Cattulus
Love
should not be written
in stone
but written
in water.
–Cattulus
Very little is objectively known of the life of Gaius Valerius Catullus. It is believed that he was born in Verona in 84 B.C. to a wealthy and well-connected family. Catullus’ father was a friend of Julius Caesar. He died in Rome in 54 B.C. at the age of thirty. From his poems it is known that he went to Bithynia as an aide to the governor of that province in 57-56 B.C. We also know from Cicero that Catullus was one of the “neoteric” or new poets. Whereas the majority of poets in Rome at that time produced epic poems, often commissioned by aristocratic families, Catullus and other neoteric rejected the epic and its public themes. The neoteric poets used colloquial language to write about personal experience. Their poems are mostly smaller lyrics that are characterized by wit and erudition. Aside from these facts, what is known of the life of Catullus comes from the thoughts expressed in his poems.
The knowledge of Catullus’ poems comes from a single manuscript that survived the Dark Ages.
–Poets.org
