CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

Ib. 18. Full-length metaphors of this type are found in poetry – apart from the present passage also at Verg.
Geo. 3.541-3 iam maris immensi prolem et genus omne natantum / litore in extremo ceu naufraga corpora
fluctus / eluit, Ov. P. 1.2.59f. credo / mollia naufragiis litora posse dari and 2.9.9 excipe naufragium non
duro litore nostrum, and also Lucan 1.498-504 – but also in prose: compare Cic. Att. 2.7.4 nunc uero cum
cogar exire de naui non abiectis sed ereptis gubernaculis, cupio istorum naufragia e terra intueri, Inv. 1.4
hinc nimirum non iniuria, cum ad gubernacula rei publicae temerarii atque audaces homines accesserant,
maxima ac miserrima naufragia fiebant and Rab.Perd. 25 nec tuas umquam ratis ad eos scopulos appulisses
ad quos Sex. Titi adflictam nauem et in quibus C. Deciani naufragium fortunarum uideres (here he addresses
the tribune Labienus). In all registers of Latin writing the image of shipwreck is used frequently to
characterize catastrophe, disaster, ruin.
The image itself may be stereotypical, but Catullus’ use of it is not: he describes Manlius as a shipwrecked
man who has been cast ashore barely alive by a stormy sea and is in urgent need of help. The image reminds
one of the description of Odysseus cast ashore on Scheria at the beginning of Odyssey 5, and the pathetic
touch may even show the influence of Hellenistic epigrams on people who had died in shipwreck.
However, the genealogy of the image should not obscure its meaning and its force. The terms in which it is
put add pathos and dramatic urgency to the poem: Manlius’ misfortune is characterized as an onslaught the
elements, his call for help as a request to come to the aid of a man very nearly dead.
naufragum The principal MSS write naufragium, which does not make sense. The Renaissance conjecture
naufragum makes excellent sense, is often used in shipwreck imagery and is palaeographically plausible:
someone copying a minuscule manuscript could have miscounted the minims in –um and read it as –ium.
Nicolaus Heinsius conjectured naufragi ‘shipwrecking’, to be taken with aequor (cfr. Hor. Od. 1.16.10 mare
naufragum and Tib. 2.4.10 naufragi … unda maris; see further OLD s.v. naufragus, 2); however, this would
be less easy palaeographically, and it would be less suitable than naufragum both in terms of sense (it would
qualify not the afflicted Manlius but somewhat gratuitously the ‘seas’ that have caused his misfortune) and in
terms of register (in this active sense the word is only found in higher poetry, while all the words in this
passage are notably plain).
eiectum The mot propre for someone who has been ‘cast ashore’ by the stormy sea: compare Pl. Rud. 72f.
in saxo ... sedent eiecti: nauis confracta est eis, Ter. Andr. 923 Atticus quidam olim naui fracta ad Andrum
eiectus est, Cic. Rosc. Am. 72 quid tam est commune quam ... mare fluctuantibus, litus eiectis?, Verg. Aen.
1.578 and 4.373, Ov. Her. 7.89 fluctibus eiectum, and see further OLD s.v. eicio 3a and TLL 5.2.303.52-82.
In late antiquity several authorities equate eiectus with naufragus (Serv. ‘auctus’ on Verg. Aen. 1.578, Claud.
Don. on Aen. 4.373, Gloss. 5.533.23), wrongly: there is no guarantee that someone who suffers shipwreck
will also be cast ashore.
The word recurs in metaphors of shipwreck at Cic. Cat. 2.24 contra illam naufragorum eiectam et
debilitatam manum and dom. 137 in naufragio rei publicae, tenebris offusis, demerso populo Romano,
euerso atque eiecto senatu: it may have been a standard ingredient.
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