Love and War in Catullus' Poem 11

Susan O. Shapiro (Utah State University)

Although poem 11 is among the most frequently discussed¹, the puzzles it presents have never been satisfactorily resolved: how should we connect Catullus' harsh rejection of Lesbia in lines 17-24 with the "travelogue" of the first part of the poem, and why does Catullus address Furius and Aurelius as his companions here (comites Catulli, line 1), but elsewhere refers to them in more or less hostile terms? ² What sort of friends could they be if Catullus gives them the unsavory task of dismissing his former girlfriend? I argue that the two, seemingly disparate parts of the poem are connected by references to war and conquest, and that such references also help to explain the uncomfortable relationship between Catullus and his frenemies, Furius and Aurelius.

While the word comites can mean companions, it can also have a more technical meaning, referring specifically to the staff members of a Roman provincial governor. Catullus uses the word in this sense in 28.1 and 46.9, and I suggest that he is using the term in the same way here. If Furius and Aurelius had invited Catullus to join them as staff members on an upcoming military expedition, it would not only clarify Catullus' relationship to them (familiar but uncomfortable relationships among members of a governor's cohors could hardly have been uncommon), but more importantly, it would establish a military context for the poem. This, in turn, would highlight the strategic importance of their possible destinations: Parthia and the East, lines 2-6; Egypt, lines 7-8; and Gaul and Britain, lines 9-12. This poem is usually dated to 55 BC, because of the references to Caesar's crossing of the Rhine and his foray into Britain (lines 9-12), but there were two other major military expeditions during that year which correspond to the two other destinations: Gabinius' restoration of Ptolemy Auletes to the throne of Egypt, and Crassus' ill-fated expedition to Parthia and the East.

Catullus' descriptions of these peoples and places stress their wild, remote and exotic qualities. Although many Romans applauded the extension of their empire to wild and far-off places, both Plutarch (Caesar 23.2) and Velleius Paterculus (2.46.1) report popular criticism against Caesar for extending the empire beyond "the limits of the inhabited world." If Catullus is presenting a similarly negative view of Roman imperium in poem 11, this would help make sense of the second half of the poem. Catullus claims that Lesbia copulates with hundreds of men, and that she turns what should be an act of love into an act of mass rape, conquest and violent destruction (lines 19-20). I argue that Catullus uses this violent and disturbing imagery to juxtapose the idea of Roman military conquest with that of Lesbia's lines of the poem. Even though Catullus comes from a prominent provincial family (what Wiseman calls the domi nobiles), who may be given a small role in the Roman military machine, he feels more in common with the native peoples who have been exploited than with the aristocrats who reap the benefit of this conquest or with the Romans of his own class (like Furius and Aurelius) who are eager to help them carry it out.

¹ Of the many discussions of poem 11, I have found the following most helpful: Richardson, "Furi et Aureli, Comites Catulli," CP 58 (1963) 93-106; Kinsey, "Catullus 11," Latomus 24 (1965) 537-44; Putnam, "Catullus 11: The Ironies of Integrity," Ramus 3 (1974) 70-86; Bright, "Non bona dicta: Catullus' Poetry of Separation," QUCC 21 (1976) 105-119; Yardley, "Catullus 11: The End of a Friendship," SO (1981) 63-69; Sweet, "Catullus 11: a Study in Perspective," Latomus 46 (1987) 510-26; Forsyth, "The Thematic Unity of Catullus 11," CW 84 (1991) 457-64; Skinner, "The Dynamics of Catullan Obscenity: cc. 37, 58, and 11," Syll. Class. 3 (1991) 1-11; Konstan, "Self, Sex, and Empire," Intertextualidad en las Literaturas Griega y Latina (Madrid 2000).

² Cf. poems 15, 16, 23, 23, 24 and 26.