INTRODUCTION.

HE memorials of all the great poets of antiquity are scanty, but of none are they more scanty than

of Catullus. Slight incidental allusions in Cicero, Suetonius, the elder Pliny, and Apuleius furnish all that is known of his personal history beyond what may be gathered from his own poems. His very name is uncertain; for, while the prenomen of Quintus is assigned to him by Pliny, he is spoken of as Caius by Apuleius.

Valerius Catullus was a native of Verona, or of some place in its neighbourhood. Of his parentage all that is known is, that his father was the friend, and frequently the host, of Julius Cæsar (Suet. Jul. Cæsar, 73); from which it has been inferred that he was a man of some position and substance. The education and social position of his son point to the same conclusion.

According to the Eusebian Chronicle, the poet was born B.C. 87, and died in his thirtieth year B.C. 57. The first of these dates may be correct, and in any case cannot be far wrong. The latter is unquestionably inaccurate, as there are direct references in some of the minor poems of Catullus to

events of a more recent date. Thus, the elevation of Vatinius to the Consulate (B.C. 47) provokes an expression of scornful disgust (p. 60, infra); and his invective against Cæsar and Mamurra, printed as Poem XXIX. of the ordinary editions, but which is too coarse for translation, is mentioned by Cicero in writing to Atticus (B.C. 45) as something which had just come out.* Suetonius, alluding either to this or to some of the other attacks by Catullus on the Dictator and his parasite, mentions that the poet, having apologized, was invited by Cæsar the same day to supper. The story has an apocryphal character about it. Literary gossip in the time of Suetonius was in all likelihood not more accurate than it

is in our own. It is quite true that in those days of strong speaking even such savage invectives as those of Catullus might be borne with, and Cæsar, from policy and habit, might desire to cultivate amicable relations with a man whose words had such power to sting. But had the poet apologized, the epigrams would no doubt have disappeared from his works.

Catullus appears to have been sent early to Rome, pro

*Post horam viii. in balneum; tunc audivit de Mamurra; vultum non mutavit; unctus est; accubuit; ¿μɛrikǹv agebat.—Epist. ad Atticum 13, 52. Dr. Middleton and others contend that this passage must be held as referring to the attack by Catullus on Mamurra. It is obvious, however, that this is mere conjecture. Audivit de Mamurra is a wide phrase. Such a man must have had many assailants, and must have caused many a scandal, which put his patron's self-control severely to the test.

+ Valerium Catullum, a quo sibi versiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata imposita non dissimulaverat, satisfacientem eadem die adhibuit hospitioque patris ejus, uti consueverat, uti perseveravit.-SUETONIUS, Jul. Cæsar, 73.