CATULLUS AND THE AMICUS CATULLI:

THE TEXT OF A LEARNED TALK

[What follows is a thought experiment. Its purpose is to test thevalidity of certain types of arguments, statements, and readings com-monly applied to Sulpicia, by seeing if they would hold water if appliedto any other poet, say, Catullus. My article is written in the spirit ofDouglas Young's famous 1959 spoof, which used Denys Page's sta-tistical methods to "prove" conclusively that a "Deutero-Milton" wasresponsible for Paradise Regained, or Dorothea Wender's demonstra-tion that George Washington was merely a euhemerized culture hero.'

The main text is firmly tongue in cheek. The footnotes are se-rious and represent my own commentary. Since this is a jeu d'esprit,I hasten to say that I "do but jest, poison in jest-no offence i' theworld." Quotation does not imply even disagreement much less dis-respect. I have also tried to elide the question of gender. But it'sall about gender. I leave it as an exercise to the reader, as the oldmath books used to say, to imagine what it would be like if Catulluswere one of a handful of surviving male poets in a largely femaleauthorship.]

Everybody got a copy of the handout? I've just photocopied theLoeb.

THE GARLAND OF CATULLUS

DE CATULLO INCERTI AUCTORIS ELEGIAE

I. Siqua recordanti benefacta priora uoluptasest homini, cum se cogitat esse pium,

nec sanctam uiolasse fidem, nec foedere nullodiuum ad fallendos numine abusum homines,

multa parata manent in longa aetate, Catulle, 5ex hoc ingrato gaudia amore tibi.

nam quaecumque homines bene cuiquam aut dicerepossunt

aut facere, haec a te dictaque factaque sunt.omnia quae ingratae perierunt credita menti.

quare iam te cur amplius excrucies? 10quin tu animo offirmas atque istinc teque reducis,

et dis inuitis desinis esse miser?

D. Young, "Miltonic Light on Professor Denys Page's Homeric Theory," G&R

n.s. 6 (1959) 96-108. D. Wender, "The Myth of Washington," in Arion n.s. 3 (1976)71-78, repr. in A. Dundes, ed., Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth(Berkeley 1984) 336-42.

2 These are the Loeb headings for the Sulpicia poems, suitably altered. I have

also had to adjust a word in poem 111.5 to help the joke along. The Loeb, Bud6, andold Teubner (Lenz) agree on giving "elegiae" to the amicus/Tibullus, but mere "elegidia"

to Sulpicia; the new Teubner by Luck (1988; 1998) rightly avoids labels. These headers

have had, I believe, a subtle but profound effect on the poems' reception.

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HOLT N. PARKER

difficile est longum subito deponere amorem,difficile est,. uerum hoc qua lubet efficias:

una salus haec est. hoc est tibi peruincendum,hoc facias, siue id non pote siue pote.

II. o di, si uestrum est misereri, aut si quibus umquamextremam iam ipsa in morte tulistis opem,

me miserum aspicite et, si uitam puriter egi,eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi,

quae mihi subrepens imos ut torpor in artus 5expulit ex omni pectore laetitias.

non iam illud quaero, contra me ut diligat illa,aut, quod non potis est, esse pudica uelit:

ipse ualere opto et taetrum hunc deponere morbum.o di, reddite mi hoc pro pietate mea.

III. Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,et quod uides perisse perditum ducas.fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,cum uentitabas quo puella ducebatamata vobis quantum amabitur nulla.ibi illa multa cum iocosa fiebant,quae tu uolebas nec puella nolebat,fulsere uere candidi tibi soles.nunc iam illa non uult: tu quoque impotens noli,nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser uiue,sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.uale puella, iam Catullus obdurat,nec te requiret nec rogabit inuitam.at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.scelesta, uae te, quae tibi manet uita?quis nunc te adibit? cui uideberis bella?quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.

CATULLI ELEGIDIA1. Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle

quam mihi, non si se luppiter ipse petat.dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti,

in uento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.

II. Dicebas quondam solum te nosse Catullum,Lesbia, nec prae me velle tenere lovem.

dilexi turn te non tantum ut vulgus amicam,sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos.

nunc te cognovi: quare etsi impensius uror,multo mi tamen es vilior et levior.

qui potis est, inquis? quod amantem iniuria taliscogit amare magis, sed bene velle minus.

15

10

5 vobis Vivarinus:nobis V

10

15

5

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CATULLUS AND THE AMICUS CATULLI

III. Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpaatque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,

ut iam nec bene uelle queat tibi, si optima fias,nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.

IV. Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatamuere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea est.

nulla fides ullo fuit umquam foedere tanta,quanta in amore tuo ex parte reperta mea est.

V. Si quicquam cupido optantique optigit umquaminsperanti, hoc est gratum animo proprie.

quare hoc est gratum nobis quoque carius auroquod te restituis, Lesbia, mi cupido.

restituis cupido atque insperanti, ipsa refers te 5nobis. o lucem candidiore nota!

quis me uno uiuit felicior aut magis hac estoptandus uita dicere quis poterit?

VI. Iucundum, mea uita, mihi proponis amoremhunc nostrum inter nos perpetuumque fore.

di magni, facite ut uere promittere possit,atque id sincere dicat et ex animo,

ut liceat nobis tota perducere uita 5aeternum hoc sanctae foedus amicitiae.

No greater contrast is afforded by Latin literature than that be-tween the little poems of Catullus and the long poems of the so-calledamicus Catulli. I make no claims to original scholarship in this overview.Indeed, almost everything I say here is direct quotation from otherscholars (with only minor alterations to fit this occasion).3

The Verona manuscript appeared shortly before 1300. Mercifullybefore it disappeared again, a short set of extracts was made fromwhat seems to have been a much longer collection of poems, leav-ing us with the precious garland we have today.

Gruppe, 168 years ago, sorted out for all time the contents ofthis heterogeneous florilegium. 4 Santirocco, who brought Catullus backto scholarly notice, summarized the communis opinio in "[Catullus]Reconsidered":

There are six short love poems totalling a mere [thirty-four] lines .... Haupt identified the author as [Catullus],

3 I have not quoted anyone before 1969, since where's the sport in that? For

the long history of the text and interpretation of Sulpicia!, see M. Skoie, Reading

Sulpicia: Commentaries, 1475-1990 (Oxford 2002) 162-212, esp. 168-71.40. Gruppe, Die ri5mische Elegie (Leipzig 1838) 1.48-50. Gruppe, one has to

admit, was not the brightest bulb in the chandelier of Wissensehaft. He was a mighty

Nimrod in the hunt for interpolations and gutted Horace with great enthusiasm.See C. Bursian, Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland von den Anfangen

bis zur Gegenwart (Munich 1883) 722-23; J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical

Scholarship (Cambridge 1903-8) 3.277. For a full consideration of Gruppe's im-portance, see Skoie (above, n.3) 162-212, esp. 168-71.

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HOLT N. PARKER

and Gruppe recognized that several other elegies...which are also about [Catullus'] love affair are, infact, the work of another poet, not [Catullus] but theso-called auctor de [Catullo]. Since these two factualdiscoveries in the nineteenth century, there have beenfew significant contributions.5

Hinds sets the stage in "The Poet[er] and the Reader: FurtherSteps towards [Catullus]":

The [long poems] read as a closely unified group,one so different in manner and in style from thesucceeding group of six short poems that it must befelt to belong to a different author. Scholars sincethe last century have agreed in splitting the [longpoems] from the six, and in assigning the former notto [Catullus] but an amicus [Catulli]-who, none theless, intermittently assumes the persona of [Catullus].'

This all so obvious that Hinds doesn't waste our time with a footnote. 7

And the most recent complete commentary, that of Triinkle (1990),can flatly state: "The following . . . poems. come not only from thesame poet, but from a regular cycle," a fact so well-known that itagain needs no documentation.8

Hinds continues:

Modern scholarship agrees on the essentials. The ...short elegies ascribed to [Catullus] sparely portray[his] love affair with a [girl] whom [he] calls [Lesbia].The . . . longer elegies, stylistically very differentand commonly ascribed to an "amicus", proceed toflesh this out, picking up and expanding themesadumbrated in the short group.9

M. S. Santirocco, "Sulpicia Reconsidered," CJ 74 (1979) 229-30.

6S. Hinds, "The Poetess and the Reader: Further Steps towards Sulpicia,"

Hermathena, 143 (1987) 29-30. For the deliberately demeaning term "poetess," andits belittling use, see G. Greer, "Poet, Poetaster, Poetess," ch. 2 in Slip-shod Sibyls:Recognition, Rejection and the Woman Poet (London 1995). The OED's last cita-tion is for 1873: John Addington Symonds, translating from the Greek: "Amongthe ancients Sappho enjoyed a-unique renown. She was called 'the poetess', asHomer was called 'the poet'." On the suffix -ess, the OED notes [t]he tendency ofmod. usage being to treat the agent-nouns in -er, and the ns. indicating professionor occupation, as of common gender, unless there be some special reason to thecontrary."

"' Santirocco (above, n.5); N.J. Lowe, "Sulpicia's Syntax," CQ 38 (1988) 193-205; S. C. Fredricks, "A Poetic Experiment in the Garland of Sulpicia (Corpu's Tibullianum,3, 10)," Latonius 35 (1976) 761-82; and Skoie (above, n.3) are exemplary in giv-ing the full history of how the communis opinio came to be.

H. Trdnkle, Appendix Tibulliana (Berlin 1990) 255. All translations are mine.9 Hinds (above, n.6) 41.

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CATULLUS AND THE AMICUS CATULLI

Flaschenriem, who, like most scholars since the 1990s, is inter-ested primarily in Catullus and- not his amicus, sums up the state ofplay:

Scholars and editors now generally concur in attributing[the short poems] of the [Catullan] corpus to [Catullus]and [the longer poems] to the so-called auctor de[Catullo], though opinions on the authorship andascription of the poems are not unanimous. (See, e.g.,Parker 1994 for a dissenting voice)."0

As everyone notes, the difference is length is enormous. Catulluswrote "six short elegies," "six short love elegies," "six elegies, to-talling a mere forty lines,"'1 versus the poems of the amicus which"are much longer" with "their greater length, their smoother and moreconventional style and their more reserved wording."' 2

Some have even gone so far as to argue that the. very, verylong anonymous poems found elsewhere in the manuscript that be-gin Peliaco quondam prognatae uertice pinus and Etsi me assiduoconfectum cura dolore are also part of the work of Catullus. Butthis is preposterous! The first is a 408-line epyllion, and the sec-ond is an introduction for a 92-line-long translation of the ComaBerenike! Both are so steeped in Hellenistic mythology and, to useHinds' phrase, "so different in manner and in style," that they "mustbe felt to belong to a different author" (above, p.20).

Let us deal first with the little poems, which, as -everyone re-peats, are universally ascribed to Catullus.

As Luck wrote in The Latin Love Elegy:

The longest of these poems has [eight] lines, the shortestfour. All have the character of letters, billets doux,with vivid apostrophes and questions. Writtenspontaneously by a [man] with no literary pretensions,they are a unique document in the history of Latinliterature.

[Catullus'] verse epistles are by no means great poetry.[He] has the reputation of a pue[r] doct[us] . . . but[he] moves in a limited world of images. In [his]

IS B. L. Flaschenriem, "Sulpicia and the Rhetoric of Disclosure," CPh 94 (1999)37, n.6. H. N. Parker, "Sulpicia, the Auctor de Sulpicia and the Authorship of 3. 9and 3. 11 of the Corpus Tibullianum," Helios 21 (1994) 39-62.

. E. A. Hemelrijk, Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite fromCornelia to Julia Domna (London and New York, 1999), all on page 151.

"12 Hemelrijk (above, n.11) 155. So too 324, n.37: "Yet, they differ in styleand length: 3.9 is twenty-four lines long and 3.11 twenty, whereas the six elegiesgenerally attributed to Sulpicia consist of forty lines altogether." Here one notesthe danger of a circular argument: the short poems are assigned to Sulpicia, there-fore Sulpicia wrote short poems.

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HOLT N. PARKER

[thirty-four] lines there is not a single mythologicalallusion [apart from a bare mention of Jupiter]. Thisobservation by itself proves nothing about the literaryvalue of [his] work, but it shows that [he] is unable,or perhaps unwilling to look at the persons and eventsof [his] world from a distance.

[Catullus] deals in [his] poems with the simple eventsof a [man]'s life .... All this is told in simple outlines.. . . The language of [Catullus] is straightforward,sometimes harsh, with a tendency toward the colloquial. 3

Davies spoke sympathetically about Catullus:

The longest of the six "elegidia" written by [Catullus][him]self consists of only five couplets, but [his] littlepoems are all of considerable importance . . . thetreatment is in no way academic and the "elegidia"are important representatives of that light poetry whichwas popular in Republican upper-class households.14

Currie made the same point:

[His] preference is for plain and ordinary words, anindication perhaps of the authenticity of the poems.We seem to be dealing with functional poetry writtento convey a message, a point of view. It did not requiremeretricious adornment or special elaboration: itsauthor[er] was writing from a full heart."

Currie lovingly describes Catullus and his world: "These little poemsbreathing an atmosphere of real frankness and passion," his"Herzengeschichte," include:

a joyful effusion of [eight] lines, proclaiming [his]happiness that [he] is [her] chosen love and [his] frankresolve to let all the world know (poem V);

a mere note in verse of four lines (poem III);

[eight] lines conveying [his] sense of hurt expressedwith bitter irony" (poem II).

They are, wrote Currie:

what they appear to be-proud and passionate effusionsof a Roman [man] of flesh and blood. Their immediacyis convincingly strong. To assume that they are notauthentic is to stir up a host of issues to which inturn there can be no definite answers .... The content,

13 G. Luck, The Latin Love Elegy (London 1969) 107, 108.14 C. Davies, "Poetry in the 'Circle' of Messalla," G&R 20 (1973) 32."11 H. MacL. Currie, "The Poems of Sulpicia," ANRW 2.30.3 (1983) 1759, n.24.

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tone and style, speak firmly of reality, the reality ofa young [man] in love.16

I think this is certainly why we all like Catullus so much: that senseof immediacy.

Corelis, in 1995, writes of Catullus' "delicate flowers," so "tinyin volume and narrow in range" but still "exquisite":

They have a beautifully fresh charm. The word theyimmediately bring to mind is "[boy]ish": they are naive,vivacious, spontaneous and totally lacking in theaesthetic "distance" between author and subject whichto modern critics is the hallmark of literarysophistication. Their style lacks the polish one wouldexpect of a professional poet, but they display a gooddeal of natural talent."7

On Catullus' lack of professional polish indicating his clearlyamateur status, one may note the twisted syntax of the third poem,the overuse of rhetorical questions (11,7, V.7-8), and the clumsy repetitionof cupido in poem I and three times in poem V.

Foulon, in 2000, with Gallic sensibilit6, writes of Catullus' "true

passion with so much naturalness and simplicity. . . . The brevity

of the letters, their density, their spontaneity . . . carry the mark of

authenticity and true life. No care for reputation, for convention,comes to trouble the naturalness of expression.""8

16 Currie (above, n.15) 1751-52 and 1758. Even in 1983 Currie was able to

write (1763): "Modem feminist writers and campaigners challenge the received concept

that women are 'more emotional' than men, and it is no part of my intention to

provoke controversy, or draw obloquy upon myself concerning this issue, for a man

could not hope to escape it, I fear, even when writing in a learned publication. I

merely quote the poet's couplet: 'Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, /

Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.' (William Congreve, The Mourning Bride,

3. 8)." No need of obloquy. However, someone who had read the play might counter

with Osmyn's lines (3.1), also on Zara: "This Woman has a Soul / Of God-like

Mould, intrepid and commanding."17 J. Corelis, Roman Erotic Elegy: Selections from Tibullus, Propertius, Ovid,

and Sulpicia (Salzburg 1995) 95.

1' A. Foulon, "L'expression du sentiment de l'amour dans le (<Corpus Tibullianumn,"

REL 78 (2000) 93, 115. Foulon shows no awareness of Santirocco or any subse-

quent work. He tells us, with no citation, that Cerinthus was of an inferior social

position (apparently still following P. Grimal in taking him to be a Greek slave:

Love in Ancient Rome, tr. W. Nethercut [Norman 1980; Fr. orig., 1967] 120). He,

like many others, is strangely split. Despite the claims to artlessness, he holds that

" 'these gauche and feverish letters' were put into literary form, no doubt by Tibullus

himself' (quoting R. Pichon, Histoire de la literature latine [Paris 1916] 389), who'

for Lygdamus and Sulpicia "without a doubt initiated, encouraged, and perhaps personally

corrected their compositions" (116, 117). This seems a return to Radford's idea of

Ovid as Sulpicia's secretary; or Doncieux' idea of 3.9 and 3.11 as love poems by

Sulpicia "as told to" Tibullus: R. S. Radford, "Tibullus and Ovid," AJP 44 (1923)

1-26, 230-59, 293-318; R. Doncieux, "De qui sont les 616gies 2-6 du livre IV de

Tibulle?" RPh 15 (1891) 76-81.

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Older scholars attempted to order the poems in various chrono-logical sequences. Surprisingly, Lefkowitz and Fant did the same. 9 Ihave left the poems in the order in which they are found, albeit scat-tered, in the manuscript. Still, as Lowe said, in "[Catullus'] Syntax,""it seems perverse to deny a deliberate narrative sequence.""2 Thereis the intimation of past happiness combined with fear of infidelity,then the break, the reconciliation, and the last poem with hopes (doubtlessvain) for the future. All in all, a charming little "garland" of poems.

We turn now to the longer-dare one say more manly?-poemsof the amicus. As Luck observed:

If [Catullus'] poems have been preserved, it is notfor the sake of their literary merit, but . . . becausethey are the point of departure for another cycle ofelegies, composed by a more talented member of thecircle.

For [Catullus], this love is [his] own personal experience.For the anonymous poet ... it becomes a little dramathat he watches from a close distance with sympathyand fascination. He resumes most of [Catullus'] themesand expands them . . . as though he wanted to show[him] how it could have been done.2"

In the first and third poems, acting as praeceptor amoris, theamicus gives Catullus advice in love. We may note the way in whichthe amnicus picks up the words and themes so briefly and charm-ingly touched on by Catullus. Note especially how the first poemof the amicus plays with the limited vocabulary of Catullus: so benefacta,fidenz, and foedere; how the third poem reworks Catullus' line fromIV.l; how he improves Catullus' images of lucem with the candidisoles. As. Hinds writes, the amicus "proceed[s] ,to flesh this out, pickingup and expanding themes adumbrated in the short group."22

In the second poem the amicus, as Hinds says, "assumes thepersona of [Catullus]" (above, p.20). Trhinkle remarks:

In between the pieces in which the author speaks inhis own name, [an] elegy has been inserted whichgives itself out as [an] utterance of [Catullus], that

19 M. R. Lefkowitz and M. B. Fant, Women's Life in Greece and Rome: ASource Book in Translation, 3rd ed. (Baltimore 2005) 8-9.

2o Lowe (above, n.7) 203. The desire to find a narrative is strong, dating back

to Scaliger in 1577; see Skoie (above, n.3) 83-87. So too Fredricks (above, n.7)and N. Holzberg, "Four Poets and a Poetess or a Portrait of the Poet as a YoungMan? Thoughts on Book3 of the Corpus Tibullianum," CJ 94 (1999) 169-91, andDie rimische Liebeselegie, 2nd ed. (Darmstadt 2001) 98-109.

21 Luck (above, n.13) 109.22 Hinds (above, n.6) 41.

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CATULLUS AND THE AMICUS CATULLI

is Rollenlyrik, and these are ordered so that the personspeaking alternates from poem to poem. 23

Triinkle points out how the amicus picks up the very words of thelittle poems: "One is not overstating when one says that the [long]elegies enter sympathetically [nachempfunden] into [Catullus'] realworks. They play with this, vary that, and build on them."24

So too Davies:

[Catullus]'s "elegidia" are also the point of departurefor . . . an unknown author . . . who has observedthe relationship between [Catullus] and [Lesbia] andhas subtly arranged the treatment of his theme. Inthe first [and] third . . elegies the unknown authorstands outside his chosen subject and commentsobjectively. In the [second] elegy the author is objectivein a different way: he still deals with [Catullus]'slove affair, but now assumes [Catullus]'s words, andthe [poem is] passed off as [his]. 25

Luck sums up:

What the amicus [Catulli] has written is literatureas a means of refined and intellectual pleasure, tobe enjoyed by persons of sufficient leisure and breeding.His verses are not dictated by an inner conflict. Inevery poem he deals with a nearly circumscribed artisticproblem and solves it in the manner of a goodcraftsman.26

There is some dissension, however. Hinds thought it obvious that"[t]he [long poems] read as a closely unified group."2 7 Lowe, onthe other hand, was suspicious:

Even if we can be confident that [the short poems]are in fact the work of a single poet, can we be certainthat there was only one pseudepigraphic auctor de[Catullo], or that [Catullus] [him]self, if [he] existed,ever set pen to paper in [his] own right? . . . A scepticmight note that our poet seems suspiciously forthcomingwith autobiographical identifiers.28

One must note the way that the names "Catullus" and "Lesbia" areworked so conspicuously into the opening lines of poem II.

23 Trdnkle (above, n.8) 255.24 Trdinkle (above, n.8) 256.25 Davies (above, n.14) 32.26 Luck (above, n.13) 109.27 Hinds (above, n.6) 29-30.28 Lowe (above, n.7) 197, n.22.

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More recently, Niklas Holzberg in "Four Poets and a Poet[er]"has argued that all the Catullus poems were in fact written by some-one who wants to pass himself off as the young Tibullus.29 He caneven date them with remarkable accuracy. In any case, they are clearlypost-Ovidian: "Motifs used in the elegies . . . betray . . . that thetexts were very probably written later than the Ars amatoria."3 ° Forexample, Catullus' constant (and rather irritating) motif of "betrayedoaths" is clearly taken from Ars 1.630-646, right down to the pres-ence of Jupiter (luppiter ex alto periuria ridet amantum, Ars 1.633).The prayer by the amicus in the voice of Catullus (11.7), "non iamillud quaero, contra me ut diligat illa," clearly echoes Amores 1.3.3:"a, nimium volui-tantum patiatur amari." One may also compare Amores1.3.14-17 for the emphasis on fides, Amores 1.8.85 for the motif ofthe perjured woman, and so on. "Ovid's influence is unmistakable.""3

29 Holzberg (above, n.20). Here it is admittedly hard to see how any poet

would hope to make readers think he was Tibullus by adopting a number of com-pletely unknown personae (where on earth did Lygdamus and Sulpicia come from?),resolutely avoiding any of the clues that one might expect (like naming Delia, Marathus,or Pholoe), failing to use any of the author's stylistic features, and writing in ameter the author never used, and badly at that. See J. L. Butrica's review of Dierdmische Liebeselegie in BMCR 2002.02.20, and his review of Luck's ed. of Tibullusin BMCR 1999.03.19. Holzberg ("Four Poets" [above n.20] 184) is also keen tofind a narrative, indeed, "an erotic novel in elegies."

o Holzberg, "Four Poets" (above, n.20) 177., Holzberg, "Four Poets" (above, n.20) 187. The use of supposed parallels

shows how unsound the whole game is. Radford (above, n.18) and E. Br6guet (LeRoman de Sulpicia [Geneva 1946]) had argued with elaborate statistics that all thepoems were by Ovid; Radford also handed over to Ovid Tib. 2.2, the Lygdamuspoems, the Haleutica, and the entire Appendix Vergiliana. M. Swoboda proved theyhad to be pre-Ovidian: "Sur les auteurs du troisi6me livre d'616gies du CorpusTibullianum," Eos 58 (1969-1970) 99-114. Holzberg argues that the whole groupis slightly post-Ovid, while Trinkle (above, n.8) argues that 3.13-18 were writtenc. 25-20 B.c., but the amicus poems were written in the Neronian or Flavian pe-riod. T. K. Hubbard ("The Invention of Sulpicia," CJ 100 [2004] 177-94) argueson the same basis that 3.13-18 are really by Tibullus and the amicus poems camearound twenty-five to thirty years later. Hubbard never identifies this unnamed ge-nius but hints (191-92) that the poet might be Ovid, citing in support Radford andBr6guet, whose conclusions he had previously dismissed (186, n.25): Br6guet "al-though not fully convincing in assigning them to Ovid, makes a strong case forthem not being by Tibullus." Anyone will do, apparently, provided that he is notSulpicia. Hubbard then turns around and admits that Ovid might be the imitator ofthe unknown anniversary poet-for-hire (188, n.15, and 191). Most recently JacquelineFabre-Serris has turned the whole game on its head and argues that verbal echoesbetween 3.9, 3.11, 3.13, and Ovid Her. 4, 15 show that it was Ovid who was al-luding to three authentic works of Sulpica: "Sulpicia: une autre voix f6minine dansles H6roi'des? Propositions de lecture des lettres 4 et 15," REL 83 (2005) 120-39.The methodological fallacy is twofold. First, when two poets share a word or trope,it is assumed that one must be imitating the other, rather than both drawing on athird or a set of common topoi. Second, it is always assumed that the less famouspoet must be imitating the more famous. For a not wholly successful attempt tobring some rigor to the hunt, see A. G. Lee, "On [Tibullus] III, 19 (IV, 13)," PCPhS9 (1963) 4-10. It is, in fact, much easier to use these same methods and provethat the whole group was written by Propertius, an idea I mention with the fearthat someone may take it seriously.

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CATULLUS AND THE AMICUS CATULLI

Farrell summarizes the current state of scholarship:

At first no one thought [Catullus] worth reading exceptas a curiosity. . . . But [Catullus] is now taken moreseriously. . . . [Catullus] came to be seen not onlyas a serious and original poet, but an uncommonlytough-minded one given to measured, highly-involved,and rather complex modes of expression. As [he] wastaken more seriously, scholars began to find in [him]just the opposite qualities to those that their predecessorshad put down .... And, necessarily, this line of inquiryhas brought us to a point where it is worth askingagain whether we can believe implicitly that [Catullus]'spoetry is in fact the work of a Roman [man].32

Finally, Hubbard has argued the author of the short poems isnone other than "Tibullus himself, assuming a style, idiom, andpersona he judged appropriate to the young [man] ."3 Hubbard points

"22 J. Farrell, Latin Language and Latin Culture (Cambridge 2001) 57. The full

quote is:At first no one thought Sulpicia worth reading except as a curi-osity, the only surviving female poet of Latin antiquity. Indeedit was in connection with the discovery of her work that thevery concept of feminine Latinity gained some modem currency.Even scholars who disparaged the idea of a distinctly feminineLatinity per se described Sulpicia's style in condescendingly genderedterms. But Sulpicia is now taken more seriously. Indeed, as thecritical condescension that her sex attracted gave way to moreeven-handed appreciative efforts, Sulpicia came to be seen notonly as a serious and original poet, but an uncommonly tough-minded one given to measured, highly-involved, and rather complexmodes of expression. As she was taken more seriously, scholarsbegan to find in her just the opposite qualities to those that theirpredecessors had put down to "feminine latinity." And, neces-sarily, this line of inquiry has brought us to a point where it isworth asking again whether we can believe implicitly that Sulpicia'spoetry is in fact the work of a Roman woman [citing Holzberg,above, n.20].

Farrell makes explicit the form of certain critics' unstated argument: Sulpicia isallowed to be a woman only when she's a bad poet; once (female/feminist) schol-ars began to find value in her poetry, those critics can no longer believe she was awoman.

-1 Hubbard (above, n.31) 186. Hubbard's scenario is the most baroque yet. Heproposes that Tibullus wrote 3.13-18, pretending to be Sulpicia, as a wedding present.He assigns them to Tibullus on the basis of the old idea that the Comutus in Tibullus2.2, who prays for a future marriage to an unnamed woman, must be the same as

the Cerinthus named in 3.9, 10, 11, 14, 17, who is in love with the named Sulpicia.

Even if this were so, it would say no more than that someone has read Tib. 2.2.

He assigns 3.8-12 to some unknown poet whom Cornutus hired "after 25 or 30years of marriage," to write love poetry pretending to be himself while young three-

fifths of the time (3.8, 10, 12) and pretending to be his future bride the other

two-fifths (3.9, 11). The oddity of someone hiring a poet to write love poetry tohimself in his wife's name is not explored. The figure of twenty-five to thirty years

in the main text seems to come out of nowhere, but it stems from Hubbard's belief

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HOLT N. PARKER

to the "obvious differences . . . in length and style" between Catullusand the amicus?4 He also points to a suspicious circumstance:

That . . . two Roman poet[er]s . . . should both benamed "[Catullus]" is too much of a coincidence tobe accidental.3 1 While we cannot exclude the possibilitythat poetic talent is genetically programmed andtherefore hereditary, it could also be that the later[Catullus] appropriated the name as a pseudonym fromthe earlier [Catullus], whose poetry seemed to providea precedent for Latin verse. . . . It [is] conceivablethat this name came to stand not so much for anindividual as a certain genre of poetry, as the namesof "Theognis," "Hesiod," and "Homer" constructedgenres in an earlier time and place6.3

I would merely add that not only is it impossible that there shouldbe two writers named Catullus3 7 -or Pliny or Seneca-but don't youthink it a little suspicious that there are erotic epigrams supposedlyby a certain Cdtulus?3"

Along with Hinds, Lowe, Holzberg, and Hubbard, I have to wonderif there ever was a "Catullus" at all or if the amicus just wrote thesort of short, simple, heartfelt effusions that one would expect froma young man in love. 39

that 3.8-12 are based on Prop. 4.2 and 4.3, and allude to Ovid Met. 10,545; see181, n.15; 186, n.25; and 191. No proof is offered, merely blanket assertions. In-deed, reflection shows that no proof could be offered, for if Tibullus were writingin a style that he had never used before and would never use again, it is impos-sible to identify the author as Tibullus.

31 One notices in all these fictions the amount of fudging necessary to main-tain them. The poems are by Ovid. But they don't sound like Ovid. Ah, they're bythe young Ovid. The poems are by Tibullus. But they're nothing like Tibullus. Ah,they're by Tibullus pretending to be nothing like Tibullus. See below, n.39.

11 It is simply incorrect or disingenuous to say, "That the only two Romanpoetesses we know much about should both be named Sulpicia is too much of acoincidence to be accidental." In fact, we know about a number of Roman womenpoets. What is a coincidence is that some of the lines to have survived (and barelyat that) are from two different women named Sulpicia. The conspiracy would needto include the compiler of the Tibullan corpus, Martial, the late-antique scholiaston Juvenal called "Probus," any 'number of medieval scribes, and Giorgio Valla ofPiacenza. Or is Hubbard suggesting that it's "too much of a coincidence" for theexcavators of Vindolanda to have discovered yet another Sulpicia who left surviv-ing writings?

36 Hubbard (above, n.31) 188-89. The "genre" to which male poets then givethe name "Sulpicia," seems to include elegy, iambic, and hexameter satire.

37 A similar thought occurred to T. P. Wiseman, Catullus and His World (Cambridge1985) 183-98. See "Catullus 2," RE 3.2 (Stuttgart 1899) 1796 and "C[atullus]Mimographus," Brill's New Pauly 3 (Leiden and Boston, 2003) 34, for the "otherCatullus," who wrote mimes.

31 Q. Lutatius Catulus: E. Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets, 2nd ed.(Oxford 2003) 70, 75-78.

39 P. Dronke, "Alcune osservazioni sulle poesie di Sulpicia," Giornate filologichef(Francesco Della Corte)) 3 (2003) 81-99, persuasively sees the other poets not merely

28

CATULLUS AND THE AMICUS CATULLI

There have also been some outright errors. Gruppe, for example,who as I said solved this problem for all time, actually assignedthe first of the short poems to the amicus de Catullo, failing torealize that because it is so short and so emotional that it must beby Catullus.4" Even Pomeroy, although she referred to both Catullus'"six love elegies totaling [thirty-six] lines" and later to the "elegieswritten by an anonymous poet," that is the long poems, neverthe-less quoted and discussed both two of the little poems and one ofthe long poems as simply by Catullus.4 1 This shows the extraordi-nary danger, even to the mature scholar, of simply reading the textsbefore one without the aid of previous opinion. Even though Pomeroyknew what she had been told by all the handbooks about the twogroupings, without the headings of the Loeb to guide her, she madea risible error.

In sum then, nothing could be more different than the poemsof Catullus and the poems of the amicus Catulli. No poet ever has,nor ever can, write both epigrams and longer elegies. And, as ev-erybody has been told repeatedly, one set of poems is very short,and the other, you see, is very long.

University of Cincinnati HOLT N. PARKERClassical World 100.1 (2006) holt.parker@uc.edu

using Sulpicia as passive materia (the standard view) but Sulpicia actively engag-ing in the same sort of poetic exchange that we see in Cat. 50 (93):

Why did no one before 1994 [Parker, above n.10] suggest thatthe author of this elegy [3.9] might be Sulpicia? Besides theid6e fixe that the whole group of elegies was the work of a singlemale poet, I suspect that two other prejudices contributed. Thesix elegidia of Sulpicia are so concise and concentrated that itnever came into the scholars' minds that she could have beencapable of writing in a less narrow, more flowing, lighter style,one adapted to the spirit of poetic play that formed around her,and which, as a practicing poet of the circle of Messalla, Sulpiciacould not have ignored. It is worth noting that before the publi-cation of a papyrus discovered after the Second World War, thenarrative element in the poetry of Sappho herself was little known[fr. 44A]. The other prejudice in the case of Sulpicia is tied toa condescending attitude to her poems.

Here I think we reach the unspoken heart of the matter. Those who wish to denyauthorship of 3.13-18 to Sulpicia create Tibulluses or Ovids who suddenly write ina completely different style than they have ever used. This the scholars allow themto do, since they are men and (therefore) geniuses. But Sulpicia, being a womanand (therefore) not a genius, can only write in a single style, pure and direct fromthe heart.

40 The formation of the communis opinio is usually oversimplified or ignored;

but see above, n.7. Skoie (above, n.3) 200: "Since 3.13 (4.7) is shorter than all the

Amicus poems, but slightly longer and'more poetic than the Sulpicia poems (by

virtue of e.g. the reference to the Camenae), it has given grounds in the debatesfor either attribution"; also, 231, n.76.

41 S. B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves (New York 1975) 173-

74. Pomeroy's quotations show that she read-correctly as I have argued-3.11 aswell as 3.13 and 16 as works by Sulpicia.

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TITLE: Catullus and the Amicus Catulli: The Text of a LearnedTalk

SOURCE: Classical World 100 no1 Fall 2006WN: 0628803862006

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