PREFACE

THERE is at present only one school edition of Catullus, the single Roman poet whom no boy has ever wholly failed to appreciate. Hitherto several poems, or parts of poems, have been, in our judgment, unnecessarily omitted; these are included in our selections.

One in particular we have saved by venturing to alter a word of the original. We have offered a new interpretation of some disputed passages, and there are many difficulties on which we hope to have thrown some fresh light: very occasionally we have introduced an emendation of our own into the text. But perhaps after all the best excuse for this edition is that it has been from first to last a labour of love.

We

Every commentary on Catullus must be based upon the monumental work of Professor Ellis. We wish to offer him our special gratitude and thanks. are also indebted greatly to Munro, the scholar whom even as boys we reverenced. Among German

editors we owe not a little to Riese, L. Müller, Haupt; even more to the Prolegomena of Schmidt.

Merrill's edition of all the poems we have found most helpful; Simpson's school edition is an old friend; we have enjoyed and admired the appreciations of Catullus by Professor Tyrrell and Mr. Mackail. The essay on the metres is, for the most part, dependent upon the researches of Louis Havet, Baumann, L. Müller, and Ellis.

THE LIFE OF CATULLUS

THERE are large gaps in our knowledge of the life of Catullus, and the journey to Bithynia is perhaps the only event to which we can assign a date with confidence. We are not sure of the exact year of his birth or his death. Of his mother we know nothing, and we should like to know so much. Of his father we only hear that he was a friend of Gaius Julius Cæsar, and of the poet's own boyhood scarcely a record remains. On the other hand, there is no author who takes us into his confidence in the same degree, or who is more convincingly simple and sincere. We cannot really be ignorant of one who never disguises his feelings, and always speaks from the heart.

At the outset we are confronted by a doubt as to his prænomen. Was it Gaius or Quintus? Jerome, following Suetonius, calls him Gaius Valerius Catullus, Apuleius refers to him as C. Catullus; on the other hand, there is the very doubtful authority of a passage in Pliny, xxxvii. 6, § 81, for Quintus (though even there the best MSS. have Catullus, not Q. Catullus), and on the strength of this Scaliger conjectured Quinte for qui te in lxvii. 12. The

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evidence for Gaius is clearly the stronger, and we may follow Munro in accepting it as decisive.

Next, as to the date of his birth and his death. Jerome assigns the former to the year 87 B.C., the latter to 57 B.C. As it is certain that some of the poems were written after 57, and as there is an allusion in lii. to the consulship of Vatinius, who did not hold that office till 47, it has been supposed that Jerome confused Cn. Octavius, consul in 87, with another of the same name, consul in 46, and that Catullus was born in 76 and died in 46. This theory falls to the ground, first, because we know from Cicero that Vatinius used to boast about his consulship long before he was actually consul; secondly, because Catullus was almost certainly in love as early as the year 62, which is impossible if he was not born before 76; and lastly, because it is incredible that we should find no allusion in the poems to an event later than those of the year 54 if the poet lived on till 46. We infer independently from Ovid that he died young; if we assume, as is reasonable enough, that Jerome was right in saying that he died in Rome in the thirtieth year of his age, we may reckon back from 54, the latest year in which we know him to have been alive, and accept 84 as the date of his birth. Cinna was consul both in 87 (for the first time) and in 84 (for the fourth). Jerome may have confused the two occasions.

It is known that he was born at Verona, and it