IV. MONUMENTUM AERE PERENNIUS
We can now finally turn to the poets. Here is what Catullus wrote in a
book (36.1): ‘‘Annales Volusi cacata charta.’’ Notice, not ‘‘a waste of
an afternoon, having to listen to someone read it,’’ not ‘‘displeasing to
the ear,’’ not ‘‘poorly performed,’’ but ‘‘shittysheets.’’ Catullus read (not
heard) the poets he then loved or hated. Calvus sends him a horrible
book (libellum), in revenge Catullus will send him the full content of the
bookshops (librariorum...scrina) containing Caesus, Aquinus, Suffenus
(14). ‘‘Aurelius and Furius hadreadthe kiss poems (16.13,legisti). Of
course; Catullus was a poet, and wrote to be read.’’
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Suffenus writes bad
books, which you, alas, must read (22). Caecilius’s girlfriend has read the
draft of his epic (35). Catullus read the speech of Sestius and so caught
cold; he will never pick up another in his hands (recepso) (44).
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Cinna’s
Zmyrnais now published (edita), and as a written book it will travel the
entire world (95), a book so complex that it soon acquired a commentary
by Crassicius Pansa (Suet.Gramm. 18). The writing of commentaries
is impossible to reconcile with a supposed primacy of oral performance
(see nn. 95, 107).
Going to recitations seems to play remarkably little part in the poets’
literary life, though they write much about that part of their existence.
Catullus, as Wiseman notes, never tells us of a single one. Though Horace
is forced to go to some recitations out of duty (Ep. 2.2.67, 95, 105), and to
give some himself (Sat. 1.4.73–74,Ep. 1.19.35–49, 2.1.214–17), they
have no part in his ideal life in Rome (Ep. 2.2.2.67, 105). Instead he prefers
to read (Sat. 1.6.122). Propertius reads a lot of poets (2.34.85–92); he goes
to a lot of parties, but never mentions a recitation. Ovid heard the poets in
his youth (Trist. 4.10.44–50), but writes about recitations mostly to say
that he cannot give them in exile (Trist. 3.14.39–40, 4.1.89–90, 4.10.113,
5.12.53,Pont. 4.2.35–38). In short, though recitations undoubtedly oc-
curred, they were of little interest to the poets who flourished around the
turn of the millennium.
- Wiseman 1985, 124, his emphasis. But so strong is the stranglehold of Quinn 1982
(cited in support of this statement), that on the same page he claims for Catullus, ‘‘What
mattered artistically was the oral performance.’’ These two statements are irreconcilable.
Two pages later Wiseman is surprised to find that ‘‘Catullus has plenty to say about poetry,
his own and that of his friends and enemies. It is striking that he never refers to public
performance or an audience of listeners, but only to poems written down on writing tablets,
to be read.’’ Nor does Cicero refer to recitations of poetry (Off. 1.147 refers to public
approval). One might get by with claiming that Catullus and Cicero were before the age of
the recitation (see n. 7, on the chronological difficulties), appealing to the Elder Seneca’s
testimony (Cont. 4 praef. 2) that Pollio was the first to give recitations, which, however, is
incorrect; see Dalzell 1955; Rawson 1985, 52. - See Quinn 1973, ad Cat. 44.12 onlegi.
218 Books and Texts