Roman Sites in Northern Italy

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I think I'm going to be in Munich towards the end of October for a friend's wedding (the wedding is confirmed, it's my attendance which is still a bit uncertain). If I go, I'd also like to visit some friends in Innsbruck, and spend a few days in northern Italy as well. I'd particularly like to see the Grotte Di Catullo. I'm aware that it's not the actual house Catullus lived in, but I feel the pilgrimage would be worth it all the same. I've been to Rome a few times, but have never made it very far north and this seems like a good opportunity to do so.

While I'm there are there any other nearby sites I should make an effort to get to? The amphitheatre in Verona sounds worth a visit, but I have no idea what else is around that part of Italy. Padua and Mantua (the birthplaces of Livy and Vergil respectively) aren't too far away, but in my brief internet investigations it doesn't seem like there's actually much to make it worth going there.

Any recommendations?

Fun

One of my students asked me yesterday if the Romans had a word for fun. I didn't know. I still don't. The concept of fun is a... well, a funny one I suppose. Easy to recognise, but hard to define. Romans played and laughed and enjoyed themselves just like humans throughout history, I assume, but did they have a specific word for fun? I suspect that someone like Cicero would have been a bit scornful of the notion of fun (virtue is much more important), while for an Epicurean such as Lucretius pleasure had a much more nuanced meaning than simply fun. No doubt Catullus or Ovid appreciated the concept, but what words did they use to express it? How would you say 'This is fun!' or 'I am having fun!' in Latin?

Catullus and Pop Culture

Every year I read a selection of Catullus' poetry with my year 10 class(es), and as part of their assessment I get them to do a presentation comparing one of Catullus poems to a film or song (or anything of their choosing really), to show how the themes and emotions of his poetry are expressed these days.

Here are some of the comparisons they made this year:

Catullus 3 is like Mufasa and Simba from The Lion King

Catullus 5 is like Don’t Matter, by Akon

Catullus 8 is like Gives You Hell, by All American Rejects and  Accustomed to her Face from My Fair Lady

Catullus 51 is like Edward from Big Fish and Lancelot from First Knight

Catullus 70 is like Hayley and Dillon from Modern Family, White Noise by the Living End and Your Love is a Lie, by Simple Plan

Catullus 72 is like Not Me, Not I, by Delta Goodrem and Gives You Hell, by All American Rejects

Catullus 85 is like Cher from Clueless, 7 Things by Miley Cyrus, Hate that I Love You by Rihanna and Love the Way You Lie by Eminem (featuring Rihanna, poor woman)

Catullus 86 is like Beauty in Ugly, by Jason Mraz, Nothin’ on You by B.o.B. and Stay Beautiful by Taylor Swift

Catullus 92 is like Cher and Josh from Clueless and Kevin and Jane from 27 Dresses

Obviously some of the comparisons work better than others. I've added a poll on the right of the ones I thought worked best that you can vote for over the next couple of weeks. If you think one of the comparisons that hasn't made it to the poll worked better, leave me a comment.

300

This is my 300th post since starting this blog way back in July 2006. The number 300 is one that crops up regularly in classical literature, for example in the 300 Spartans made popular by this movie a couple of years ago. It's often used imprecisely, to simply indicate a big, indefinite number, or often a number with some kind of magical or mysterious significance. Here are a couple of examples from Roman poetry:

Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,
labuntur anni nec pietas moram
rugis et instanti senectae
adferet indomitaeque morti,

non, si trecenis quotquot eunt dies,
amice, places inlacrimabilem
Plutona tauris,

Ah, Postumus, Postumes, the fleeting
years slip by and not even your righteousness
can put on hold your wrinkles and inevitable
old-age and unyielding death,

not even if you sacrificed 300 bulls
everyday could you please pitiless
Pluto, my friend.

(Horace II.14)

wind and running water

The speaker on Lyric Poetry at Wednesday's HSC study day, made a comment at one point that whenever you come across storm imagery, you know the poet is about to have a go at women - for being unpredictable, fickle, irrational, even violent. It's not a bad point, think for example of Horace I.5, where he takes pity on his ex-girlfriend's new lover:

...heu quatiens fidem
mutatosque deos flebit et aspera
nigris aequora ventis
emirabitur insolens...

Alas, how often he will weep
At your (and the gods') vacillations
And be exasperated by your rough seas
And black gales.

But it's not just women who get this treatment. In Ode III.9 (a conversation between two lovers) the woman uses similar imagery to describe the man:

quamquam...
...tu levior cortice et improbo
iracundior Hadria,
tecum vivere amem. tecum obeam libens.

Though... you are as light as cork and as bad-tempered
As the deceitful Adriatic, I'd love
To live with you, with you I'd gladly die.

Catullus and Horace Word Cloud

Here are a couple more word clouds, first for Catullus (based on the prescribed poems for 2008-2010):



and simlilarly for Horace:

your favourite author

I've added a poll to my blog to let you vote for your favourite Roman author (you have to scroll down a bit to see it). I've only included the authors I've studied this year with my senior classes: Virgil, Cicero, Catullus, Horace and Ovid. If you vote, leave me a comment explaining who you voted for and why.

I had a similar poll set up ages ago, I don't remember what the figures were, but you can read a brief bio of each author as well as some of the comments here.

Silphium

Here is a recipe, taken from the Roman gourmand Apicius:

Oxygarum (which is similar to garum or rather an acid sauce) is digestible and is composed of:

• 1/2 ounce of pepper
• 3 scruples of Gallic silphium
• 6 scruples of cardamom
• 6 of cumin, 1 scruple of leaves
• 6 scruples of dry mint.

These ingredients are broken singly and crushed and made into a paste bound by honey. When this work is done or whenever you desire add broth and vinegar to taste.

Carol Manners Essays

Each year the CLTA holds an essay competition "for Year 12 students of Latin and Greek who may write an essay from a range of topics related to the HSC and IB Latin and Greek prescribed texts."

The winning essays for 2009 have been published online:

• Vice and Virtue in Cicero’s In Verrem V
• Cicero’s Rhetorical Method in In Verrem V
• Two major differences between the lyric verse of Horace and Catullus

The standard is of course exceptional, and all three essays are well-worth reading. Here is part of the introduction to the second essay, as a brief taste:

Cicero’s rhetorical method in Verrine V fulfils various functions, diverting from structured reasoning (probare), and becoming a “self expression of the orator”. It influences emotionally (flectere), entertains (delectare), and makes Verres a “human object of contempt”. The need to persuade a jury and audience had already been ccomplished in the Actio Prima, where the weight of evidence incriminated Verres. Considering the Actio Secunda was published but never delivered in court, the focus will be particularly on dispositio (arrangement of material), elocutio (style and power of words) and the context of the Verrines in Cicero’s career.

iam ver egelidos refert tepores

Here are a couple of poems in celebration of the first day of spring.

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis
arboribus comae;
mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas
flumina praetereunt;
Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
ducere nuda chorus.

The snows have fled, now the grass returns to the fields, and to the trees their leaves, the earth changes in turn and the swelling rivers flow past their banks, the naked Grace, along with the Nymphs and her twin sisters dares to lead the dance.

Birthplaces of Roman Authors

Strangely, most of the Latin authors we read today were not actually born in the city of Rome, but moved there from the provinces. This is true of Virgil, Cicero, Livy, Catullus, Ovid, Horace and many more.

This map shows the birthplaces of some of the most famous Roman writers:



View Birthplaces of Roman Authors in a larger map

Related Posts

• Your favourite author

Univocalic lipograms

Further to yesterday's post, here's a univocalic, lipogrammatic (if that's even a word) translation of Catullus 85 (just to see if I could).

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

We detest her, yet we feel glee. Seek ye the key, re: these resentments? We're rejected, dejected, demented.

It could use a bit of work; the second half of the first line is pretty awful, and the whole of the second line is barely a paraphrase, let alone a translation. Any suggestions?

The opening of the Aeneid could work with the letter 'a' - 'A chant: arms and a man...'

Related Posts

• odi et...
• Love and Hate in Ancient Rome

BO

You might be familiar with this problem- a friend, colleague, family member stinks and you don't know how to tell them without embarassing them, offending them and destroying your relationship with them. Thankfully Marcus Aurelius has the answer:

Are you angry with the man who smells like a goat, or the one with foul breath? What will you have him do? That's the way his mouth is, that's the way his armpits are, so it is inievitable that they should give out odours to match. 'But the man is endowed with reason', you say, 'and if he puts his mind to it he can work out why he causes offence.' Well, good for you! So you too are no less endowed with reason: bring your rationality, then, to bear on his rationality - show him, tell him. If he listens, you will cure him, and no need for anger.

(Meditations 5.28)

Catullus also had a friend with the same problem, but was not quite so sensitive:

Noli admirari, quare tibi femina nulla,
Rufe, velit tenerum supposuisse femur,
non si illam rarae labefactes munere vestis
aut perluciduli deliciis lapidis.
laedit te quaedam mala fabula, qua tibi fertur
valle sub alarum trux habitare caper.
hunc metuunt omnes, neque mirum: nam mala valde est
bestia, nec quicum bella puella cubet.
quare aut crudelem nasorum interfice pestem,
aut admirari desine cur fugiunt.

Don't be so amazed, Rufus, that no woman
wants to lay her soft thigh beneath you,
even though you tempt her with a gift of rare cloth
or the delight of a translucent stone.
A certain evil rumour haunts you, which reports
that a wild goat lives down in the valley of your armpits.
Everyone fears him, and I'm not surprised: for he is a particularly
evil creature, who no pretty girl would want to sleep with.
And so either kill that cruel plague of noses,
or stop wondering why they run away.

(Catullus 69)

My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead

I came across the review of an interesting looking book the other day while reading the paper- it was the title that intitially caught my eye, My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro. The title is a reference to Catullus, as the opening of the article explained:

The title of this anthology comes, according to its editor, from the poetry of Catullus, who he claims “was the first poet in the ancient world to write about a personal love affair in an extended way”. Two of Catullus’ poems concern the death of the sparrow beloved by Lesbia, the object of the poet’s obsession and Eugenides adds, “Despite the multiplicity of subjects and situations treated here, one Catullan requirement remains in force throughout. In each of these 26 love stories, either there is a sparrow or the sparrow is dead”

He speaks figuratively, of course, but his point is that a love story “can never be about full possession”, that it depends on “disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart”. Disappointment and incompleteness are central to the editor’s conception of the love story.

Here's part of the poem where Catullus mourns for Lesbia's sparrow:

Lugete, o Veneres Cupidinesque...
passer mortuus est meae puellae,
passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.
nam mellitus erat suamque norat
ipsam tam bene quam puella matrem,
nec sese a gremio illius movebat,
sed circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc
ad solam dominam usque pipiabat.

Mourn, all you Venuses and Cupids...
the sparrow of my girlfriend has died,
the sparrow, the darling of my girl,
whom she loved more than her eyes.
He was sweet as honey, and he knew his mistress
as well as a girl her own mother,
and he would not budge from her lap,
but jumping around, now here, now there,
he was always chirping for his mistress alone.

You can read the two sparrow poems (in English) here and here. As far as I can tell, apart from the title the book doesn't have much to do with Catullus' poetry, or Latin in general.

Related posts

• more than my eyes
• onomatopoiea

Catullus and Seinfeld

The other day while marking some year 12 essays I had a revelation. It struck me that Catullus’ poetry is a lot like the TV show Seinfeld, while Horace’s is more like Sex and the City. Let me explain.

Seinfeld was a show which claimed to be about nothing, but in fact was about lots of stuff- based around the everyday lives and relationships of four friends. Sex and the City on the over hand claimed to be revolutionary television, but when you stripped away the rhetoric it too was about the everyday lives and relationships of four friends.

Catullus claims in his introductory poem that his poetry is also about nothing when he calls his poems mere trifles (‘nugas’). What I think he means is that his poetry doesn’t deal with any of the subjects which were considered in his time to be serious and important; subjects like mythology, gods, heroes, wars, history and even philosophy. Rather his poems are (generally) about his everyday life and relationships. Catullus was not the first to write this kind of poetry, he was heavily influenced by the Alexandrian poets of 200 or so years before (especially Callimachus)

On the other hand, Horace (in Ode III.30, a kind of epilogue, reflecting on his own poetic achievements) claims to have completed in his poetry a monument more lasting than bronze (‘aere perennius’) which will ensure his immortality as long as Rome exists. His boast rests on the assertion that he was the first (‘princeps’) to bring Greek poetry to Rome – though this is not strictly accurate. Catullus and the other poetae novi (whose work is for the most part sadly lost) also experimented with Greek themes, forms, meters and conventions in the same way that Horace did.

So, like Seinfeld, Catullus claims that his poems are nothing, when really they are something, and Horace, like Sex and the City, claims that his poems are revolutionary, when really they are heavily indebted to what has gone before.

[Disclaimer: I have never actually watched an episode of Sex and the City - this is just the impression I get of the show]

another essay

I've written another essay, for the benefit of my year 12 class. Here it is:


With reference to Catullus’ Carmen I and Horace’s Odes III.30, compare each author’s attitude to their own poetry.

hospites Romani

If you could have dinner with three Romans, who would you invite? I was thinking about this the other day, and here is my guest list:

Cicero was my first choice. I suspect that he was a bit of an arrogant git, but there’s no doubt that the man was a genius. From humble(ish) origins he rose to become one of the most influential men in Rome. He was consul in 63 BC, and Julius Caesar invited him to join the first triumvirate (Cicero refused because he hated Caesar, but that’s another story). He had a sense of humour and a bitterly sharp wit, and was incredibly educated- he studied oratory in Athens, and in his later years when he was effectively side-lined from politics he spent his spare time translating Greek philosophy into Latin. He also lived in one of the most interesting periods of time in Roman history- the final years of the republic- and knew lots of fascinating people- not only Caesar, but Antony, Octavian, Cleopatra, Catullus (and Lesbia/Clodia). He didn’t like most of them, but that only makes him a more entertaining guest.

It would be tempting to invite some of Cicero’s acquaintances (perhaps Catullus and Lesbia?) just to watch the fireworks, but in the interest of variety my next guest would be Agrippina, mother of the emperor Nero. Agrippina was one of the last of the fascinating, but troubled, Julio-Claudian family. Her brother was the emperor Caligula, and her uncle (later also her husband) was the emperor Claudius. Caligula didn’t like her much (he sent her into exile) but she had considerable influence over Claudius, and when Nero came to power she was for a time effectively co-emperor. Later Nero grew to resent her, and eventually had her killed. Such a powerful and ambitious woman so closely connected to three different emperors would undoubtedly have a few good stories to tell, though you’d probably need to watch the food closely (she was said to have poisoned Claudius).

I can imagine the conversation at my dinner party getting pretty heavy with those two, and can think of no one better to liven the mood than the poet Ovid. Whereas Cicero’s humour was (I suspect) bitter and vicious, Ovid comes across in his poetry as fun-loving, warm and generous, if sometimes a bit vulgar. At times he is completely over the top and it seems like he has trouble taking anything seriously, though he was by no means a light-weight- in addition to his love poems and manuals he wrote mythological poems (not just the light-hearted Metamorphoses, but the Heroides as well), a kind of historical calendar (the Fasti) and a version of Medea, sadly lost to us. As part of the literary circle of Maecenas he knew many of the other eminent poets of his day (Propertius, Tibullus and Horace for example), and probably Augustus himself. Whether he knew Augustus personally or not he certainly did something to upset him (we don’t know exactly what- it’s one of the things I would ask him if I had the chance), and he was banished from Rome in AD 17 never to return.

That’s my list, who would you invite?

Catullus' man-crush

Yesterday my year 12 class did an exam, in which they had to translate a poem from Catullus to a fellow poet, Licinius. Here's part of the poem and it's translation:

Hesterno, Licini, die otiosi
multum lusimus in meis tabellis,
ut convenerat esse delicatos:
scribens versiculos uterque nostrum
ludebat numero modo hoc modo illoc,
reddens mutua per iocum atque vinum.
atque illinc abii tuo lepore
incensus, Licini, facetiisque,
ut nec me miserum cibus iuvaret
nec somnus tegeret quiete ocellos,
sed toto indomitus furore lecto
versarer, cupiens videre lucem,
ut tecum loquerer, simulque ut essem.
at defessa labore membra postquam
semimortua lectulo iacebant,
hoc, iucunde, tibi poema feci,
ex quo perspiceres meum dolorem.

Yesterday, Licinius, we had a lot of fun
relaxing with my little writing tablets,
since we'd agreed to be frivolous.
Writing light verses, we played together,
now with this meter, now with that,
toasting each other with jokes and wine.
I left your place so inflamed, Licinius,
by your wit and your jokes,
that food didn't help me in my misery,
nor did sleep bury my poor eyes in rest,
but wild with madness I tossed and
turned all over my bed, wanting to see the light
so that I could talk with you, so that I could be with you.
But when my weary limbs, exhausted from their suffering,
lay limp on my little couch,
I wrote you this poem, dear friend,
so that you could fully appreciate my pain.

I think it's clear from this poem that Catullus is suffering a major man-crush. He can't stop thinking about his time with Licinius; he can't eat, he can't sleep, he tosses and turns all night mad with excitement, all he can think of is seeing and talking to Licinius again.

Some of the words and phrases he uses here are usually used by poets to describe passionate love. 'me miserum' (me in my misery) for example is used by Catullus himself in poem 51 when he first spies his girlfriend Lesbia across a crowded room. Poem 64 describes both Peleus and Bacchus as 'incensus amore' (inflamed with love). Catullus also often writes about the pain ('dolorem') and suffering ('labore') of being in love (poem 85 is an obvious example). In fact, reading Catullus often makes me think of this exchange from the movie Love Actually:

Daniel: Aren't you a bit young to be in love?
Sam: No.
Daniel: Oh, OK, right. Well, I'm a little relieved.
Sam: Why?
Daniel: Well, you know - I thought it might be something worse.
Sam: [incredulous] Worse than the total agony of being in love?
Daniel: Oh. No, you're right. Yeah, total agony.

odi et...

Doing some research into Catullus recently, I discovered that the famous opening to poem 85 has been corrupted in the manuscript tradition, and that 'odi et amo' (I hate and I love) is actually an (admittedly, quite persuasive) emendation of the text by a later editor.

Here are my alternative suggestions for reconstructing what Catullus actually wrote:

odi et ammo
I hate and I own a gun

odi et emo
I hate and I wear a lot of black and listen to depressing music

odi et omo
I hate and I do laundry

odi et uno
I hate and I have only one card left

more than my eyes...

Reading a bit of Catullus recently, I was struck by a phrase I’d never noticed before. He speaks of loving someone ‘more than one's eyes’:

passer mortuus est meae puellae,
passer, deliciae meae puellae,
quem plus illa oculis suis amabat.

My girlfriend’s sparrow has died,
The sparrow, my girlfriend’s darling,
Whom she loved more than her eyes.

(Catullus, Carmen 3)

ni te plus oculis meis amarem,
iucundissime Calve, munere isto
odissem te odio Vatiniano

If I didn’t love you more than my eyes
Calvus you joker, then an account of your gift
I’d hate you with Vatinian hatred.

(Catullus, Carmen 14)

credis me potuisse meae maledicere vitae,
ambobus mihi quae carior est oculis?

Do you believe that I could have cursed my life
Who is dearer to me than both my eyes.

(Catullus, Carmen 104)

I had a quick look through Ovid’s Amores, to see if Ovid uses the same kind of idiom. I couldn’t find any examples, but he does often talk about swearing ‘by one’s eyes’:

at mihi te comitem iuraras usque futuram—
per me perque oculos, sidera nostra, tuos!

But you swore to stay with me forever,
By me and by your eyes, my stars.

(Ovid, Amores II 16.43-44)

perque suos illam nuper iurasse recordor
perque meos oculos: en doluere mei!

I remember that she swore recently, by her eyes
And by mine too: and look, now they’re in pain!

(Ovid, Amores III 3.13-14)

Parce, per o lecti socialia iura, per omnis
qui dant fallendos se tibi saepe deos,
perque tuam faciem, magni mihi numinis instar,
perque tuos oculos, qui rapuere meos!

O spare me, by the bed that made our bond, by all the
Gods who have let you take their names in vain,
By your face as great to me as the great gods of heaven,
And by your eyes, which ravished mine.

(Ovid, Amores III 11b.13-16)