the scazon iambic, employed in viii. and xxxi.—
“Paeninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque,”
and the phalecian hendecasyllabic, a slight modification of the Sapphic line, which is his favourite metre for the expression of his more joyful moods, and of his lighter satiric vein. The Latin language never flowed with such ease, freshness and purity as in these poems. Their perfection consists in the entire absence of all appearance of effort or reflection, and in the fulness of life and feeling, which gives a lasting interest and charm to the most trivial incident of the passing hour. In reference to these poems Munro has said with truth and force: “A generation had yet to pass before the heroic attained to its perfection; while he (Catullus) had already produced glyconics, phalecians and iambics, each ‘one entire and perfect chrysolite,’ ‘cunningest patterns’ of excellence, such as Latium never saw before or after,—Alcaeus, Sappho, and the rest then and only then having met their match.”
The work of Catullus has not come down to us intact, as is shown by lacunae and quotations in ancient writers which cannot now be found in his poems. Out of the MSS. only three have claims to intrinsic importance. The oldest and best appears to be the Bodleian (Canon. 30). But little inferior is the Sangermanensis (Par. 14137). Of the third, the Romanus, we shall be better able to judge when its discoverer, Prof. W.G. Hale, has published his collation. None of these MSS. are older than the 14th century. One poem, 62, is, however, preserved in a MS. of the 9th century (the Thuaneus, Par. 8071). Prof. R. Ellis’s discovery of the Bodleian MS. and E. Baehrens’s recognition of its value opened a new chapter in the history of the text. Ellis’s contributions comprise an indispensable commentary (ed. 2, 1889), an elaborate critical edition (ed. 2, 1878) and an English translation (1871) in the metres of the original. The text in the Oxford series, published in 1905, is inferior to those specified below. Baehrens’s edition, 2 volumes (text 1876, the second edition by K.P. Schulze is a misnomer; and Latin commentary 1885) is still of value. Amongst other editions with critical or explanatory notes or both may be mentioned those of A. Riese (1884), L. Schwabe (1886, with index verborum), B. Schmidt (1887), J.P. Postgate (1889, text differing little from that in the new Corpus Poetarunt), E. Benoist and E. Thomas, with French translation by Rostand (2 vols., 1882-1890), S.G. Owen (1893, an édition de luxe), W.T. Merrill (1893, Boston, U.S.A., with succinct English notes), A. Palmer (1896, one of the best of this scholar’s works); M. Haupt’s text of the three poets Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, edited by J. Vahlen, reached its sixth edition in 1904. Of the numerous contributions to the textual and literary criticism of the poems may be named the papers in M. Haupt’s Opuscula, L. Schwabe’s Quaestiones Catullianae (1862), B. Schmidt’s Prolegomena, H.A.J. Munro’s Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus (1878; second edition by J.D. Duff, 1905). Translations into English verse by J. Cranstoun (1867), Sir T. Martin (1861, 1876), R. Ellis (above); a recent version in prose with the Latin text by F.W. Cornish (1904). For further information see Teuffel’s History of Roman Literature (tr. by Warre), § 214, or the more recent accounts by M. Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, i. §§ 102-106, and Frédéric Plessis, La Poésie latine (1909), pp. 143-173.
(W. Y. S.; X.)
CATULUS, the name of a distinguished family of ancient Rome of the gens Lutatia. The following are its most important members.
1. Gaius Lutatius Catulus, Roman commander during the First Punic War, consul 242 b.c. He was sent with a fleet of 200 ships to Sicilian waters, and almost without opposition occupied the harbours of Lilybaeum and Drepanum. A hurriedly equipped fleet sent out from Carthage under Hanno was intercepted by the praetor Publius Valerius Falto and totally defeated (battle of the Aegates Islands, March 10, 241). Catulus, who had been wounded at Drepanum, took no part in the operations, but on his return to Rome was accorded the honour of a triumph, which against his will he shared with Valerius. (See [Punic Wars]: First, ad fin.).
2. Quintus Lutatius Catulus, Roman general and consul with Marius in 102 b.c. In the war against the Cimbri and Teutones he was sent to defend the passage of the Alps but found himself compelled to retreat over the Po, his troops having been reduced to a state of panic (see [Marius, Gaius]). In 101 the Cimbri were defeated on the Raudine plain, near Vercellae, by the united armies of Catulus and Marius. The chief honour being ascribed to Marius, Catulus became his bitter opponent. He sided with Sulla in the civil war, was included in the proscription list of 87, and when Marius declined to pardon him, committed suicide. He was distinguished as an orator, poet and prose writer, and was well versed in Greek literature. He is said to have written the history of his consulship and the Cimbrian War after the manner of Xenophon; two epigrams by him have been preserved, one on Roscius the celebrated actor (Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, i. 28), the other of an erotic character, imitated from Callimachus (Gellius xix. 9). He was a man of great wealth, which he spent in beautifying Rome. Two buildings were known as “Monumenta Catuli”: the temple of Fortuna hujusce diei, to commemorate the day of Vercellae, and the Porticus Catuli, built from the sale of the Cimbrian spoils.
See Plutarch, Marius, Sulla; Appian, B.C. i. 74; Vell. Pat. ii. 21; Florus iii. 21; Val. Max. vi. 3, ix. 13; Cicero, De Oratore, iii, 3. 8, Brutus, 35.