lit. that, in spite of the 
 exact coincidence of name and Plutarch's odd rt? KiWa? 
 TTOI^TIKOS dvrfp, the tribune C. Heluius Cinna who, as 
 Val. Maximus, Suetonius, Appian, and Plutarch twice 
 over, tell us, was murdered by mistake at Caesar's 
 funeral, cannot have been our Cinna, who clearly lived 
 beyond that time. Else the 'tear him for his bad 
 verses, tear him for his bad verses' of the mob would 
 have been a grimly humorous revenge for Catullus' sneer 
 at their love for their favourite Tanusius, who must at 
 least have been easier to understand than Cinna was.
 
 CARM. 95, 96, 102 215 
 
 96 
 
 Si quicquam muteis gratum acceptumque sepulcris 
 
 accidere a nostro, Calue, dolore potest, 
 quom desiderio ueteres renouamus amores 
 
 atque olim amissas flemus amicitias, 
 5 certe non tanto mors inmatura dolorist 
 Quintiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo. 
 
 3 Quom Guarinus. Quo G. Que V. 4 olim amissas Statius. olim missas V. 
 
 3 Quom: this I think a necessary correction: we 
 see once more in O and G the perpetual confusion be- 
 tween e and o: comp. too my note on 30 5, where I 
 read Quom for Que of V. 41 see no occasion for any 
 of the more violent corrections that have been made in 
 this verse: the simple correction of Statius puts all 
 straight : mittere often has the meaning of omittere, as 
 in Lucretius again and again ; and this is its sense in 
 the passage which Ellis quotes from Seneca; but it 
 never I believe has the force of amittere, which is what 
 we want here. 5 and 6: See my note on 45 3 with 
 respect to the somewhat involved construction. Surely 
 we need not feel any doubt that Quintilia is Calvus' 
 wife. 
 
 102 
 
 Si quicquam tacite commissum est ficlo ab amico 
 
 cuius sit penitus nota fides animi, 
 meque esse inuenies illorum, iure sacratum, 
 
 Corneli, et factum me esse puta Harpocratem. 
 
 1 tacite Aid. 1515. tacito V.
 
 216 CATVLLI 
 
 'If aught has been confided in secrecy by a trusty 
 friend whose sincerity of soul is thoroughly proved, you 
 will find me to belong to that order, consecrated with 
 full right, and you may rest assured that I have become 
 the god of silence incarnate'. 1 tacite: once more the 
 never-ceasing interchange of e and o ; for I am convinced 
 that this old correction is necessary, and I am surprised 
 that it has been rejected by all the modern editors. 
 With tacito the construction is intolerably harsh, as may 
 be seen by looking at Ellis' forced interpretations; who 
 is obliged to refer both Cuius and illorum to tacito. I 
 do not hesitate to affirm that this acceptance of e for o 
 both here and in so many other passages is virtually no 
 departure from the Mss. at all ; thus I have no doubt 
 we should read studiose in 116 1. 
 
 3 illorum has now a plain and simple meaning : my 
 trusty friend Cornelius will find me as trusty as him- 
 self, and one of his own order, regularly initiated in the 
 guild: the plural has reference to the generic notion 
 contained in 'fido amico', just as in 111 Aufilena, uiro 
 contentam uiuere solo Nuptarumst laus e laudibus exi- 
 miis: see my note on 10 12 quibus. For Meque Et 
 comp. 76 11 teque Et and my note there. 
 
 I will here refer back to a note of Ellis on 99 6 
 uestrae: 'not = tuae, but of you and others like you, 
 your boyish cruelty... uester is never = tuus in Catullus'. 
 If uestrae is not for tuae here; if 'uestrae saeuitiae' is 
 not the particular rage of luuentius alone at being 
 kissed, without the least notion of any other boy in the 
 world having any share in this rage, then it seems to 
 me any tuns in the language might be made out to be 
 really a uester. Again in 39 20 'uester dens' is surely 
 the tooth of Egnatius alone of all people in the world. 
 To v. 2 of this 99th poem, Plaut. true, n 4 19 (Phr.)
 
 CARM. 102, 107, 110 217 
 
 Complectere. (Di.) Lubens. heia, hoc est melle dulci 
 dulcius: would be even a closer parallel than the one 
 cited by Ellis. 
 
 107 16 
 
 Si quid cui cupidoque optantique obtigit umquam 
 insperanti, hoc est gratum animo proprie. 
 
 quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque carius auro, 
 quod te restituis, Lesbia, mi cupido. 
 
 restituis cupido atque insperanti, ipsa refers te 
 nobis. 
 
 1 quid quoi Baehrens. quid quid 0, quicquid G. cupidoque Itali. cupido V. 
 
 By a better punctuation I have preserved the Ms. 
 reading in 3, and, if I am not mistaken, have augment- 
 ed the emphasis: 'Wherefore this is welcome to me 
 ay, dearer than gold': with the asyndeton I would 
 compare my correction of 110 7 est furis plus quam 
 meretricis auarae. The various alterations which critics 
 have made seem to me only to weaken the force of the 
 expression, nobis mi cupido cupido insperanti 
 nobis : comp. my notes on 68 68 and 147. 
 
 To go back to 104 2 Ambobus mihi quae carior est 
 oculis: he loves dearly this comparison; but the * Am- 
 bobus' adds to its pathos; as Apul. apol. p. 402 Hoc 
 mihi uos eritis quod duo sunt oculi. 'When these two 
 things were desired, the Ambassador told us, It was to 
 ask his Master's two eyes, to ask both his eyes, asking 
 these things of him' O. Cromwell (Carlyle n p. 422). 
 
 110 
 
 Aufilena, bonae semper laudantur amicae: 
 accipiunt pretium, quae facere instituunt.
 
 218 CATVLLI 
 
 tu, promisisti mihi quod mentita, inimica es: 
 
 quod nee das et fers saepe, facis facinus. 
 5 aut facere ingenuae est, aut non promisse pudieae, 
 Aufilena, fuit: sed data corripere 
 
 fraudando est furis plus quam meretricis auarae, 
 quae sese toto corpore prostituit. 
 
 3 Tu, promisisti mihi quod scripsi. Tu quod promisisti mihi quod V. Tu 
 quod promisti, mihi quod uulgo. 4 et fers ~B. Guarinus. nee fers V. 7 est furis 
 scripsi. efficit V. 
 
 This is not a poem which one would care to study 
 much except for purposes of criticism. But, on examin- 
 ing it for such purposes, I seemed to myself, rightly or 
 wrongly, to see some points in it which had escaped the 
 editors and commentators. The following appears to 
 be the plain and indisputable sequence of the argument: 
 'Aufilena, honest and kind mistresses are ever praised: 
 they receive the recompense of what they agree to do. 
 You, in having made to me feigned engagements, are 
 unfriendly and unfair : in not granting your favours and 
 yet taking money for them again and again, you are 
 guilty of a crime. On the one hand to fulfil engage- 
 ments is the course pursued by a candid woman ; on the 
 other hand not to have made them at all would have 
 been that of a modest woman : but to get hold of what 
 is tendered by robbery and cheating is the conduct of a 
 thief, yes, worse than the behaviour of a grasping 
 strumpet who yields to every form of degradation'. 
 This seems to me the simple exposition of a simple 
 thought; which every edition, so far as I can see, more 
 or less obscures, some no doubt more than others. The 
 last four lines are a comment on the first four : the first 
 portion of these last lines being an elucidation of the 
 first three verses; the last portion explaining v. 4. Nor
 
 CARM. 110 219 
 
 do I think that my corrections are more violent than 
 those made by others : but of these I will speak sepa- 
 rately. 
 
 2 fac. instit. : Cicero pro Gael. 49 si quae non nupta 
 mulier...uirorum alienissimorum conuiuiis uti institue- 
 rit: so that instituo is here almost synon. with statuo 
 or constituo. 3 : my correction of this v. by the omis- 
 sion of the first quod is as simple as to read with all 
 editors 'quod promisti'; for it is natural that a scribe 
 should insert a quod in its more natural position before 
 the verb; so 76 23 me ut. me ut me V: and my read- 
 ing I think is necessary for the syntax of the sentence, 
 as I cannot believe that Catullus would say 'quod 
 mentita' for 'quod mentita es': the partic. mentitus is 
 as often passive as active. Ellis I think is right in 
 saying that inimica is the opposite of boiia arnica; but 
 his text and his explanation of it I cannot comprehend : 
 he will not even accept, what every other modern 
 editor accepts, etfers for necfers; and will not see that 
 4 is a rise upon, and the due climax to, 3. Thus he 
 interprets: 'But you, in making me a promise, in dis- 
 appointing me as only a false mistress can, in refusing 
 either to give or take, are outraging me continually': 
 das axidfers, he says, are correlative 'give and take', as 
 in Most, 'feram siquid datur'. This is to me all a 
 riddle. If there is anything clear in this poem, it is 
 that das has the sense which it so often has in Martial, 
 of a woman granting her favours; and that fers must 
 have the meaning of receiving money for granting or 
 promising them ; and saepe surely goes with what pre- 
 cedes, not with what follows; and even so, how could 
 the words mean 'you are continually outraging me' ? 
 To me 'saepe' has force; and 'facis facinus' is more em- 
 phatic without an epithet such as turpe: comp. Caes.
 
 220 CATVLLI 
 
 B. G. vi 20 2 falsis rumoribus terreri et ad facinus 
 impelli; Cic. pro Mil. 43 cruentis manibus scelus et 
 facinus prae se ferens et confitens. The making a 
 promise and not fulfilling it is an offensive act; but to 
 take money and then not give what was bargained for 
 is an enormity. 6 fuit: see Madvig gramm. 348 anm. 
 
 6 8 is an amplification of 4. 7 est cannot be 
 omitted : some place it at the end of the verse ; others 
 where I have put it : the many many corrections which 
 have been made of this verse I will not mention, as 
 there seems to me a hitch in them all: Haupt and 
 Mueller simply leave it as corrupt. My est (e) fur is 
 for the Ms. efficit is simpler than it looks : twice already, 
 23 10 and 68 140, the Mss. have facta for furta, and 
 on 6 121 have given many examples, from G or O or 
 both, of final t for s. Of course Catullus can call the 
 woman a 'fur', the word having no feminine, just as 
 Plautus, quoted in the lexicons, says to two women 
 'fures estis ambae'. And surely the epigram requires 
 at the close some such point as I have given to it: else 
 what is the force of the last line ? The poet now says : 
 you are a thief you are worse even than the strumpet 
 who for gain submits to any degradation: she does not 
 cheat you, she 'et dat et fert', gives the service for 
 which she took your money. The asyndeton seems 
 here emphatic : est furis [est, inquam,] plus quam cet. : 
 comp. 107 3 Quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque carius 
 auro. For the force of plus take two passages, cited by 
 Hand: Cic. phil. 2 31 confiteor eos, nisi liberatores 
 populi Romani conseruatoresque rei publicae sint, plus 
 quam sicarios, plus quam homicidas, plus etiam quam 
 parricidas esse; Livy x 28 4 primaque eorum proelia 
 plus quam uirorum, postrema minus quam feminarum 
 esse. Ellis surely wrestles here in vain : what resem-
 
 CARM. 110, 114, 115 221 
 
 blance either in the arrangement of words or in the 
 force of the epithet between for example 'perfidia plus 
 quam Punica' and 'plus quam meretricis auarae'? I 
 could comprehend for instance 'meretrix plus quam 
 quaestuaria'. And then the omission of est ? 
 
 114 
 
 Firmano saltu non falso Mentula diues 
 
 fertur, qui tot res in se habet egregias, 
 aucupia omne genus, piscis, prata, arua ferasque. 
 
 nequiquam: fructus sumptibus exuperat. 
 5 quare concedo sit diues, dum omnia desint: 
 saltum laudemus, dum modo ipse egeat. 
 
 1 Firmano saltu Auantius. Firmanus saluis V. 3 Aucupia omne genus, 
 Statius. Aucupia G. An cupia 0. Aucupium, omne genus uulgo. 6 modo 
 ablative. 
 
 115 
 
 Mentula habet instar triginta iugera prati, 
 
 quadraginta arui: cetera sunt nemoris. 
 cur non diuitiis Croesum superare potis sit, 
 
 uno qui in saltu tot moda possideat, 
 5 prata, arua, ingentis siluas saltusque paludesque 
 
 usque ad Hyperboreos et mare ad Oceanum ? 
 omnia magna haec sunt, tamen ipsest maximus, ut re 
 
 non homo, sed uero mentula magna minax. 
 
 1 instar corrupt : perhaps tonsi. 2 nemoris scripsi. maria V. 4 moda. bona 
 Attanlins : perhaps Tot qui in saltu uno commoda possideat. 7 maximus, ut 
 re scripsi. maximus ultor V. ultro uulgo. 
 
 These two strange poems were perhaps left by the 
 poet in an unfinished state. I have printed them 
 both together, because the one throws much light on 
 the other, the point of both being the same. If the
 
 222 CATVLLI 
 
 various editions and commentaries be examined, it will 
 be seen how widely scholars differ in opinion about the 
 text and the meaning. Much has hitherto been left 
 unexplained : whether my comments will throw any 
 new light upon them, let others decide. 
 
 Mentula, it is agreed on all hands, is Caesar's friend 
 Mamurra of whom so much has been said above. This 
 offensive name must have been fixed upon him by the 
 'ista uostra diffututa mentula' of 29 13, where the 
 word is already half a proper name. This and the 
 * mentula magna minax' of 115 8 make it doubtful to 
 me whether Catullus would in our present poems have 
 joined the word to an epithet that declared itself to be 
 masculine : diues has the requisite ambiguity. For 
 this and other reasons I avoid in v. 1 Firmanus, and 
 at the beginning of 1 1 5 I do not accept nosier. 
 
 Firmum was a town of Picenum, far away from 
 Formiae the ' urbs Mamurrarum '. We might fairly 
 then infer I think that Mamurra got his ' Firmanus 
 saltus' by the favour of Caesar. We find in the Gro- 
 matici uet. (lib. col. I p. 226 Lach.) this statement: Ager 
 Firmo Piceno limitibus triumuiralibus in centuriis est 
 per iugera ducena adsignatus. If the triumvirs made 
 this assignation, it is likely enough that Caesar may 
 have intended to do something of the same kind ; and 
 he may well have bestowed by special grace on the 
 favoured Mamurra an 'ager uiritanus'; for the meaning 
 of which see Marquardt up. 148. Varro, cited in the 
 lexicons, tells us that * saltus' was the technical name 
 for an assignation of land of 800 iugera. Ellis only 
 quotes the passage to say that this is not the sense 
 which it bears here. I believe that it has some such 
 meaning ; else the two poems become even more ob- 
 scure than they are at present, and the saltusque of
 
 CARM. 114, 115 223 
 
 115 5 looks like nonsense. MamurraV extravagant 
 habits and the words of Catullus make it probable that 
 this saltus was used for sport rather than for profit ; 
 and I can see no point in the hyperbole of the 2nd 
 poem, unless we assume that Mamurra had got in ad- 
 dition to his saltus of 800 iugera or so a large tract of 
 uncultivated hill- and forest-land, on which no 'uectiga- 
 lia' could be raised and which would therefore be of little 
 or no value to the state or to a private cultivator. 
 Cicero's bitter taunt, ad Att. vn 7 6 Et Labieni diui- 
 tiae et Mamurrae placent : might suggest that this 
 saltus too came from Caesar. I will now shew what 
 my conception is of the whole : the one poem illustrates 
 the other : 
 
 114 : ' Mentula with truth is accounted rich in his 
 Firman saltus, which contains so many choice things, 
 winged game of every sort, fish of every kind, meadow- 
 land, ploughland and wild animals. All in vain : he 
 exceeds his profits by his expenses. Therefore I am 
 ready to grant he is rich, if only at the same time all 
 things are wanting : I am willing we should praise his 
 saltus (and its proportion), if at the same time he him- 
 self lack all due measure and proportion'. 115: ' Men- 
 tula has thirty iugera of meadow, forty of arable land : 
 all the rest consists in forest. Why should he not 
 exceed Croesus in riches, since in a single saltus he 
 possesses so many commodities, meadow, ploughland, 
 vast forests and lawns and pools reaching to the Hy- 
 perboreans and the Ocean ? All these are great ; yet 
 he himself is greatest of all, being as he is in fact no 
 man, but '. 
 
 1 14 3 (and 115 5) : here we have, besides arua and 
 prata, the ' aucupium piscatus uenatio ' mentioned by 
 Cicero and Celsus, quoted by Ellis : the ferae would
 
 224 CATVLLI 
 
 be chiefly * boars ' and * deer ', Virgil's ' pingiiis ferina '. 
 But the prata and arua mentioned in both poems, more 
 particularly in the 2nd, seem to shew he cannot be 
 using saltus in the non-technical sense of the word : 
 comp. Gallus Aelius ap. Fest. p. 302 saltus est, ubi 
 siluae et pastiones sunt, quorum causa casae quoque : 
 siqua particula in eo saltu pastorum aut custodum 
 causa aratur, ea res non peremit nomen saltus. But 
 here ' eae res ' make up a most essential portion of the 
 saltus. Comp. with both poems the Digest, quoted by 
 Marquardt 1. 1. : forma censuali cauetur ut agri sic in 
 censum referantur : nomen fundi cuiusque : et in qua 
 ciuitate et in quo pago sit:...et aruum, quod in decem 
 annos proximos sectum erit, quot iugerum sit:...pratum, 
 quod intra decem annos proximos sectum erit, quot iu- 
 gerum : pascua, quot iugerum esse uideantur : item 
 siluae caeduae... locus quoque piscatomos cet. : Hyginus 
 too (Gromat. p. 205 Lach.) speaks of l ami primi, arui 
 secundi, prati, siluae glandiferae, siluae uulgaris pas- 
 cuae'. The poet refers with a kind of pedantry to 
 the things printed in Italics, as if he were speaking of 
 some formal estate. In the 'siluae glandiferae' boars 
 would be fed, in those 'uulgaris pascuae" deer and 
 other animals. 
 
 114 3 'omne genus', indeclinable as so often in Lu- 
 cretius, refers I think to both 'Aucupia' and 'piscis'. 
 
 5 and 6 must be compared with 7 and 8 of 115: dum 
 has the limiting force so common in Latin : oderint, 
 dum metuant: you may call him rich in name, if you 
 allow that his extravagance leaves him without a penny. 
 
 6 modo, the adverb, would suit neither sense nor metre: 
 I take the point of the verse to lie in the double sense 
 of modus : the Gromatici, or agri mensores, often speak 
 of the modus or measure of land which differed in
 
 CARM. 114, 115 225 
 
 different places ; and Varro de B. R. I 1 1 observes : in 
 modo fundi non animaduerso lapsi sunt multi, quod 
 alii uillam minus magnam fecerunt quam modus pos- 
 tulauit, alii maiorem, cum utrumque sit contra rem 
 familiarem ac fructum. maiora enim tecta et aedifica- 
 mus pluris et tuemur sumptu maiore, and so on. Well, 
 Mamurra's saltus has a fine enough modus : it is he him- 
 self lacks a due modus, i.e. a modus in the metaph. sense 
 of 'ratio', 'moderatio': Cic. pro Marc. 1 tantum in 
 summa potestate rerum omnium modum, tarn denique 
 incredibilem sapientiam ac paene diuinam tacitus prae- 
 terire nullo modo possum; pro Cluent. 191 quibus 
 finem aliquando non mulieris modus, sed amicorum auc- 
 toritas fecit; de fin. n 27 ergo et auarus erit, sed finite, 
 et adulter, uerum habebit modum ; Hor. sat. n 3 265 o 
 ere, quae res Nee modum habet neque consilium ratione 
 modoque Tractari non uult: Cicero and Horace almost 
 play on the word, as Catullus does. This line then ex- 
 presses much what 1158 does : Mamurra has no modus, 
 no standard of moderation ; he is in fact not a human 
 being, but, as his name implies, a big menacing 'men- 
 tula', modo I think may be shortened without elision 
 in Catullus like 'uale ual8 inquit' and other like cases: 
 in 10 27 'mang inquio' is not improbably right; but 
 modo unelided must not be fathered on Catullus. 
 
 1151 habet instar: is this metre possible in Catullus? 
 again I do not comprehend the syntax of the sentence : 
 in the passage of Velleius, quoted by Ellis, instar is 
 followed by a genitive, and of course scores of like ex- 
 amples might be given: but 'instar iugera'? iuxta may 
 be right; tonsi, as a t precedes and a tri follows, is not 
 a violent diplomatic alteration: the 'pratum quod... 
 sectum erit', i. e. the best meadow- land, cut by the 
 scythe, suggested the word to me. 2 sunt nemoris : if 
 
 M. c. 15
 
 226 CATVLLI 115 
 
 the ne were absorbed in sunt (comp. G8 56 Cessare ne 
 for Cessarent), the moms might easily pass into maria : 
 maria I believe to be quite untenable ; nor can I grasp 
 Ellis' elucidations. Pliny's 'septem maria' refer to the 
 sea-like mouths of the Po ; and Catullus is now speaking 
 of an upland country. The 'cetera' must contain siluae 
 and saltus and all kinds of game, birds and beasts, as 
 well as pascua : now the 'sunt nemoris' will include all 
 this : comp. the 'uariae uolucres nemora auia peruoli- 
 tantes' the 'ad satiatem terra ferarum Nunc etiam 
 scatit et trepido terrore repleta est Per nemora ac 
 montes magnos siluasque profundas ' of Lucretius ; the 
 famous 'Nemus Dianae' of Aricia; the ' Te nemus Angi- 
 tiae, uitrea te Fucinus unda, Te liquidi fleuere lacus'. 
 
 4 'totmoda' is generally declared to be barbarous: 
 Auantius' ' tot bona ' may be right ; yet as com is 
 often expressed by a short symbol, 'commoda' might 
 easily become 'moda', and occasion 'tot' and 'uno' to 
 change places : Tot qui in saltu uno commoda possideat, 
 gives a good sense and a good verse. 5 : The poet may 
 perhaps have meant 'saltusque' to have some point, as 
 one only of the things contained 'uno in saltu'; the 
 'cetera sunt nemoris' comprising the 'ingentis siluas 
 saltusque paludesque', which contain the birds, beasts 
 and fish respectively. But the precise point of the 
 huge hyperbole in the 6th verse I cannot say I catch. 
 7 : I do not see the meaning of ultro which so many 
 editions have at the end of this verse. Ellis says Varro 
 joins ultro with ipse. But it by no means follows that, 
 where ipse is in place, ultro should also be so. Again I 
 think maximus should stand alone and not be joined 
 with homo ; for he is maximus just because he is not 
 homo. When we reflect how very very often o and e are 
 interchanged in our Mss., my ut re will not seem a violent
 
 CATVLLVS AND HORACE 227 
 
 correction, and offers, if I am not mistaken, a most ap- 
 propriate meaning. And indeed the sed uero of 8, for 
 which Ellis most aptly cites Lucr. iv 986 Non homines 
 solum, sed uero animalia cuncta, requires I think some- 
 thing like re to precede it. The first line of the next 
 and last poem seems to furnish another example of this 
 confusion of o and e : Saepe tibi studiose [B. Guarinus : 
 studioso V] animo uenante requirens Carmina uti pos- 
 sem mittere Battiadae: for by this change alone does 
 the sentence gain proper symmetry. Martial in I 100 
 seems to imitate 115 6 and 8: Mammas atque tatas 
 habet Afra, sed ipsa tatarum Dici et mammarum maxima 
 mamma potest. This qualifying use of ut, 'seeing that 
 he is', is common enough: Cic. epist. xv 3 2 mihi, ut in 
 eiusmodi re tantoque bello, maximae curae est ut quae 
 cet. With the last v. comp. Marius Plotius p. 462 1 
 Keil : non est homo sed ropio (?). 
 
 CATVLLVS AND HORACE 
 
 Ten years ago my much-honoured friend the late 
 Professor Conington published a lecture on 'the style 
 of Lucretius and Catullus as compared with that of the 
 Augustan poets', since reprinted among his miscellane- 
 ous writings. This lecture, composed throughout in 
 the kind and courteous language which his candid and 
 generous temper imperiously dictated to him, is a criti- 
 cism of certain remarks of mine which occupy less than 
 a page in the second edition of my Lucretius. My 
 remarks on Catullus and Horace are contained in about 
 a dozen lines: his criticism of these lines extends over 
 five or six pages. Obviously a dozen lines admitted of 
 
 152
 
 228 CATVLLVS 
 
 no more than a most hurried and allusive reference to 
 the points in dispute, my main topic being of course 
 Lucretius. I thought then, and still think, that the 
 critic of my criticism had sought to join issue on far too 
 limited a subject-matter. I was waiting for a suitable 
 opportunity to tell him so ; when his lamented death 
 within two years of the publication of his lecture stop- 
 ped for a season even the desire to speak out; until the 
 time for speaking at all seemed to have passed away 
 for ever. The subject had thus dropped altogether out 
 of my thoughts, when the present occasion induced me 
 to take it up once more. To prevent the controversy 
 running uselessly off into the aueipov, I will endeavour 
 as much as possible to confine myself to the points 
 which he has raised; but in justice to myself and to 
 Catullus I must be allowed here and there a greater 
 freedom of range. 
 
 I will begin by quoting in full the few sentences of 
 mine to which I refer, as they are not to be found in 
 the last edition of my Lucretius: Tor Lucretius' sake 
 I am not sorry to find Catullus put by his side and de- 
 clared to be as much below Horace as Lucretius is below 
 Virgil. Though Catullus' heroic poem was I believe 
 one of his latest, I do not look on it or his elegiacs as 
 the happiest specimens of his genius; but his lyrics 
 to my taste are perfect gems, unequalled in Latin, un- 
 surpassed in Greek poetry. Horace, when he wrote 
 his epodes and earlier odes, was probably older than 
 Catullus was when he died. Yet in the metres com- 
 mon to them both, in the iambic for instance and the 
 glyconic, who will say that the former with all his 
 labour and care has obtained the same mastery over 
 them which Catullus displays, who would seem to have 
 thrown them off at once without effort according as the
 
 AND HORACE 229 
 
 odi or the amo constrained him at the moment to write ? 
 His language is as undefiled a well of Latin as that of 
 Plautus, and is withal the very quintessence of poetry'. 
 Though I do not repudiate one single syllable of what 
 I have said here, I should not have wished that these 
 few allusive sentences should have been made the whole 
 battle-ground in a comparison between the merits of 
 Catullus and Horace. Not only has Conington done 
 this, taking up as he had a right to do his own position 
 and point of observation; but he has still further nar- 
 rowed the ground by assuming that I wished to exclude 
 virtually from the comparison things which I look upon 
 as quite essential to its completeness : much of Catullus' 
 highest poetry is contained in his hexameters and ele- 
 giacs; tho' from the nature of the case the full perfec- 
 tion of form and substance is seen only in what are 
 generally termed his lyrics. Again when I mentioned 
 'the iambic for instance and the gly conic', I meant to 
 pit Catullus' three glyconic poems, one of which is more 
 than 200 lines in length, against all the glyconics and 
 asclepiads of every kind whatever in Horace ; and the 
 scazons and pure iambics of the former against all the 
 latter's epodes and some of his odes as well. Nay fur- 
 ther, developing my 'for instance', I sought to compare 
 Catullus' hendecasyllables, scazons, glyconics and sap- 
 phics with the whole of Horace's lyrical productions, 
 and to maintain their immense superiority, immense 
 I mean of course according to my taste and judgment. 
 But Conington has still further restricted the main 
 controversy to an elaborate comparison between a stanza 
 or so of Catullus' translation of Sappho and a couple 
 of lines in a sapphic stanza of Horace. On this ground 
 too T will essay to meet him ; but I must first be allowed 
 to take a somewhat wider and ampler view of the case.
 
 230 CATVLLVS 
 
 Another fundamental point of difference between 
 Conington and me is this : he reasons on the assumption 
 that in every kind of poetry alike form and language 
 attained their highest perfection in the Augustan age ; 
 that all which preceded that age was immature and 
 imperfect, all that followed it overripened or rotten. I 
 cannot express too strongly how widely I dissent from 
 him in this. None can admire more ardently than I 
 fancy that I do what is great in the Augustan age, the 
 consummate perfection for example of Virgil's language 
 and rhythm. Nay, I believe I go farther than Coning- 
 ton himself went, in thinking that Livy's style is on the 
 whole perhaps the greatest prose style that has ever 
 been written in any age or language. At the same 
 time I do not hesitate to express my firm belief that 
 Terence, who died at the age of 26 it would seem, nearly 
 a century before Virgil was born, has attained to an 
 excellence of style and rhythm in his verse which has 
 never been surpassed in Latin or perhaps in any other 
 language, and that it would be the very extreme of 
 bigotry and injustice to maintain that Horace's iambics 
 can abide a moment's comparison with those of Terence. 
 Look on the other hand at what Martial did, notwith- 
 standing the manifold disadvantages of his position. If 
 we take the epigram in the Latin and modern sense of 
 the terra, do all the epigram-mongers of the whole 
 world put together display a tithe of his exuberant 
 wit and humour, his fancy, his perfection of form and 
 style? It is only natural that Latin should observe 
 in these respects the law which prevails in all culti- 
 vated languages. One might very well hold the opi- 
 nion that the rhymed verse of Dryden or of Pope was 
 superior to that of half a century or a century before 
 them, without being bound to maintain that the dull
 
 AND HORACE 231 
 
 and colourless blank verse of Thomson or Young was 
 superior or even equal to that of Shakespeare or Mar- 
 lowe. Tho' I have said what I have said of Livy, I do 
 not shut my eyes to the equal perfection of Caesar's 
 prose, or of Cicero's many styles as exhibited in his ora- 
 tions, treatises, and above all in his letters to Atticus, 
 the very counterpart in style of Catullus' more familiar 
 manner. In times of transition, when a mighty move- 
 ment is going on in any literature, and great poets are 
 pushing on their art in different directions and forging 
 the instruments suited for the various forms of that art, 
 it will always happen that inventive minds will advance 
 farther in some kinds than in other. Catullus then I 
 say has reached perfection in his lyrics ; from the force 
 of circumstances he has fallen short of it in his hexame- 
 ters and elegiacs, tho' in some of the latter, such as the 
 7Gth poem and portions of the second part of the 68th, 
 he has sounded depths and reached heights of inspira- 
 tion, which Propertius himself has failed to attain. 
 
 Horace I believe to have been a thoroughly modest 
 man, and to have meant what he said, when he de- 
 scribes himself as laboriously gathering honey like the 
 Matinian bee ; declining that is to set himself up as a 
 rival of the Greek masters, while he is piecing together 
 his elaborate and more or less successful mosaics. To 
 match the perennial charm of the Catullian lyric we 
 must abandon the soil of Latium and betake ourselves 
 to Alcaeus or Sappho, ay and join with him or her the 
 Muse of Archilochus as well ; or else jump over the 
 ages and come at once to Burns and Goethe. With 
 Catullus there is no putting together of pieces of mo- 
 saic: with him the completed thought follows at once 
 upon the emotion, and the consummate form and ex- 
 pression rush to embody this thought for ever. In
 
 232 CATVLLVS 
 
 observing that ' Horace, when he wrote his epodes and 
 earlier odes, was probably older than Catullus was when 
 he died', I did not wish to grudge Horace his longer 
 and matured life : I meant to say that his colder genius 
 ripened slowly, while inspired and impassioned natures, 
 like Catullus, seem to leap at once to perfection in con- 
 ception and expression alike. How much of all that is 
 best in the lyrics of Goethe was thought and written 
 before he was thirty, even if it did not appear in its 
 final shape until a much later period of his life; and 
 Shakespeare's lyrical genius can never have been greater 
 than at the time when he conceived his Romeo and 
 Juliet. 
 
 I could confirm my estimate of Catullus by the tes- 
 timony both of ancient and modern times. That owing 
 to temporary and social causes Horace had a certain 
 jealousy of Catullus, there can be no doubt, tho' he is 
 at the same time his frequent imitator. Virgil had 
 studied him much, as is shewn alike in his very earliest 
 poems and in his Aeneid ; while Ovid, the most candid 
 and unenvious of men, set no bounds to his admiration. 
 That in the age which followed the Augustan Horace 
 ' had the cry', we might perhaps infer from the constant 
 imitation of his language which we meet with in the 
 Senecan tragedies ; perhaps too from what Quintilian 
 says, tho' when he is speaking of Horace, he is not 
 thinking of Catullus as a lyric poet at all. With Mar- 
 tial on the other hand, who belonged almost to the last 
 age in which Roman literary judgment was of much 
 value, Catullus was supreme. Martial, obeying the 
 irreversible verdict of his countrymen, freely acknow- 
 ledged Yirgil as sovereign of Latin poetry ; yet he 
 seems to worship him at a distance, and his first and 
 second loves, his Delia and his Nemesis, are Catullus
 
 AND HORACE 233 
 
 and Ovid: Tantum magna suo gaudet Verona Catullo, 
 Quantum parua suo Mantua Vergilio. And yet there 
 must have been much in Catullus' somewhat archaic 
 rhythms and prosody to displease Martial with his mo- 
 dern tastes, so antipathetical to all that was obsolete. 
 From more recent times one might select a myriad of 
 witnesses for Catullus : I will content myself with a 
 very few. Fenelon is not one whom we should expect 
 to find among the chief admirers of our poet ; and yet 
 he can speak of him in the following terms, selecting in 
 support of them a poem of two lines which a common 
 observer might easily pass over : Catulle, qu'on ne peut 
 nommer sans avoir horreur de ses obscdnite's, est au 
 comble de la perfection pour une simplicity passionne'e : 
 
 Odi et amo. quare id faciam fortasse requiris : 
 nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. 
 
 Combien Ovide et Martial, avec leurs traits inge'meux 
 et fa9onne's, sont ils au dessoux de ces paroles negligees, 
 ou le coeur saisi. parle seule dans une espece de ddses- 
 poir. Coleridge near the beginning of his Biographia 
 tells us of the inestimable advantage which he owed 
 to his old master who habituated him to compare 
 Lucretius, Terence, and above all the chaster poems of 
 Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of the silver 
 and brazen ages, but with even those of the Augustan 
 era, and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic 
 to see and assert the superiority of the former in the 
 truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and diction. 
 There are few who have loved the great Greek and 
 Roman writers more than Macaulay : it is thus he 
 speaks of Catullus (Life n p. 448): 'I have pretty 
 nearly learned all that I like best in Catullus. He 
 grows on me with intimacy. One thing he has I do
 
 234 CATVLLVS 
 
 not know whether it belongs to him or to something in 
 myself but there are some chords of my mind which 
 he touches as nobody else does. The first lines of Miser 
 Catulle; the lines to Cornificius, written evidently from 
 a sick bed ; and part of the poem beginning ' Si qua 
 recordanti' affect me more than I can explain ; they 
 always move me to tears'. And again (i p. 468) : 
 'Finished Catullus August 3, 1835. An admirable 
 poet. No Latin writer is so Greek. The simplicity, 
 the pathos, the perfect grace, which I find in the great 
 Athenian models, are all in Catullus, and in him alone 
 of the Romans'. It would have been better to put 
 ' Greek' in the place of ' Athenian'. I have cited above 
 some words of an eloquent writer in the North British 
 Review; here are a few more: ' Of what he has written, 
 almost everything that is valuable appeals to feelings 
 that survive all changes of times and circumstances 
 and are common to civilised men' ; they ' are as intelli- 
 gible and moving now, as they were to the Romans 
 who heard them first' : ' some of these poems have 
 been so often imitated that we are a little apt to forget 
 in reading them, how much freshness and originality 
 and force of thought they really display': 'no love 
 poems yet written are more exquisite' : none so exqui- 
 site to my mind. 
 
 But I am running off into that aTreipov which I 
 sought to eschew. Conington begins by criticising the 
 epithalamium of Manlius Torquatus and Vinia Aurun- 
 culeia. 'The fault of Catullus' says Conington, 'as I 
 conceive it, like that of Lucretius, is a certain redun- 
 dancy, now tending to luxurious ornamentation now to 
 rustic simplicity ; but in a poem like the epithalamium 
 these qualities happen to be exactly in place. It is 
 written throughout in a style of which the diminutives
 
 AND HORACE 235 
 
 which abound in it (a characteristic feature these of 
 Catullus' diction) are a type and sample : there is a 
 vein of vTro/co/atcr/^os, as the Greeks called it, running 
 through the piece, a petting, affectionate tone, which as 
 little hears to be criticised by ordinary rules as the 
 " Little Language" of Swift's letters to Stella'. It is 
 only the halo thrown over this 'Little language' by the 
 love of the man now in years for the blooming woman 
 evoking the remembrance of the love of that man in 
 his youth for the half-articulate prattle of that woman 
 in her infancy, which saves this ( Language* from being 
 denounced as pure idiocy. The epithalamium of Ca- 
 tullus contains some of the best and sweetest poetry 
 which this world has produced, clothed in language 
 of unfading charm 1 . So at least I think: and yet 
 Conington can find nothing better, to extenuate the 
 ' fault' of Catullus who is as fresh and modern to us as 
 he was to Calvus and Cinna, than the obsolete cranks 
 and whimsies of the poetaster Herrick. I hold it to be 
 one of the most grievous defects of the literary diction 
 established in the Augustan age, that it almost banished 
 from the language of poetry those diminutives which 
 are a characteristic, not only of Catullus' diction, but of 
 the letters to Atticus, and of the verse of Plautus and 
 Terence : it made the lyric of the heart impossible. 
 The same has happened in the English of literature; 
 and the true lyric seems to have vanished from English 
 
 1 Torquatus uolo paruulus Matris e gremio suae Porrigens tenoras manus 
 Dulce rideat ad pattern Semhiante labello: this, and much else like it, then as 
 little bears to be criticised as : And so Dood uiollah, Little sollah, and that is 
 for the rhyme : or, I assure oo it im vely rate now : but zis goes tomorrow, and 
 I must have time to converse with own deerichar MD. Nite dee deer sollahs ! : 
 or, Bold, dlunken srut, drink Pdfr's health ten times in a morning! You are 
 a whetter. Faith, I sup MD's fifteen tunes evly molning in milk porridge. 
 Lelc's fol oo now, and lele's fol u Battle, and evly kind of slug.
 
 236 CATVLLVS 
 
 too since the seventeenth century. Some indeed would 
 persuade us that the metallic resonance of that drink- 
 ing-song, tho' ' Twas at the royal feast for Persia won', 
 the ' Happy, happy, happy pair ! None but the brave, 
 None but the brave, None but the brave deserves the 
 fair' has the genuine ring of the lyric, and is to be pre- 
 ferred to those divine stanzas which make immortal 
 the three peasants who get drunk over their ale : ' O 
 Willie brewed a peck o' maut' ; or to that other lyric no 
 less divine which sheds an undying lustre over that 
 fuddled old barbarian the King of Thule. These two 
 songs have much of the 'petting affectionate tone', 
 which 'Philip's warlike son' disdains to bestow on 
 ' lovely Thais' by his side. 
 
 Conington in his plea for Horace versus Catullus 
 selects, as he has a right to do, for the matter of his 
 main argument, one of the only two Sapphic odes which 
 appear among the poems of Catullus: this poem he 
 quotes in full and dissects. I will state by and bye 
 why this appears to me to bear hard upon the older 
 poet, and I will then enter into the minutiae of his 
 criticism. Meanwhile, keeping strictly to those pas- 
 sages in which Horace is imitating or thinking of Catul- 
 lus, I will, to put the controversy on what is I think a 
 fairer ground, cite at length, well known as it is, the 
 whole of that ode, two lines of which Conington brings 
 forward to demonstrate their superiority over the words 
 of the elder poet : 
 
 Integer uitae scelerisque purus 
 non eget Mauris iaculis neque arcu 
 nee uenenatis grauida sagittis, 
 Fusee, pharetra,
 
 AND HORACE 237 
 
 siue per Syrtes iter aestuosas 
 siue facturus per inhospitalem 
 Caucasum uel quae loca fabulosua 
 
 lambit Hydaspes. 
 
 namque me silua lupus in Sabina, 
 dum meam canto Lalagen et ultra 
 terminum curis uagor expeditis, 
 
 fugit inermem: 
 
 quale portentum neque militaris 
 Daunias latis alit aesculetis, 
 nee lubae tellus generat leonum 
 
 arida nutrix. 
 
 pone me pigris ubi nulla campis 
 arbor aestiua recreatur aura, 
 quod latus mundi nebulae malusque 
 
 luppiter urget; 
 
 pone sub curru minium propinqui 
 solis in terra domibus negata, 
 dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, 
 
 dulce loquentem. 
 
 This ode, from which Conington has selected his 
 chief weapon of attack, is certainly not in my judgment 
 one of Horace's best. I see no inward bond of con- 
 nexion between the four first most prosaic stanzas one 
 with the other, nor between them and the last two; 
 and the wolf, more terrible than any lion or wild boar, 
 savours more of nervousness than of inspiration. But I 
 would direct attention at present on the last two stanzas. 
 Whether Lalage was ever a girl of flesh and bone, with 
 a heart beating within her ribs, or was merely a doll 
 stuffed with sawdust, I do not pretend to decide. But 
 what poet of high genius would ever imagine himself 
 as actually wandering about amid Arctic ice and fogs,
 
 238 CATVLLVS 
 
 or again beneath the suns of the burning zone, and con- 
 tinuing the while to love his sweetly laughing Lalage? 
 Did he dream that ' sighing like furnace' would give 
 him the heat too of a furnace, fired perchance by the 
 inspiration of some 'woful ballad made to his mistress' ' 
 laugh ? but then the torrid equatorial suns ? Horace 
 never really conceived the situation : he was simply 
 trying to outdo what he remembered in his Catullus : 
 
 Acmen Septimius suos amores 
 tenens in gremio, 'mea* inquit 'Acme, 
 ni te perdite amo atque amare porro 
 omnes sum assidue paratus annos 
 quantum qui pote plurimum perire, 
 solus in Libya Indiaque tosta 
 caesio ueniam obuius leoni'. 
 
 Read the whole of this transcending 45th poem: it will 
 be felt and known to have come in one gush from the 
 mind of its creator. Note the perfect unity and har- 
 mony of the thought, the magnificent motion of the 
 rhythm. But turn more especially to the lines just 
 quoted : there you have truth and reality. Septimius, 
 made immortal by his love, cannot conceive even of 
 change in himself or in her; feels that his bliss will 
 never end; and so to enhance, if he may, this bliss, he 
 pictures to himself what of horrible he can, and offers, 
 if his love should ever end, to go and encounter a lion 
 on the torrid plains of India or Africa, knowing right 
 well that this can never be. 
 
 But this is not the only part of the poem that Ho- 
 race has been thinking of. There is a neat enough 
 mosaic of his, very much better than the ode quoted 
 above, the 'Donee gratus eram', in which the poet and 
 Lydia outbid one another; tho' there too I miss all
 
 AND HORACE 239 
 
 lyrical passion and sweetness. Horace, wlien he was a 
 favoured lover, was happier than the king of Persia; 
 Lydia, ere Chloe was preferred to her, was more famous 
 than Roman Ilia. But what is there in the duU cold 
 splendour and isolation of a Persian king to attract a 
 real lover? And the fame of Roman Ilia! what's Ilia 
 to her or she to Ilia, that Lydia should think her fame 
 worth pitting against true love? But hear now Catul- 
 lus: 
 
 Nunc ab auspicio bono profecti 
 
 mutuis animis amant amantur. 
 
 unam Septimius misellus Acmen 
 
 mauult quam Syrias Britanniasque : 
 
 uno in Septimio fidelis Acme 
 
 facit delicias libidinesque. 
 
 Here again you have the ring of true passion. At the 
 moment when the poem was written Caesar was invad- 
 ing Britain, and Crassus was off, 'partantpourlaSyrie', 
 to annihilate the Parthians. The youth of Rome were 
 nocking West and East, some to share in the conquest 
 and pillage of the new America; others to sack the 
 gold and jewels of Asia. Septimius heeds it not : his is 
 not the self-conscious and therefore unreal passion which 
 can affect postures and grimaces and fine-drawn senti- 
 ments: 'I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved 
 I not honour more'. What is gain and glory to him, 
 when Acme is on his bosom? Then the true poet can 
 conceive of nothing higher for Acme, than to dote for 
 ever on her own Septimius. Roman Ilia indeed ! The 
 whole of this exquisite poem well illustrates the fine 
 observation of Hermogenes : ij Se y\vK.vrr)<s olov /caXAos TC 
 Trjs cu^eXetas ecru. Sweetness is the never-absent charm 
 which Catullus throws over the simple beauty of those 
 poems, in which sweetness can have place.
 
 240 CATVLLVS 
 
 Before I return to Catullus' translation of Sappho, I 
 would just direct attention to the short ode (i 21) 
 'Dianam tenerae dicite uirgines' in which Horace imi- 
 tates the 34th poem of Catullus 'Dianae sumus in fide': 
 the whole of the two odes should of course be read to- 
 gether ; but take one stanza as a sample of each ; and 
 first Catullus : 
 
 Montium domina ut fores 
 
 siluarumque uirentium 
 
 saltuumque reconditorum 
 
 amniumque sonantum. 
 
 And now take a stanza of Horace : 
 
 Vos laetam fluuiis et nemorum coma, 
 quaecumque aut gelido prominet Algido, 
 nigris aut Erymanthi 
 siluis aut uiridis Cragi. 
 
 If Catullus does not surpass Horace here alike in the 
 simple vigour of the thought and in the majestic march 
 of the rhythm, then I confess myself to be no judge 
 of Latin or any other poetry. 
 
 I now come back to the Sapphic ode which Coning- 
 ton has selected to join the main issue on, to the manifest 
 disadvantage of Catullus. This translation bears on 
 its face the stamp of being one of the very earliest of 
 his compositions ; of having been written at a time when 
 he could only adore his Lesbia at a distance. It is the 
 translation too of a very difficult original, which would 
 lose all its point by paraphrase and dilution. And yet 
 surely this version has much merit ; and other judges 
 have thought better of it than Conington does. ' No- 
 thing' says Landor, cited by Th. Martin, 'can surpass 
 the graces of this'. However that may be, Catullus 
 seems to have decided that the sapphic was not suited
 
 AND HORACE 241 
 
 to the genius of the Latin language, or a't all events 
 not to his own genius, and to have abandoned it alto- 
 gether in favour of the phalaecian hendecasy liable which 
 he made his own once and for ever. The llth poem, 
 his only other sapphic ode, was written late in his life 
 and with direct and meditated reference to the 51st; 
 and but for that earlier poem would never have been 
 written at all. Horace took up the sapphic which 
 Catullus had allowed to drop from his hands, cultivated 
 it with the diligence of the Matinian bee, made it one 
 of his most favoured metres and gave to it that easy 
 and monotonous flow which it retained ever after. 
 Whoever examines the too scanty remains of Sappho, 
 will I think agree with me that Horace in his elabora- 
 tion of the metre has entirely changed its character. 
 Sappho's is a grand and mighty rhythm: TLoiKikoOpov 
 dBdvaT 3 'Ac^poStra, Hat Atos, SoXoTrXo/ce, Xurcrcyiat ere : 
 .Sappho meant to unite the stately march of the trochee 
 with the majestic sweep of the dactyl; while the Greek 
 Alcaic has, together with the dactyl, a large admixture 
 of the more prosaic iambus. Whether Horace has or 
 has not obtained an altogether enviable success in his 
 transformation of the Sapphic, I will not presume to 
 decide : manifestly he was not quite satisfied himself; 
 and in his fourth book and his * carmen saeculare ' he 
 has sought to introduce more variety by a greater ad- 
 mixture of the weak caesura ; tho' he has only suc- 
 ceeded in increasing the stiffness without lessening the 
 monotony of his metre. But, if we grant him any 
 amount of credit for his elaboration of the Latin Sap- 
 phic, I affirm that, when this facility has once been 
 gained, a very mediocre poet might chance upon the 
 two verses, selected by Conington for praise : Dulce ri- 
 dentern. Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem. 
 
 M. c. 16
 
 242 CATVLLVS 
 
 And I for one find much more than Conington does 
 in the sterner and more stately version of Catullus : 
 Qui sedens aduersus identidem te Spectat et audit 
 Dulce ridentem. He by no means shirks altogether the 
 ' speaking' : the love-intoxicated stripling has before 
 him his 'ox-eyed' Juno; spectat, sees an Olympian smile 
 stealing over her face ; audit, hears accents worthy of a 
 goddess falling from her parted lips. 
 
 The identidem of the 3rd line may have occurred to 
 Catullus for reasons such as Conington hints at ; and I 
 would remark that its repetition in the other sapphic 
 has a calculated reference to our ode, and is meant to 
 point at Lesbia in her degradation, as it marks her here 
 in her splendour. It is a grand enough word, and its 
 rejection by the Augustan poets is quite conventional. 
 Accius has a noble style ; and his ' Scindens dolore 
 identidem intonsam comam' is worth a good many lines 
 of some Augustan poets 1 . 
 
 1 Whether 'Lingua sed torpet' is ' eommonplaee ' or not, I dont know; but 
 it is a literal translation of about the same number of words in Sappho, this part 
 of whose ode consists of short isolated clauses ; for which a competent translator 
 must provide something of the same nature. Whether these words be or be 
 not inferior to 'Cur factmda parum decoro Inter nerba cadit lingua silentio ', 
 such a sentence would be ridiculously out of place in Catullus* version or any 
 version of Sappho. I scarcely know how to take Coningtoa's ' argumentum ad 
 inuidiam ' about eius, and he seems to have been in some perplexity himself. 
 As a matter of fact, Horace uses eius, not in a 'solitary place ', but twice in his 
 odes, and twice in his satires; Catullus has it only onee in one of bis lightest 
 elegiac epigrams. Bentley, the chief critic who makes a 'tumult', objects to 
 eius in the 3rd book, not because it is eius, but because it adds nothing to the 
 context. The same critie commends it in the 4th book, because there it is 
 emphatic he says. Neither in Catullus nor in the odes of Horace do we meet 
 with huitts : cuius we find once in the whole of Catullus, once in the epodes of 
 Horace, nowhere else in his odes. Virgil employs both these words freely 
 enough. Is it, I would ask, anything but the merest convention which makes 
 one or other of these three words more or less displeasing than the third to a 
 modern ear or judgment? or is Virgil wrong or right for using two of them 
 freely, and are Catullus and Horace right or wrong for abstaining from one of 
 these words altogether, and using the other only once ? or in fact is it a law of 
 the higher criticism that Virgil and Horace shall always be in the right, whether
 
 AND HORACE 243 
 
 To turn for a moment to that other sapphic ode : 
 it has much of the Greek cadences, and lacks much of 
 the Horatian flow. What the exact import may be of 
 his commission to Furius and Aurelius, that enigmatical 
 pair, I have never been able to make out ; but on the 
 whole I very decidedly prefer this poem to any sapphic 
 ode of Horace. Listen to the noble swell of many of the 
 verses : Litus ut longe resonante Eoa Tunditur unda... 
 Siue trans altas gradietur Alpes, Caesaris uisens moni- 
 menta magni, Gallicum Rhenum, horribile aequor ulti- 
 mosque Britannos. How feeble, compared with this, is 
 Horace's elegant imitation ; for he is again treading in 
 Catullus' footprints with his 'Septimi Gades aditure 
 mecum'. And what is there in Horace like the pathos, 
 worthy of Burns, which pervades the * Qui illius culpa 
 cecidit uelut prati Vltimi flos praetereunte postquam 
 Tactus aratro est'? I will not stop to compare the 
 world-stirring movements, shadowed forth by the one 
 poet, with the somewhat meagre and quite personal 
 argument of the other poet. 
 
 In what has been here said, I have wished to shew, 
 not that I love Horace less, but that I love Catullus 
 more. I know well under what disadvantage I lie, 
 when I attempt to controvert the terse and eloquent 
 exposition of Conington. But I have always thought 
 that he based this exposition on far too narrow grounds. 
 Rightly or wrongly, I look on Catullus as the peer of 
 Alcaeus and Sappho ; to Horace I assign a different 
 rank. 
 
 they do or do not employ any word ; Catnllas shall always be in the wrong 
 whether he does not or does employ such word? I seem to myself to see more 
 of humour and narrowness of judgment in Conington's onslaught on the defence- 
 less Catullus, thau in any other of his criticisms which I have read.
 
 INDEX 
 
 a ! 186, 207 
 
 abhorret ao mutat 56 
 
 abruptus = abreptus 187 
 
 admirari cur fugiant 204 
 
 Adoneus 96, 97, 109, 110 
 
 Allius 168, 169, 180185 
 
 Amastris 14 
 
 ambobus oculis 217 
 
 an quod (quia) ? 156, 157 
 
 anus 29 
 
 ardor 7, 8 
 
 argutus 185 
 
 Arnobius imitates (?) Catullus 60 
 
 artatus 51, 52 
 
 Asinius Marrucinus 39, 40, 43 
 
 asyndeton 217, 220 
 
 attraction of case 24 ; of gender 24 
 
 ant aut 51, 190; and haut confused 
 97 
 
 Baiae 168, 174, 199 
 
 Balbus, Cornelius 85 ; Caecilius, father 
 and son, 161, 162 
 
 Brixia 162, 164, 165 
 
 Caesar, libels on, 78, 79, 80, 81, 8595, 
 107109, 123, 126, 127, 128, 129, 
 131 133 j his invasion of Britain 
 80, 239; and Pompey, their des- 
 potism, 82 ; and Cicero 82 85, 
 9294 ; takes emetics 9295 
 
 caesura of the iambic in Catullus, 
 Virgil and Martial 21 
 
 Calvus, C. Licinius, 145,214, 215; his 
 lo amended 153 
 
 cauclidus 185 
 
 casus periculorum 60, 61 
 
 Catullus, age 42, 43, 6973, 113; 
 birth and death 6973, 113 ; prae- 
 nomen 68, 69, 112, 113, 164, 170 ; 
 at Verona 168 174; voyage from 
 Bithynia to Sirmio 11 24; visits 
 his brother's tomb 47 ; imitates the 
 Alexandrians 145 ; imitated in the 
 Dirae 146; by Horace 42, 210, 
 236 243 ; compared with Horace 
 227 243 ; want of form in long 
 poems 180, 187; his glyconics 
 134140, 229, 240; his heroic 
 150153; his elisions 150, 151, 
 193; his manuscripts iv vn; words 
 and syllables wrongly divided in 
 them 101, 104 ; wrongly doubled, or 
 not doubled, 143, 146, 147, 155, 188, 
 207 
 
 Censorinus imitates Catullus 4 
 
 Cinna 36, 145, 209214 
 
 Clodia 46, 47, 70, 73, 174, 181202 
 
 Clodius Pulcher 196, 197 
 
 Coleridge on Catullus 233 
 
 coma of trees 25, 149 
 
 connexion in syntax of things dis- 
 joined in sense 129 
 
 constructions, involved, 49, 54, 110, 
 111, 122, 157, 192, 193, 215 
 
 continue 48 
 
 cum legas 56 
 
 Cytorus 14 
 
 diminutives in poetry 234 236 
 
 Diua 63 
 
 do 219 
 
 dolor 7, 8
 
 246 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ducentum 42 
 
 dum 224 
 
 duplex 182 
 
 emersere uultus 146 
 
 esse facta pluperf. 16, 23, 24 
 
 est omitted 172 ; not omitted 210, 
 
 219 
 facio 33; used absolutely 164; f. 
 
 facinus 219, 220 
 Fenelon on Catullus 233 
 fero 219 
 
 Fescennine licence 76 78, 91 
 Firmanus 222 
 fulgeret, fulgeremus 158; sense of 
 
 imp. sub], 157, 158 
 Furius and Aurelius 59, 60; Furius 
 
 66; Furius Bibaculus 66 
 furta and facta confused 60, 191 
 Gellius cites Catullus 67 
 gemelli 132 
 
 geminae aures 143, 144 
 genere, in quo, 183 
 glyconic metre, rules of, 134 140 
 Hatrianus 210213 
 taut idoneus 97, 109; haut and aut 
 
 confused 97 
 hircus 117 
 Horace imitates Catullus 42, 210, 236 
 
 243 ; compared with Catullus 227 
 
 243 
 
 huicne 101, 102, 110 
 imbuo 145 
 
 imperative omitted 34, 130 
 inde of time 16, 17, 22 
 ineptus 49 
 
 inquio 35, inquiunt 33 
 instituo 219 
 jo for io 135138 
 ipsimae urbis 104 106 
 Julia, daughter of Augustus, 201, 202 
 iuuenalis 73, 113 
 lato limite 183 
 lecticulus 131, 132 
 Lesbia 46, 47, 70, 73, 168, 171, 174, 
 
 181202, 206, 208 ; origin of the 
 
 name 195 
 Lesbius 196, 197 
 letters interchanged: a, co 62, 96; a 
 
 (am), e 143, 183, 184, 190 ; a, ei 3 ; 
 c, r 60, 220 ; c, s, sc 28, 41 ; c, t 
 146, 182, 183; d, cl 61, 62 ; d, p 
 156 ; e, o 28, 66, 67, 114, 140, 143, 
 148, 156, 163, 203, 215, 216, 226, 
 227 ; i, y 97 ; 1, n, u 183 ; m, s final 
 37, 41, 164, 203 ; n, r 42 ; r, t, rt, tr 
 37, 64, 143, 146, 189, 192, 220 ; p, t 
 163 ; s, f 203 ; s, t 27, 220 
 libet personal 6, 7, 9 
 lora lubra 52 
 lusi multa 171, 172 
 
 Macaulay on Catullus 233, 234 
 
 male insulsa 37 
 
 malum ! 102, 111 
 
 Mamurra 80, 8387, 93, 97, 98, 106 
 108, 131133, 222227 
 
 Manlius Torquatus 168175, 180 
 
 marita ianua 163 
 
 Martial imitates Catullus 2, 4, 5, 22, 
 37, 42, 49, 64, 65, 133, 140, 171, 
 172, 182, 227 ; his genius 109, 230 ; 
 bis love of Catullus 232, 233 
 
 membranae 52 55 
 
 Memmius, propraetor, 45, 46 ; attacks 
 Caesar 88 
 
 meto huic 101, 110 
 
 meus stupor 49 
 
 milia quingenta 211 
 
 minutus 65 
 
 mitto 215 
 
 modo with paulum, and with imper. 
 34 
 
 modus 224, 225 ; modo unelided 225 
 
 Murcia 63 
 
 mutari talento 40, 41 
 
 nam in transitions 175 
 
 nec=non 114, 148 
 
 nemus 226 
 
 Nicaea 14, 15, 21 
 
 nos for ego 184, 192, 217 
 
 noster and uester confused 65, 66 
 
 nota, de meliore, 172, 174 
 
 nouissime, cum, 17 
 
 nullus = omnino non 29 
 
 obstitit 204 
 
 omnia perdidistis 103 
 
 oratio obliqua in questions 31, 32
 
 INDEX 
 
 247 
 
 Ortalns (Q. Hortensius ?) 154, 209 
 
 os oculosque 29 
 
 Ovid imitates Catullus 10, 12, 13, 19, 
 
 20, 22, 141, 142, 146, 165, 171, 207 ; 
 
 his banishment 185 
 Padua 210213 
 parentheses 126 
 pater esuritionum 49 
 patrona uirgo 2, 3 
 perditius 119 
 peregrine labore 115 
 perire = amare 122 
 personalities in Greece and Rome 73 
 
 79 
 
 Petronius amended 117 
 Phalaecus 213, 314 
 phasellus 20, 21 
 piissimus 102, 103 
 Piso 44 46 
 
 Pliny 84, 96, 106, 107, 151, 152, 212 
 plumbo derecta 53 
 
 plural referring to indef. sing. 32, 216 
 plus quam 220, 221 
 Pollio and his family 39, 40 ; his age 
 
 42, 43, 46 
 
 Pompey 82, 8587, 89, 90 
 pote 120 
 
 Priscian cites Catullus 67 
 proper names corrupted 27 
 Propertius' name 170 
 puerperium falsum 165, 166 
 pumice aequata 53 55 
 pusiones 117 
 qualecumque 1 5 
 quassa of sound 28 
 que comes 3rd in a clause 133, 207, 
 
 208 ; que et 208, 216 
 quicquid hoc libelli 1 5 
 quod manticae 57 
 quod conj. denotes effect 35, 175 
 rufulus 134 
 
 rufus, term of reproach, 1 34 
 Eufus (? M. Caelius) 46, 47, 198, 199, 
 202204 
 
 rnpes 183 
 
 sacer hircus 203 
 
 saecnla cana 211 
 
 saltus 222226 
 
 Satrachus 210, 211 
 
 scnrra 57 
 
 Sempronia 200, 201 
 
 Seneca trag. imitates Catullus 60, 145, 
 
 150, 155 
 
 si non omnia 125, 126, 129 
 sibi esse facta 16, 23 
 socer generque 81, 102, 112 
 sopionibus 116, 117 
 Statius (?) imitates Catullus 5 
 Btruo insidias 50 
 tacitus partic. 26 
 taetre 189 
 
 tamen 189, 190, 192 
 tempore, non longo, 188 
 tersior, tertior 56, 57, 58 
 tolle 191 
 tonsi prati 225 
 totidem mea 208 
 totmoda 226 
 totus adverbial 47, 48 
 tremulus 191 
 trirustice 127 
 typum Cybelles 142, 143 
 uel te sic=uel sic te 130 
 Veranins and Fabullus 43 45 
 uester = tuus 216 
 uicarius 61 63 
 
 Virgil imitates Catullns 146, 148, 155 
 uiuidae lacus undae 115, 116 
 ullus=omnino 29 
 umbilicus 52 
 
 unicus imperator 91, 92, 128 
 tmnm beatiorem 33 ; unus caprimulgua 
 
 56 
 
 nscaret aura 9, 17, 18, 23 
 Volusius (Tanusius) 203 214 
 ut re 227 
 Zmyrna 209211 
 
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