Catullus
There is much about humanity in Lucretius, but no people. The balance is redressed by his young
contemporary Catullus, the second-greatest poet of the Republic.
Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
non belle uteris: in ioco atque uino
tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
hoc salsum esse putas? fugit te, inepte:
quamuis sordida res et inuenusta est ...(12. 1 ff.)
Asinius from the Abruzzi, that's not a nice thing to do with your left hand: in the middle of
fun and wine you nick the napkins of the inattentive. So you think it's smart? You're
making a big mistake, you clown: it's as nasty and unattractive a thing as you can think of.Asinius has gone off with a table-napkin belonging to Catullus, who pretends to believe that he has
stolen it deliberately. Episodes as personal and particular are uncharacteristic of Hellenistic epigram, but
a new generation of Roman poets had the individuality to make everyday occurrences a subject for
verse. Such poems were too slight to be categorized as lyrics; for the graceful metre with its eleven
syllables ('hendecasyllables') one may refer to Tennyson's imitation, 'Oh you chorus of indolent
reviewers'. The sometimes mannered vogue-words commend an informal elegance and wit, both in life
and in poetry, and show a corresponding distaste for rusticity and ineptitude. Friends are treated as
unique and precious individuals: the shift from teasing mockery of Asinius to over-exquisite affection
for others is typical of this self-regarding coterie. The poem catches a society in transition as well as a
literature: we are meeting here for the most part not the old Roman aristocracy but rich young men from
Italy who are very conscious of their newly acquired metropolitan sophistication. Catullus himself, like
other poets of the 'Neoteric' movement, (below, pp. 593 f.) came from beyond the Po (Cisalpine Gaul, as
it was then called); his father was a leading citizen of Verona, with an estate at Sirmione on the Lago di
Garda. Asinius may be derided as a countrified boor (1, 'Marrucine'), but his grandfather had led Italy
against Rome in the Social War; his smart young brother Pollio was to become a tragedian, patron of
Virgil, consul, triumphator, and historian.
Catullus provides a sketch-book of incidents and people that can be paralleled in antiquity only in
Cicero. Among many vivid characters we meet the polished Suffenus, who yet writes poetry like a
caprimulgus or goat-milker (22), Egnatius with the silly grin, who cleans his teeth in the Spanish manner
(39), Sestius whose frigid oratory gave the poet a bad cold (44), Arrius who has trouble with his
aspirates, and says 'hinsidiae' or 'hambushes' (84). Catullus tells how he boasted to a girl that he had
acquired eight litter-bearers in Bithynia, only to be found out when she asked for a lift (10. 33 f. 'you're a
tactless, tiresome creature, not to let a fellow be careless'). He recalls to his brother-poet Calvus a
competition of the previous evening (50. 4 ff. 'the two of us played at writing verselets, now in one