20 Facts About Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus, often referred to simply as Catullus, was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes.

Catullus's surviving works are still read widely and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.

Catullus's poems were widely appreciated by contemporary poets, significantly influencing Ovid and Virgil, among others.

Catullus's style is highly personal, humorous, and emotional; he frequently uses hyperbole, anaphora, alliteration, and diminutives.

Gaius Valerius Catullus was born to a leading equestrian family of Verona, in Cisalpine Gaul.

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The social prominence of the Catullus family allowed the father of Gaius Valerius to entertain Julius Caesar when he was the Promagistrate of both Gallic provinces.

Catullus appears to have spent most of his young adult years in Rome.

Catullus appears to have been acquainted with the poet Marcus Furius Bibaculus.

Catullus spent the provincial command year summer 57 to summer 56 BCE in Bithynia on the staff of the commander Gaius Memmius.

Catullus's poems have been preserved in an anthology of 116 carmina, which can be divided into three parts according to their form: sixty short poems in varying meters, called polymetra, eight longer poems, and forty-eight epigrams.

Above all other qualities, Catullus seems to have valued venustas, or charm, in his acquaintances, a theme which he explores in a number of his poems.

So, despite the seeming frivolity of his lifestyle, Catullus measured himself and his friends by quite ambitious standards.

Catullus's poetry was influenced by the innovative poetry of the Hellenistic Age, and especially by Callimachus and the Alexandrian school, which had propagated a new style of poetry that deliberately turned away from the classical epic poetry in the tradition of Homer.

Catullus described his work as expolitum, or polished, to show that the language he used was very carefully and artistically composed.

Catullus was an admirer of Sappho, a female poet of the seventh century BCE.

Catullus twice used a meter that Sappho was known for, called the Sapphic stanza, in poems 11 and 51, perhaps prompting his successor Horace's interest in the form.

Catullus, as was common to his era, was greatly influenced by stories from Greek and Roman myth.

Catullus wrote in many different meters including hendecasyllabic verse and elegiac couplets .

Catullus describes his Lesbia as having multiple suitors and often showing little affection towards him.

Catullus Dreams is a song cycle by David Glaser set to texts of Catullus.