We do not know for certain the contents of the book that Catullus introduces with a short, dedicatory poem, describing it as ‘‘pretty’’ and ‘‘new’’:
Cui dono lepidum nouum libellum arida modo pumice expolitum?
Corneli, tibi.
To whom do I give my pretty new book, freshly polished with dry pumice? To you,
Cornelius.
On the face of it, this dedication does not pose many stumbling blocks to interpretation, but with reflection the questions grow. Who is the Cornelius to whom Catullus presents his little book, and why is he a particularly appropriate recipient? What is there about this book that is new and pretty, and does Catullus merely refer to the physical appearance of a brand new papyrus roll? The answers to these other questions, which would surely have occurred to an ancient reader as well, are not immediately deducible from the context. Some answers, such as the identity of the addressee, require a bit of familiarity with the literary culture of the mid-first century BC, for instance the fact that a certain Cornelius Nepos, who hailed from Catullus’ native Cisalpine Gaul, composed a historical work known as the Chronica. Other answers can only emerge more gradually, from the perspective of a profound engagement with Catullus’ writings, which will inevitably draw in other figures from among his literary antecedents and contemporaries.
The book that Catullus offers to Nepos is a libellus, not a full-fledged book, that is, but the diminutive form. The circumstances of the transmission of Catullus’ text do not allow us to know what poems were included in it, but the reader will inevitably notice the emergence of patterns of arrangement, and most modern critics are persuaded that the short poems (1-60), known as the ‘‘polymetrics,’’ formed a single collection, whether as a separate book or one part of a larger
Collection (Wiseman 1969: 1-31). This grouping of poems on diverse themes, like the collection of epigrams (69-116), recalls the practice of Greek poets of the Hellenistic period, and is particularly associated with the name of Callimachus of Cyrene, active in Alexandria in the third century bc. The diminutive form of libellus will also come to be familiar to readers, as this linguistic usage is characteristic of Catullus’ verbal style (Ross 1969: 22-6), but the associations that it evokes, both in its colloquial tone and in its depreciative effect in calling this a ‘‘little book,’’ emerge upon closer engagement with Catullus’ contemporaries. And again, the name of Callimachus comes into play. That the book is new will not surprise in this setting, but again as the reader moves further into the Catullan corpus the idea of‘‘novelty’’ in a poetic context will take on other associations. And finally, while lepidus and related terms will be found to have prominence in what one might call Catullan ethics, they will also be found to carry an aesthetic charge. In each instance the reader will be challenged to look beyond the text of Catullus to intertexts among contemporary Roman and Greek poets, but more particularly to the works of the Greek poets of the Hellenistic period who transformed the world of letters two centuries earlier.
World History
