[sect. 3]
Date of birth and of death.
[6]
6. The year of his birth and that of his death are stated by Jerome in
his edition of the Chronicles of Eusebius, probably on
the authority of the De Poetis of Suetonius. Under date
of the year of Abraham 1930 (= B.C. 87) Jerome
says, Gaius Valerius Catullus scriptor lyricus Veronae
nascitur, and under that of 1960, or,
according to some MSS., 1959 (= B.C. 57,or 58), he says,
Jerome, Chronicles of EusebiusCatullus XXX. aetatis anno Romae moritur. There
is nothing to contradict Jerome's date for the birth of the poet, but
unfortunately for our belief in his entire accuracy, a number of the
poems of Catullus were clearly written later than B.C. 57, - some of them at least as late as the end
of the year 55 B.C., or the beginning of the
year 54 (e.g. cc. 11, 29,
53, 113). Jerome
is, therefore, certainly wrong about the date of the poet's death, and
hence about at least one of the two other statements, the date of his
birth and his age at death. The only scrap of evidence from other
sources on these points is the vague statement of Ovid that Catullus
died young (Am. 111.9. 62 obvius huic
[in Elysio] hedera iuvenalia cinctus tempora cum Calvo, docte Catulle,
tuo).
[7]
7. The poems of Catullus himself furnish us, however, with some
good negative evidence concerning the date of his death. It probably
occurred in the year 54 B.C. In the first
place, there are no poems that clearly must have been written later
than the close of the year 55 B.C., or the
earlier months of the year 54, nor any that are
even capable of more ready explanation, if a later date for their
composition be supposed. The remark about the consulship of Vatinius
(c. 52), which did not take place till the end of the
year 47 B.C., forms no exception to this
statement (cf. Commentary), and the prosecution of Vatinius
by Calvus, mentioned in c. 53, may well have taken place
in 56 B.C., instead of in the fall of 54. Furthermore, c. 11, which was surely
written toward the close of 55 B.C., shows a
decided change in the feeling of Catullus toward Caesar, and accords
well with the statement of Suetonius (Iul. 73), that
after Catullus had angered Caesar by his epigrams concerning him and
Mamurra, a reconciliation with the poet took place, apparently at his
father's house at Verona. It is hardly credible that if Catullus lived
during the exciting years that followed 55
B.C., the only indication of his new feeling toward Caesar
should be the reference in c. 11, and that this was
followed by silence. Such neutrality was not the fashion among the
young friends whom Caesar was constantly winning to himself from the
ranks of his political opponents. There seems, indeed, to be an
indication in c. 11 that Catullus might be expecting some
post under the great commander. But the most satisfactory conclusion
is that death came within a short time after the close of 55 B.C., and anticipated all hoped-for activities
(cf., however, 50).
[8]
8. Whether Jerome is wrong in one or in both of his other
statements, remains, and must always remain, in doubt. All known facts
concerning Catullus harmonize well with the hypothesis that he was
born in 87, and died in 54
B.C., at the age of thirty-three, or that he was born in 84, and died in 54, at the age
of thirty; but nothing more definite can be said about the matter.