Remus’ Spoiled Brats: Wordplay in Catullus 58.5

Kevin Muse (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee)

Most of the literature on Catullus 58 has focused on the meaning of glubit. Little attention has been paid to the object of the verb (58.5) magnanimos Remi nepotes (or the alternative reading magnanimi Remi nepotes). There are reasons to suspect double entendre here. Nepotes was an established epithet of the Roman people as descendants of their founder (e.g. Hor. Carm. 1.2.35). The reference to Remus evokes Rome’s rustic and austere origins. However, by making nepotes the object of the obscene glubit, Catullus is making a jarringly sarcastic observation about the morals of his time. The effect is amplified by another connotation of nepos, “spendthrift” or “playboy”. The once frugal descendants of Remus have degenerated into the dandified spendthrift sons of the aristocracy. The addressee of the poem, very likely the Marcus Caelius defended by Cicero in 54 B.C., was himself accused of luxuria as part of the prosecution’s campaign to blacken his character. In Caelius’ defense Cicero portrayed Clodia Metelli, the Lesbia of Catullus’ poetry according to Apuleius, at the center of a circle of debauched young spendthrifts: quae etiam aleret adulescentis et parsimoniam patrum suis sumptibus sustineret (Pro Cael. 38). This is likely the same crowd to whom Catullus refers in 58.5.  

In his second Satire Juvenal uses a similar reference to the descendants of Romulus in a lament on the decline in morals. The context here likewise suggests that nepotes could also refer to “spendthrifts.” In lines 116-42 of the satire Juvenal rails against an aristocrat, a Sempronius Gracchus, a member of the order of the Salii, for marrying a man of low status (a cornicen “bugler”). He gives his male bride four hundred thousand sesterces (enough to elevate him to the equestrian census). A few lines later Juvenal exclaims (2.126-8) O pater urbis,/ unde nefas tantum Latiis pastoribus? unde/ haec tetigit, Gradive, tuos urtica nepotes? Again, the contrast of the noble epithet and sexual lust is jarring, inviting the reader to interpret the nepotes not as the tough, rustic Romans of the past, but as contemporary spendthrifts wallowing in luxury and immorality.

It makes sense that Catullus, an insecure outsider, would burn with resentment against the spoiled sons of Rome’s aristocracy. The nepos is a target of bitter invective in another poem written in the voice of a jilted lover. Propertius (4.8.24 ff.) imagines Cynthia frolicking with a spendthrift boyfriend (nepos). The angry lover finds some solace in the idea that the young man will one day be forced to sell himself to a gladiatorial school. Also suggestive is Catullus’ use of magnanimus. Persius (6.22) uses the adjective of a young man who has run through his patrimony, hic bona dente grandia magnanimus peragit puer, and the word is also prominent (split into noun and adjective, animo…magno) in an epigram of Martial that pokes fun at an egotistical spender (3.62.7).

Lesbia, like a prostitute, stands in the alleyways offering sex to spoiled young men (nepotes) who are either foolishly “generous” with their money (if we read magnanimos Remi nepotes) or are the spoiled scions of a haughty and morally bankrupt aristocracy (magnanimi Remi nepotes).