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Gai CatullusThe very first Roman poet
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 Italy |
Biography of Gaius Valerius Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus, the first Roman poet, lived around 80-50 BC (possibly later, but there is no data for the period after 30 years). He used the Alexandrian 11-line form borrowed from the Greeks. He created 116 poems, in which he explored all the known themes of lyric poetry (similar to how Shakespeare did in drama), leaving no unexplored subjects in lyrics.
Catullus was born in Verona, a city in northern Italy, and was likely from a wealthy and noble family. Julius Caesar frequently visited Catullus' father, and Catullus himself, despite his complaints about his financial situation, owned a villa near Verona and another in the Sabine Mountains.
In his early youth, Catullus moved to Rome and spent the rest of his short life there, dedicating himself fully to poetry and love, rather than pursuing a career in the forum or court. Catullus joined a group of young poets called "neoterics" (meaning "new poets"), who adopted certain elements of Alexandrian poetry. He considered two of the most prominent poets in this group, Gaius Helvius Cinna and Gaius Licinius Calvus, as his closest friends.
Catullus immersed himself in the literary and social circles of Rome, where he soon encountered the woman who would become the heroine of his poems, Lesbia. Her real name was likely Clodia, and she was the wife of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, a consul in 60 BC, and the sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, a personal and political enemy of Cicero. Clodia, who came from an ancient family, was known for her beauty and fickleness, and she saw Catullus as just another lover, while he became passionately devoted to her.
Not long before 57 BC, Catullus received another devastating news: his brother, the only relative he loved, died in Asia Minor near Troy. In the spring of 57 BC, Catullus traveled to Bithynia, where he spent a year in the company of the proconsul Gaius Memmius, a poet and not very sincere Epicurean, to whom Lucretius dedicated his poem "On the Nature of Things." Catullus had hoped to benefit from this trip, but he was disillusioned, and in two poems written after his return (10; 28), he sharply criticized Memmius for his greed and lack of nobility. While in Bithynia, Catullus visited his brother's grave and described the solemn burial ritual in a touching poem (101): "atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale" ("and forever, my brother, hail and farewell").
In the spring of 56 BC, Catullus returned to his homeland, Sirmio, after visiting Rhodes and possibly other famous cities in the Aegean Sea. The exact date of his death is unknown. Saint Jerome wrote that Catullus was born in 87 BC and died in Rome at the age of 30, but since some of his poems were written after 57 BC, Jerome was either mistaken about Catullus' birthdate or his age at the time of death. The latest events mentioned in his poetry date back to 55-54 BC.
Aside from a few fragments, 113 poems of Catullus have survived, ranging from 2 to 403 lines. Three works (18-20) of doubtful authorship are omitted in contemporary editions. The poems are divided into three groups: short ones using various meters (1-17; 21-60), longer ones with different meters (61-68), and short elegiac poems (69-116). Since Catullus himself probably did not arrange his works in such a formal way, it is assumed that the collection was compiled by his friends and published posthumously. Catullus may have published a smaller collection himself, as the first poem, a dedication to his older friend Cornelius Nepos, clearly predates the book.
Among Catullus' poems, the most famous ones are those that describe the bliss and sorrows of his affair with Lesbia. Dating most of them is not possible, but many are clearly written earlier than others. One of the earliest (51) is a reworking of a love poem by the Greek poet Sappho, conveying the poet's astonishment at someone who can calmly gaze at Lesbia and converse with her, while he himself becomes completely overwhelmed in her presence. Another early poem (5) passionately celebrates life and love: "vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus" ("let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love").
Other poems depict Lesbia playing with a pet sparrow (2), her grief over the death of the beloved bird (3), Catullus' anguish over Lesbia's infidelity (58), which evokes his conflicting feelings of "odi et amo" ("I hate and I love") (85), and the poet's bitterness and despair (11; 8; 76).
Many of Catullus' short poems are addressed to friends or aimed at enemies, as he was equally talented in love and hatred. He is affectionate and playful with his friends, teasing one for his secret affairs (6), welcoming another joyfully upon his return from Spain (9), and sending a humorous invitation for dinner to a third friend (13). Catullus mercilessly mocks and insults his enemies, even targeting Julius Caesar, although it seems that they eventually reconciled.
In his short poems, Catullus can be passionate, indecent, elegant, witty, and profound, but he always appears natural. Among his longer works, three are particularly interesting. In the brilliant and exotic poem (63), he describes the fate of Attis, a young Athenian who sailed to Asia Minor and there castrated himself in a religious frenzy. The concluding three lines in the first person suggest that this story had some symbolic significance to Catullus. Another work (64), which Catullus himself likely considered his masterpiece, is a beautiful and skillfully constructed epyllion (a poem on a mythological subject) in the style of the Alexandrian school. It is dedicated to the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, with an embedded novella about Theseus parting ways with Ariadne. In another long poem (68), written in a lofty tone but somewhat disjointed (possibly not a single poem), Catullus responds to a friend's request for poetic consolation and recounts his own grief over his brother's death and disillusionment with Lesbia. In doing so, Catullus, perhaps inadvertently, created the first Latin love elegy, a unique blend of scholarship and passion that would later be developed by Propertius. The location of his brother's death near Troy likely inspired Catullus to draw upon the myth of Laodamia and Protesilaus. In Laodamia's desperate love for Protesilaus, the first Greek to die at Troy, Catullus sees a parallel to his own experiences.
Catullus gained popularity during his lifetime. Poets of the next generation, such as Ovid and Propertius, referred to him as their teacher in the genre of love poetry. Virgil studied Catullus diligently, and even Horace, who did not sympathize with the neoterics, imitated some of his works. Only Martial seems to have shown interest in Catullus among later poets. However, during the imperial era, Catullus' popularity waned, as he was not included in the authors studied in schools. His name is only mentioned by Pliny the Elder, Quintilian, Aulus Gellius, and a few others.
Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Catullus remained forgotten, except for his epithalamium (62), which was included in an anthology preserved in a manuscript from the 8th-9th centuries. In 965, the Veronese bishop Rater mentioned that he was reading Catullus, whom he had not known before. In the early 13th century, a lucky resident of Verona discovered an old, worn manuscript (possibly once owned by Rater). Two copies were made from this manuscript, which in turn became the basis for numerous editions in the 15th century. If not for this fortunate accident, Catullus' poetry would have remained almost completely unknown to the modern world.
