The testimony of inscriptions shows, further, that this name was common in the native province of Catullus, and belonged to other inhabitants of Verona, besides the poet and his family (Schwabe, Quaestiones Catullianae, p. 27). Scholars are still divided in opinion as to whether his proenomen was Gaius or Quintus. In the best MSS. the volume is called simply Catulli Veronensis liber, and this is the title which his English editor, Prof. Robinson Ellis, adopts. For the name Gaius we have the undoubted testimony, not only of Jerome, which rests on the much earlier authority of Suetonius, but also that of Apuleius. In support of the second, a passage is quoted from the Natural History of Pliny (xxxvii. 6, 81), where in some editions the praenomen Q. is prefixed to the name. The Q. is, however, omitted in the best MSS., and in other passages of the same author the poet is spoken of as “Catullus Veronensis.” The mistake is supposed to have arisen from a confusion with Q. Catulus, the colleague of Marius in the Cimbric War, himself also the author of lyrical poems. The only other ground in favour of adopting the latter name is a conjectural emendation of Scaliger in the 67th poem (line 12), where he changes the qui te of the MSS. into “Quinte.” Though a question on which such eminent scholars as Mommsen, Haupt, L. Müller, and apparently Mr Ellis, take one side, while Schwabe, W. S. Teuffel, and Mr Munro (Journal of Philology, iii.) take the other, can scarcely be considered absolutely settled, yet the arguments adduced by Schwabe and Mr Munro for accepting the authority of Jerome and Apuleius seem difficult to answer. A more important question is raised concerning the dates of the poet’s birth and death. It is quite certain, from allusions contained in the poems, that the date of his death given by Jerome (57 b.c.) is wrong, and that Catullus survived the second consulship of Pompey (55 b.c. ) (c∕. lv. 6, cxiii. 2), and was present in

August of the following year at the prosecution of Vatinius, by Licinius Calvus (cf liii.) From the allusion in lii. 3.—

“Per consulatum perierat Vatinius,”

it was assumed, till the appearance in 1862 of Schwabe’s Quaestiones Catullianae, that Catullus must have lived to witness the consulship bestowed on Vatinius in the end of 47 b.c. This consideration induced Lachmann to fix on 77 b.c. instead of 87 b.c. as the date of the poet’s birth. It has, however, been shown by Schwabe, and is now generally admitted, that the line “Per consulatum,” <fcc., refers to the fact that Vatinius, after being praetor in 55 b.c., was in the habit of boasting of the certainty of his attaining the consulship, as Cleopatra was in the habit of confirming her most solemn declarations by appealing to her hope of one day administering justice in the Capitol (cf Haupt. “Quaestiones Catullianae,” contained in vol. i. of his Opuscula, 1875). We have thus certain evidence that Catullus lived till the month of August 54 b,c., but there is no allusion in his poems to any event of a later date than the prosecution of Vatinius. Some of the poems (as xxxvii. and lii.) may very probably have been written during his last illness. He seems to have lived just long enough to collect his works together, to dedicate them to Cornelius Nepos, and to see his

“lepidum novum libellum Arido modo pumice expolitum.”

If he died in 54 b.c. or early in 53 b.c. there must be a further error either in the first or the second of Jerome’s statements. Catullus must either have been born later than 87 b.c. or have lived to a greater age than thirty. The difficulty in regard to the first supposition is that it increases the disproportion between the ages of the poet and his mistress Clodia, who must have been born about 94 b.c. But as he was supplanted in her affections by a still younger man, Μ. Caelius Rufus, who appears for a time to have been equally infatuated by her, and as Cicero in his defence of Caelius describes her as one “quae etiam aleret adolescentes et parsimoniam patrum suis sumptibus sustentaret” (Pro M. Caelio, ch. xvi. 1), this difficulty is not a serious objection to the date. Catullus is described by Ovid, in true keeping with all the characteristics of his poetry, as “hedera juvenilia cinctus Tempora” (Amor., iii. 9, 61); and this description seems more applicable to a man who dies in his thirtieth year than to one who dies three or four years later. Further, 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 sepulchral inscriptions must have rendered a mistake less likely to occur in that respect, than in respect of the consulship in which he was born. Other instances can be given of the carelessness of Jerome in respect to dates, and Mr Munro gives a probable explanation of the mistake in the confusion between the first and the last of the four consulships of Cinna. It seems, therefore, on the whole most likely that the words “xxx. aetatis anno” are correct, and that Catullus was born in 94 B.C., in the consulship of Cn. Papirius Carbo II. and L. Cornelius Cinna IV.

The statement that he was born at Verona is confirmed by passages in Ovid and Martial. Pliny the elder, who was born at Como, speaks of Catullus in the preface to his Natural History, as his “countryman” ( conterraneus) r and the poet speaks of Verona as his home, or at least his temporary residence, in more than one place (Ixvii. 34, lxviii. 27, XXXV. 3); and in mentioning the Transpadani among the other inhabitants of Italy, he adds the words “ut meos quoque attingam” (xxxviii. 13).

His occasional residence in his native place is further attested by the statement of Suetonius (Julius Caesar, 73), that “Julius Caesar accepted the poet’s apology for his scurrilous verses upon him, invited him to dine with him on the same day, and continued his intimacy with his father as before.” As this incident could only have happened during the time that Julius Caesar was Proconsul, the scene of it must have been in the Cisalpine province, and at the house of the poet’s father, in or near Verona. The verses apologized for were those contained in poems xxix. and lvii., the former of which must have been written after Caesar’s invasion of Britain, so that this interview probably took place in the winter of 55-54 b.c. The fact that his father was the host of the great proconsul, and lived on terms of intimacy with him, justifies the inference, that he was, in wealth and rank, one of the principal men of the province, an inference confirmed by the social position which Catullus himself assumed in Rome, and by his enjoyment of property independent of his father (cf. poems xxxi. and xliv.) during his father’s lifetime. The only other important statement concerning the poet’s life which rests on external authority is that of Apuleius, that the real name of the Lesbia of the poems was Clodia. One other statement, not concerning the poet’s life, but concerning the reputation which he enjoyed after his death, is given in the Life of Atticus by Cornelius Nepos (12, 4). It is to the effect that he regarded Lucretius and Catullus as the two greatest poets of his own time.

The volume of poems which Catullus collected and published before his death consists of 116 pieces, varying in length from 2 to 408 lines, the great mass of them being, however, short pieces, written in some lyric or iambic, or in elegiac metre. These poems are not arranged either in chronological order or in accordance with the character of the topics with which they deal. The only principle which seems to have guided the author in his arrangement was that of placing the longer poems, of a less personal and fugitive character, in the middle of the volume, while the first part contained those written in lyric or iambic metres, and the latter part consisted entirely of verses written in the elegiac metre. Many of the last treat of the same topics and refer to the same persons as those forming the subject of the short poems at the beginning of the volume. The elegiac, as well as the phalecian and iambic metres, were employed by him as the vehicle both of his tenderest and his bitterest feelings. Though no chronological order is observed, yet internal evidence enables us to determine the occasions on which many of the poems were written, and the order in which they followed one another. They give a very vivid image of various phases of the poet’s life, and of the strong feelings with which persons and things affected him. They throw much light also on the social life of Rome and of the provincial towns of Italy in the years preceding the outbreak of the second civil war. Apart from their poetic charm, they thus possess the interest of bringing vividly before us some aspects of one of the most critical epochs in the history of the ancient world. In this respect they may be compared with the letters of Cicero, which record the impression produced by the same time on a man of similar susceptibility of feeling and keenness of apprehension, but of character and pursuits as far removed as possible from those of the provincial poet, who modestly contrasts the greatness of the “most eloquent of the descendants of Romulus” with his own humble pretensions.

The poems extend over a period of seven or eight years, from 61 or 62 till 54 b.c. Among the earliest are those which record the various stages of the author’s passion for Lesbia. It is in connection with this passion that he is generally mentioned, or alluded to, by the later Roman poets, such as Propertius, Ovid, Juvenal, and Martial The real name of Lesbia, as we learn from Apuleius, was Clodia. The admiration which Catullus felt for the great Lesbian poetess, which is clearly indicated by the imitation of her language in his 51st and 62d poems, affords an obvious explanation of the Greek name which he gave to his Roman mistress. After the exhaustive examination of the subject by Schwabe, it may be regarded as certain that she was the notorious sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, the βοωπις who plays an important part in the drama of Cicero’s fortunes, brought before us in the first three books of the Letters to Atticus, — the “Palatina Medea,” whose character stands out so prominently in the speech Pro Caelio, — the “quadrantaria Clytemnestra,” as she was called by her lover Caelius (Quintilian, viii. 6, 23), in reference to the suspicion she incurred of having poisoned her husband, Q. Metellus Celer (consul, 60 b.c. ) in 59 b.c. (cf. Munro, Journal of Philology, iii.) In the year 56 she charged Μ. Caelius Rufus, after tiring of him, as she had of Catullus, with an attempt to poison her. It was in defence of him that Cicero described the spell she exercised over young men, in language which might have been applied to her previous relations with the youthful poet, as well as those with the youthful orator and politician.

It may probably have been on hearing of this defence, that Catullus, whose feelings had by that time changed from passionate devotion to scornful animosity, wrote the short poem (xlviii.) Disertissime Romuli nepotum, which associates his name with the great orator of the age. Poems concerning Lesbia occur both among the earliest and the latest of those contained in the series. They record the various stages of passion through which Catullus passed, from absolute devotion and a secure sense of returned affection, through the various conditions of distrust and jealousy, attempts at renunciation, and short-lived “amoris integrationes,” through the “odi et amo” state, and the later state of savage indignation against both Lesbia and his rivals, and especially against Caelius Rufus, till he finally attains, not without much suffering and loss, the last state of scornful indifference. Among the earliest of the poems connected with Lesbia, and among those written in the happiest vein, are ii. and in. (Passer, delicioe mere puelloe and Lugete, 0 Veneres Cupidinesqux), and v. and vii. The 8th, Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire, perhaps the most beautiful of them all, expresses the first awakening of the poet to a sense of her unworthiness, before the gentler have given place to the fiercer feelings of his nature. His final renunciation is sent in a poem written after his return from the East, with a union of imaginative and scornful power, to his two butts, Furius and Aurelius (xi., Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli), who, to judge by the way Catullus writes of them, appear to have been hangers on upon him, who repaid the pecuniary and other favours they received by giving him grounds for jealousy, and making imputations on his character (cf. xv., xvi., xviii., xxiii.)

The intrigue of Caelius Rufus with Lesbia began in 59 or 58 b.c. (cf. Schwabe, Quoest. Catulli, p. 66). It was probably in the earlier stages of this liaison that the 68th poem was written, from which it appears that Catullus, at the time living at Verona, and grieving for the recent death of his brother in the Troad, had heard of Lesbia’s infidelity, and, in consideration of her previous faithlessness in his favour, was not inclined to resent it very warmly—

“Rara verecundae furta feremus herse,”

Two other poems in the series express the grief which Catullus felt for the death of his brother—one, the 65th r composed at the same time as the 6Sth, and addressed to the orator Hortensius, who is there, as in some of Cicero’s letters, called Hortalus or Ortalus, and sent to him along with the Coma Berenices (lxvi.), a translation of a famous elegy of Callimachus. The other poem referring to this event (ci.) must have been composed some years later, probably in 56 b.c., when Catullus visited his brother’s tomb in the Troad, on his return from Bithynia. Between 59 and 57 b.c. most of the lampoons on Lesbia and her numerous lovers must have been written (e.g., xxxvii., xxxix., lxix., lxxii., lxxvii., lxxix., xc., <fcc.) Some, too, of the poems expressive of his more tender feelings to her, such as viii. and lxxvi.,

“Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,” and

“Siqua recordanti benefacta priora voluptas,” belong also to these years; and among the poems written either during this period or perhaps in the early and happier years of his liaison, some of the most charming of his shorter pieces, expressing the affection for his young friends Verannius and Fabullus (ix., xii., xiii.), may be included.

In the year 57 the routine of his life was for a short time broken, by his accompanying the Propraetor, C. Memmius, the friend to whom Lucretius dedicates his great poem, as one of his staff, to the province of Bithynia. The desire of seeing foreign lands, which was as strong a passion among cultivated Romans as among cultivated Englishmen of the present day, was probably the chief inducement to this temporary change of life, especially as Catullus had the prospect of gratifying this passion in congenial society; for the testimony of Cicero as well as of Lucretius shows that Memmius, whatever else he was, was a man of some accomplishment in literature and poetry; and among his younger companions, in the praetor’s train, was his friend and brother-poet Helvius Cinna (c∕. x.) Some expressions in x., written shortly after his return, imply that he had some hopes of bettering his fortunes by this absence from Rome, as humorous complaints of poverty and debt (xiii., xxvi.) show that his ordinary means were insufficient for his mode of life. He frankly acknowledges the disappointment of these hopes, and still more frankly his disgust with his chief (x., xxviii.) Some of the most charming and perfect among the shorter poems express the delight with which the poet changed the dulness and sultry climate of the province for the freedom and keen enjoyment of his voyage home in his yacht, built for him at Amastris on the Euxine, and for the beauty and peace of his villa on the shores of Lake Benacus, which welcomed him home “wearied with foreign travel.” To this period and to his first return to Rome after his visit to his native district belong the poems xlvi., ci., iv., xxxi., and x., all showing by their freshness of feeling and vivid truth of expression the gain which the poet’s nature derived from his temporary escape from the passions, distractions, and animosities of Roman society. This happier vein is not to be traced in many of the poems which can be assigned to the years intervening between this time and the poet’s death. Two poems, written in a very genial and joyous spirit, and addressed to his younger friend Licinius Calvus (xiv. and 1.), who is ranked as second only to himself among the lyrical poets of the age, and whose youthful promise pointed him out as likely to become one of the greatest of Roman orators, may, indeed, with most probability be assigned to these later years (xiv.) From the expression “Odissem te odio Vatiniano,” in the third line of xiv., it may be inferred almost with certainty that the poem was written not earlier than December (the “Saturnalia ”) of the year 56 b.c., as it was early in that year, as we learn from a letter of Cicero to his brother

Quintus (ii. 4, 1), that Calvus first announced his intention of prosecuting Vatinius. The short poem numbered liii. records an incident in connection with the actual prosecution which occurred in August 54 b.c. The poems which have left the greatest stain on the fame of Catullus—those “referta contumeliis Caesarå,” the licentious abuse of Mamurra, and probably some of those personal scurrilities addressed to women as well as men, or too frank con fessions, which posterity would willingly have let die— were written in the last years of his life, under the influence of the bitterness and recklessness induced by his experience. The complaint expressed in poem xxxviii.—

“Male est, Cornifici, tuo Catullo,” and one or two other short poems such as lii.— “Quid est, Catulle? quid moraris emori?” appear to be expressive of his state of mind in his last illness. In the first of them we recognize the tender trustfulness, in the last the “saeva indignatio” of his temperament. There is a return of the old graciousness and playfulness of his nature in the dedication to Cornelius Nepos (i.)—

“Quoi dono lepidum novum libellum,” which must have been written immediately before the publication of his volume.

Of several of the more interesting among the minor poems, as, for instance, xvii., xxxiv., and xlv., we have no means of determining the date. Nor can it be determined with certainty whether the longer and more artistic pieces, which occupy the middle of the volume—the Epithalamium in celebration of the marriage of Manlius Torquatus; the 62d poem, written in imitation of the Epithalamia of...