[sect. 2]
Catullus.
[3]
3. Of this new school of poets the most prominent and interesting
figure is Catullus. It is possible to know him personally as only now
and then an ancient writer can be known to us, and yet he gives us but
few definite biographical facts concerning himself, while still fewer
are given by other authors of his own and later ages. But the little
body of poems that constitute his extant works is so replete with his
intense personality, and shows forth so unreservedly his every
emotion, that the man stands out before us as does no other man of the
age with the exception of two or three of its political leaders. And
all this is true, even though we acknowledge, as we are bound to do,
that in many questions of importance concerning his life we must be
content with a working hypothesis instead of a series of established
facts, and that the biographer, as the interpreter of the poems of
Catullus, must be understood to be presenting probabilities and not
certainties.
[4]
4. With regard to his full name we are left in some doubt. He
refers to himself by name in his poems twenty-five times, but in each
case only by the cognomen, Catullus, while
the better manuscripts of his writings are inscribed simply
Catulli Veronensis
Liber. Yet there is no difficulty in ascertaining
his gentile name from other writers. Varro
(L. L. VII. 50), Suetonius
(Iul.73), Porphyrio (on
Hor. Sat. 1.10.19), Charisius
(1.97), Jerome (T Chron. a. Abr.1930), all
give it as Valerius. There are fewer references to his praenomen. Four
of the later and interpolated manuscripts give it in their titles as
Quintus, and until lately it was supposed that to this indication
might be added the testimony of the elder
Pliny (N H. XXXVII. 81) - Relying upon such authority Scaliger
went so far as to emend c. 67.12 so as to bring in for
the unintelligible words qui te the praenomen
of the poet in the vocative, Quinte; and his
suggestion won the approval of even so keen a critic as Lachmann. But
it is now universally conceded that the initial Q.
prefixed to the word Catullus in the passage
specified from Pliny is an interpolation, the best MS., the codex Bambergensis, containing only the cognomen
without prefix. There is, moreover, positive evidence in favor of a
different praenomen. Jerome (l.c.), in speaking
of the birth of the poet, calls him in full C.
Valerius Catullus, and Apuleius (Apol. 10), whose accuracy, however,
in the matter of names is not above suspicion, calls him C. Catullus. In the face, then, of the testimony of
interpolated manuscripts only, his praenomen must stand established as
Gaius.
[5]
5. Concerning the birthplace of Gaius Valerius
Catullus there is abundant testimony. The titles of the best
MSS. of his works call him Veronensis, and
Jerome (l.c.) declares him born at Verona. In
this testimony concur his admirers among the poets of the centuries
immediately following (e.g.
Ov. Am. III. 15.7;
Mart. I.61.1;
X. 103.5;
XIV. 195; Auson. Op. 23. 1);
and his own writings furnish
confirmatory evidence of the same fact. He calls himself
(c. 39.13) Transpadanus; he
possessed a villa at Sirnaio on the shore of Lacus Benacus near Verona
(c. 31); he was acquainted with Veronese society
(cc. 67, 100); and he spent part of his time at Verona
(cc. 35, 68a).