Caesar, in his early career, acquired a reputation for effeminacy and adultery (related vices from the Roman perspective, which is why C. Scribonius Curio could pillory Caesar as ‘‘every woman’s man and every man’s woman’’) along with broad popularity, owing to no small extent to his generosity in office (hence his enormous indebtedness), a disturbing mix from the conservative view made all the more worrisome (and conspicuous) by his repeated flashes of oratorical and military capacity. Caesar’s elevation to the consulship of 59 coincided with the formation of his notorious friendship with Pompey the Great and P. Licinius Crassus, a political combination denominated by moderns as the First Triumvirate (and ridiculed in antiquity as the Three-Headed Monster; cf. App. B Civ. 2.9). Caesar’s consulship advanced the interests of himself and his triumviral colleagues, but only by means of appalling violence that soon incurred hostility amongst Romans of all classes. Nevertheless, the dynasts, as they are often and misleadingly described in modern scholarship, were able to fortify themselves in the following year when partisans occupied the consulship and the formidable P. Clodius Pulcher was tribune of the people. Still, before that year was out, Clodius had turned on Pompey, and the clout of the triumvirs continued to diminish. For the remainder of the 50s Caesar was away from Rome waging war in Gaul, where he accrued glory and wealth (during which time he was also governor of Cisalpine Gaul, where Catullus’ native Verona was located). By 56, a year in which each consulship was occupied by an enemy of the triumvirs, their association was itself nearly in tatters, but it was renewed by an expansion of their connections: Pompey’s family formed a marriage alliance with the Claudii Pulchri, thereby adding Clodius to the number of his friends, and Cicero was deployed in the triumvirs’ interests. Violence and constitutional chicanery got Pompey and Crassus the consulships of 55 (for each his second consulship). Even at this point, however, the might of the triumvirs is easy to overestimate. The real state of political affairs is obvious in the results of the elections for 54: one consul was Ap. Claudius Pulcher, friend and relation to the triumvirs; the other was L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, their bitterest enemy. And in the machinations for office for the next year, the importance of the triumvirs dissolved nearly entirely (contrast Konstan, this volume, p. 73). Notwithstanding the limitations of the triumvirate, indeed, to some degree because political antagonisms in Rome were so evenly matched in resources at this time, 55 and 54 and 53 were years of increasing political instability and public anxiety (Wiseman 1994; W. J. Tatum 2006). Catullus had his own views on whom to blame.
Catullus’ attacks on Caesar - one of which (poem 29) is imitated in Horace’s Epodes (poem 29.7; cf. Epod. 4.5, 17, 41, 5.69) and quoted both by the author of Catalepton 6.5 and by Quintilian (9.4.141) as an illustration of iambic malediction - made a deep and lasting impression. Even their target recognized their effect (Suet. Iul. 73):
Valerium Catullum, a quo sibi versiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata imposita non dissimuleverat, satis facientem eadem die adhibuit cenae hospitioque patris eius, sicut consuerat, uti perseveravit.
Caesar never disguised the fact that Catullus’ poems about Mamurra inflicted a permanent stain on his reputation. But when Catullus apologized, Caesar invited him to dinner on the same day. And he continued without interruption his friendly relationship with Catullus’ father.
In this instance, the actions of Catullus and of Caesar cut through the potential obscurities entailed by the varying literary personalities constructed by the authors of invective poetry: poems composed by Catullus constituted a personal persecution for which their author accepted responsibility. This bit of Catullan aggression, however Archilochean in sentiment or style, took aim at undisguised contemporaries in the hardy fashion of Roman oratory. Mamurra was not a Catullan invention but an equestrian from Formiae whose military service under Pompey and Caesar had proved profitable enough to elevate him to new standards of Roman luxuriousness (see Konstan, this volume, pp. 73-4). Catullus’ hostility to the man and his morals, and by extension to the actions of his prominent associates, Caesar and Pompey, is unmistakable.
Who can look at this, who can bear it, except someone who is shameless, voracious and a gambler: the fact that Mamurra possesses what once belonged to Gallia Comata and remote Britain? Pervert Romulus, can you look at this and endure it? And will he, insolent and rich, stroll through everyone’s bedroom like a white dove or Adonis? Pervert Romulus, can you look at this and endure it? You are shameless, voracious and a gambler. Was it for this, peerless victor, that you were on the most distant island of the West? Was it so that that fucked-out prick of yours could consume twenty or thirty million sesterces? If this isn’t perverse generosity, what is? Hasn’t he finished off enough and screwed enough? First his ancestral estates were ripped to bits, then his spoils from Pontus, then, third, his Spanish plunder - the gold-bearing river Tagus knows about that. Does he now get the best bits of Gaul and Britain? Why, damn it, do you favor this man? What can he do apart from devouring rich patrimonies? Was it for this, O paragons of Roman piety, father-in-law and son-in-law, that you have wasted everything? (c. 29)
Although it opens with a (possible) reference to Archilochean iambics (Fordyce 1961: 161), this poem is replete with commonplaces from Roman rhetorical invective. Mamurra’s avid appropriation of Roman plunder (3-4), his prodigality, and his financial embarrassment, linked in the standard fashion to gluttony and sexual insatiability as well as adultery - failings that are themselves all staples of Roman vituperation - are deployed in order to shame and to disgrace Pompey and especially Caesar. The technique of abusing a leading political figure by means of insults aimed at a lesser associate was a regular oratorical strategy (Corbeill 1996: 112-24) and is employed more than once in Catullus’ excoriations of Caesar (cf. poems 52, 54, 57, 105, 114, 115): Mamurra’s wastefulness makes him an embarrassing connection, of course, but it also recollects Caesar’s own notoriety for display and indebtedness, thereby forming an oblique slur on Caesar’s prodigality.
Still, poem 29 does not eschew direct attack: Caesar is shamelessly immoral, greedy, and a gambler (a common term of reproach, recklessness being deemed un-Roman); he is also a pervert (cinaedus) whose actions travesty his family’s claims to divine ancestry (29.8, which obliquely refers to Julian descent from the goddess Venus). Vituperation along these lines contradicts Caesar’s pretensions to Roman virtue, a quality always best displayed in foreign conquests (the senate ordered thanksgivings in recognition of Caesar’s victories in 56 and 55), thus rendering ridiculous (or at best disturbing) his claim to be Rome’s peerless victor (29.11). Nor, in poem 29, can Pompey escape his connection with Mamurra or with Caesar: introduced as Caesar’s son-in-law at line 24, his virtue is likewise challenged (20.23). The poem closes with an expression that has plausibly been identified as a political slogan of the opponents of Pompey and Caesar (Fordyce 1961: 164, with examples) but which here seems especially to emphasize the idea of financial waste and ruin that is central to Catullus’ indictment of Mamurra (TLL 10.1: 1264-5). The effect of this poem is devastating and, in terms of the potentialities of Roman invective, very nearly total.
It is possible to date the composition of this poem within fairly narrow terms: Caesar’s first landing in Britain took place in 55 and his daughter, Pompey’s wife, died in 54. Catullus’ attack on Caesar and Pompey, then, though expressed entirely in moral terms that make no reference to urban violence or to constitutional improprieties, seems nevertheless to be a reaction to the enormities perpetrated by the triumvirs in 55. Unlike invective in a political speech, however, which might be expected to offer, in addition to vituperation, substantive criticisms or positive recommendations for correcting an objectionable state of affairs, Catullus’ poem decries the personal immorality of Caesar and of Pompey without offering hints of further political allegiances or associations. It will not be the case that Catullus objects to conquests or to monumentalizing military glory: the expanse of the Roman world is described by him, without obvious irony, by reference to campaigns in Gaul and Britain, the ‘‘monuments of great Caesar’’ (11.10), and in poem 55, a light-hearted piece, the portico of Pompey, dedicated in 55, is the natural setting for erotic adventure, a Roman fixture (contrast Konstan, this volume, pp. 77-8, 79-80). Catullus’ attack, then, is personal, reflecting the emphasis on individual character and conduct that was crucial to traditional Roman conceptions of political excellence, an idea expressed by the word virtus, itself combining masculine superiority with devotion to the moral imperatives of the Republic (Earl 1967: 20-5). The leading classes in Rome and those loyal to them were deemed ‘‘good men’’ - boni - and many amongst the senate’s elite regarded themselves as optimates, the ‘‘best men.’’ The consulship - the greatest glory in Roman society (summa laus) - confirmed a man’s noble quality and validated the reality of his virtus. Caesar’s actions, by contrast, betray his fundamental unworthiness, his lack of any virtue, political or otherwise.
No value was dearer to Roman sensibilities than fides - trustworthiness - which was indispensable to all relationships, be they personal ( fides was vital to friendship) or financial. Even in international dealings, Romans emphasized the fides of the Roman people. The moral mauling given Caesar in poem 29 denounces his performance as general (Romans believed their wars to be just, not simply excuses for plunder), provincial governor, and friend (Caesar’s indulgence of Mamurra’s appetites is not by Roman standards the action of a true friend, who is obliged to strive to improve his friends’ character; cf. Cic. Amic. 88-91). This poem represents Caesar’s familial tie to Pompey as entirely utilitarian and, in the worst sense, political - and with disastrous results for Rome’s subjects and for the integrity of Roman families. In short, Caesar’s connection with Mamurra instantiates a poisonous perversion offides. Put differently, Caesar is a bad man - and the proof of it is Mamurra’s reprehensible lifestyle.
Caesar’s indulgence of unsavory types is also attacked in poem 54, though matters there are made unclear by the unsatisfactory condition of that poem’s text; we can nevertheless see that Caesar, judged a ‘‘rustic’’ (54.2) despite his claim to be Rome’s ‘‘peerless victor,’’ remains vulnerable to Catullus’ iambic onslaughts. The rise of P. Vatinius, another Caesarian crony, evokes shock in poem 52 (see Konstan, this volume, pp. 80-1). And Catullus composed a series of savage epigrams lampooning Mamurra - under the cryptonym Mentula (‘‘prick,’’ a reference to ista vestra diffutata mentula at 29.13) - for his adultery (poem 94), his literary failures (poem 105), and his extraordinary greed and luxuriousness (poems 114 and 115), each of which reflected poorly on Mamurra’s masters (see Konstan, this volume, pp. 75-6). Again Caesar’s baleful influence manifests itself in the repellent qualities of his friends: society, from any decent perspective, has gone topsy-turvy when figures of this quality dominate.
Poem 113 also inscribes the coincidence of sexual betrayal and the enormities of 55:
Consule Pompeio primum duo, Cinna, solebant Maeciliam: facto consule nunc iterum manserunt duo, sed creverunt milia in unum singula. fecundum semen adulterio.
When Pompey was consul for the first time, Cinna, two men were accustomed to Maecilia. Now, when he is consul a second time, the two remain, but for each of them there has been a thousand-fold increase. Adultery’s seed is fertile.
It is possible that this piece contributes to Catullus’ persecution of Caesar. Although the name Maecilia is not unknown, and it can never surprise us when the specific identification of a woman in late Republican society eludes us, an emendation (not widely accepted) proposed by C. Pleitner, Mucilla, yields a reference to Mucia, who was Pompey’s third wife and the mother of his sons. Upon his return from the East in 61, Pompey divorced Mucia - for no explicit reason (Plut. Pomp. 42) though it was alleged by Caesar’s enemies that Caesar had seduced her in the great man’s absence (Suet. lul. 50.1). Poem 113, then, which in any case deploys Pompey’s political career as the means by which to measure an explosion in Roman adultery, may also implicate Caesar’s treachery - he was after all Pompey’s friend and political ally in the 60s. The year 55, for Catullus, heralded a collapse in public and private morality.
Let us return to Mamurra. The equation of Caesar with his lieutenant is explicit in poem 57, where the two are twinned in their adultery, their perversion - Catullus goes so far as to denounce Caesar as a pathicus (57.2) - and their literary pretensions.
Pulchre convenit improbis cinaedis, Mamurrae pathicoque Caesarique. nec mirum: maculae pares utrisque, urbana altera et ille Formiana, impressae resident nec eluentur: morbosi pariter, gemelli utrique, uno in lectulo erudituli ambo, non hic quam ille magis vorax adulter, rivales socii puellularum. pulchre convenit improbis cinaedis.
The shameless perverts suit one another well, Mamurra and Caesar the faggot. No wonder: each of them carries the same stains, one from the city, the other from Formiae, deeply marked and never to be washed out. Equally diseased, perfect twins, together on a single couch, each a scholar, the one is not a more voracious adulterer than the other, at once rivals and allies for girls. The shameless perverts suit one another well.
Here the effeminization of Caesar is total: a pathicus was a man who relished the experience of sexual penetration by other men, and the poem’s collocation of the two men on a single lecticulum at the very least suggests that it is Mamurra - the mentula of the epigrams - who is Caesar’s defiler. The imputation of os impurum, a mouth befouled by oral sex, is made unmistakable by the phrase vorax adulter, and is, like pathicus, an extreme obscenity, deployed here not so much to shock as to underscore the degree to which the peerless victor has succumbed to his own minion: Caesar is a monster, at once warrior and sissy, proconsul and sex toy. His personal degeneracy vitiates, by way of transgression, his public estimation (see further Konstan, this volume, pp. 76-7).
Obscenity is a conspicuous and common feature of Catullan invective, and it has naturally attracted considerable critical scrutiny (Richlin 1992: 144-56; Skinner 1991; Fitzgerald 1995: 64-86). Amy Richlin has emphasized the super-masculine posture of aggressive obscenity in Rome: invective obscenity, when directed at men, regularly robs its targets both of their masculinity and their status as free men by threatening emasculation, often in terms of rape; these insults invite the reader or auditor to participate in the aggressor’s stance, a move that further marginalizes the targets of obscene abuse. In his treatment of Caesar, Catullus contemptuously reduces the peerless victor to pathicus - a poetic expression of disgust that fashions the poet as comprehensively virtuous and confidently masculine. Marilyn Skinner rightly observes the intimate connection between Roman complaints of sexual dissipation and political or economic oppression: obscenity, in certain contexts, carries political overtones - and we have detected this link already. Caesar’s reduction to Mamurra’s catamite here unmistakably inscribes a complete failure of political probity. Caesar’s leadership, and by association Pompey’s leadership, is not merely disgraceful: it is destructive on an international scale, and even self-destructive. All of this is very far from Quinn’s ‘‘general disgust’’ but is instead a strongly traditionalist judgment inviting the endorsement of the poet’s audience. Invective, as we have seen, tends to imply a moral context in which wickedness can be blamed and potentially banished. Catullus’ reaction to the appalling events of 55 and to the enormities of Caesar and his political associates need not place him in the company
Of Caesar’s enemies in the senate, but it clearly appeals to the conventional public values of his readers.
Which brings us to the very odd poem 93:
Nil nimium studeo, Caesar, tibi velle placere, nec scire utrum sis albus an ater homo.
I’m far from keen to please you, Caesar, or even to know whether you are a white man or
A black one.
It is obvious that this poem’s posture of indifference is something of a contradiction (genuine indifference on an author’s part would give us no poem at all), but that observation can be set aside. What is so striking about this poem is the complete absence of invective tropes. Still, the poem is hardly complimentary to Caesar. Nor does it represent his critic in the best light. However we take the speaker of this poem, he stands in violation of several Roman norms. If this is another instance of the historical Catullus who apologized to Caesar, it fits less neatly into the traditional moralism of the other poems attacking Caesar and Mamurra. After all, no landowner, and no son of a landowner, from Cisalpine Gaul could properly be indifferent to the proconsul who presided over his family’s estates - if he respected the Republic and if he cared about his property and his household. And if Suetonius was correct when he stated that Catullus’ father and Caesar were on consistently amicable terms, this poem hardly attests to Catullus’ filial piety. It is no wonder, then, that Quintilian described this epigram as a specimen of insanity ( Inst. 11.1.38). He goes on to say that, if the circumstances were reversed, so that it was Caesar and not Catullus who expressed such extreme indifference, the comment would become arrogant (political figures in Rome were obliged to stay accessible to lesser types and to express an interest in their well-being). But Catullus’ posture in 93 cannot be arrogance: hence Quintilian’s verdict (see also Konstan, this volume, p. 84).
But let us read less biographically. No one sharing the values of the poems discussed above could contemplate Caesar without outrage. An uninterested or even dismissive reaction to Caesar is entirely at odds with the moral urgency of poems 29, 57, and the rest. In other words, the speaker of poem 93, if he is not to be identified with the poet, must be an unsympathetic reader of the poet’s work. In poem 93, then, there is something exceptionable about the speaker: his indifference to Caesar is plainly improper, a conclusion that tends against the poem’s claim that Caesar is inconsequential even as the poem introduces a figure who is no admirer ofhim and should prefer to avoid his company. Here, then, instead of the authentic Catullus who ultimately offered his personal apology to the actual Caesar, we come up against the shifting personality of the iambic poet, whose presence here is perhaps signaled by this poem’s recourse to proverbial language, a typical feature of iambic (Heyworth 2001).
World History
