A set of words common especially in Catullus’ polymetrics has long been taken to reflect his poetic, social, and erotic standards. Most frequent in occurrence are lepidus ‘‘charming,’’ uenustus ‘‘attractive,’’ bellus ‘‘neat,’’ and facetus ‘‘witty,’’ with their derivatives. The programmatic value of these words is plain: cui dono lepidum nouum libellum, says Catullus, inaugurating his collection: ‘‘Whom do I give this nice little book to?’’ (1.1). Suffenus is a bad poet but a witty convivand, uenustus et dicax et urbanus ‘‘lovely and quick-witted and civilized’’ (22.2), bellus... et urbanus ‘‘stylish and civilized’’ (22.9). The age that would compare a provincial beauty to Lesbia is insapiens et infacetum ‘‘tasteless and witless’’ (43.8). In the patent programmatic force of these keywords the interpretive difficulty lies: their shades and nuances, and even definitions, will be formed by one’s view of Catullus’ tastes and sensibilities.
The difficulty is greater in that Catullus’ libellus seems ineluctably to depict the passions and peccadilloes of a small, elegant, and highly self-conscious social circle - the very sort to fashion its own cant.
In the end there is no interpreting Catullus’ polymetrics without imagining that group. But the act of imagination can be informed by looking to the force of Catullus’ keywords outside of Catullus. This obvious philological measure, however, is not straightforward. The four words listed above, and like words, are slippery. Catullus’ older contemporary Cicero uses the words both to praise and to blame. In speeches the latter use predominates. Catiline’s dissolute supporters, ‘‘filthy adulterers’’ (adulteri and impuri), are also ‘‘fine pretty boys’’ (pueri lepidi ac delicati. Cat. 2.23), lovers and dancers and singers. The Pergamenes, alleges Cicero, meant an honorific citation to mock the honorand, Decianus: but he took them seriously, blind to their ironic ‘‘wit and humor’’ ( uenustatem etfacetias, Flac. 76). Cicero’s defendant P. Quinctius, a paragon of duty, honesty, and diligence (officium, fides, diligentia), did not live the stylish high life of the plaintiff Naevius, among whose skills is ‘‘speaking nicely’’ (belle dicere) - flash and polish of the same order as throwing a good dinner party (Quinct. 93).
If our words thus express qualities of dubious value, as technical terms in late Republican rhetorical criticism they signal more respectable qualities. The inaugural catalogue of an orator’s needful skills in On the Orator (1.17) includes humor: ‘‘The orator must also have a certain charming wit ( quidam lepos) and sense of humor (facetiae); learning that befits a free man; and the ability to reply and attack quickly and curtly, with measured deftness (subtilis uenustas) and wittiness (urbanitas).’ Venustus often thus describes rejoinders, lepos charm or wit broadly meant, and facetiae humor proper. Bellus appears, too, particularly for saucy or impish humor (De or. 2.277, 281-3). The excursus de ridiculis in On the Orator (2.216-90) has many such examples, devoted to defining the tasteful humor of civilized competition - a ‘‘wit that is not clownish’’ (non scurrilis lepos), in the phrase Cicero uses to describe Crassus’ sense of humor in the Brutus (143).2
The words encompass more than humor. Facetus occasionally represents the charm of elegant speech. The Rhetorica ad Herennium describes the plain style of oratory as illa facetissima uerborum attenuatio ‘‘the very elegant reduced style’’ (4.16, cf. Brut. 63, 186; Orat. 20, 99). In Crassus’ proem in On the Orator, he enthuses that, its practical uses aside, nothing is more pleasant or cultured than ‘‘witty speech without a trace of rudeness’’ (sermo facetus ac nulla in re rudis, 1.32). Venustas often describes graceful form, static or kinetic, and so frequently the charms of actio. The Rhetorica ad Herennium advises that speeches be delivered with ‘‘graceful moderation of voice, expression, and gesture’’ (uocis uultusgestus moderatio cum uenustate, 1.3). Graceful narration was uenustus: Cicero applies the word to Caesar’s commentaries (Brut. 262) and to Lysias (Orat. 29). Details deftly crafted form another set: puns produced by a change of letter are quaesitae uenustates ‘‘contrived prettinesses’’ (Orat. 84), and anaphora is a figure that exhibits both elegance and serious intensity (cum multum uenustatis... tumgrauitatis et acrimoniaeplurimum, Rhet. Her. 4.19).
Lepidus may describe ‘‘attractive affectations’’: M. Antonius arranged his words into elegant rhythmic shape ‘‘less in the service of attractiveness than of impressiveness’’ (neque... tam leporis causa quam ponderis. Brut. 140). Cicero and the Rhetorica ad Herennium find lepos in figures of speech that feature repetition, geminatio (De or. 3.206) and gradatio (Rhet. Her. 4.35). In letters Cicero uses bellus several times with technical terms from Greek rhetoric, registering the appreciation of a connoisseur: paragramma bellum ‘‘a nice little jeu de mots’’’ (Fam. 7.32.2), bellum akroteleution ‘‘a nice little denouement” (Att. 5.21.3), bellum hypomnema ‘‘a nice memoire” (Att. 16.14.4).
World History
