CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

1955 on Verg. Aen. 4.2, and cfr. Cat. 64.310 aeternumque manus carpebant rite laborem), so here carpitur
must mean ‘it passes, bit by bit’.
aetas generally means ‘time’ from a human point of view, and hence ‘life’, ‘age’ and also ‘youth’, a sense in
which it is well attested (see OLD s.v. aetas, 4a and TLL 1.1127.23-1129.4). However, here Catullus is
making a statement of the type ‘I live in Rome’, so I think that one should translate the word as neutrally as
possible, simply as ‘life’ or even as ‘time’.
It is the question whether mea carpitur aetas is a strongly positive and means something like ‘I pick the
flowers of youth’ (thus Levine 1976: 70 and Sarkissian 1983: 12), or it is neutral and simply means ‘I pass
my youth’. The closest parallel is an epitaph from Italy from no later than Trajan, CE 1165.5-6 rapta est
octauo fatis instantibus anno, / carpebat uitae tempora dum tenerae, which does not seem to help. The
possible echo of iucundum cum aetas florida uer ageret in line 16 speaks in favour of the first interpretation,
as do parallels (albeit not too close ones) such as Pindar frg. 123.1f. Snell-Maehler Ξρ°ν μ′ν κατ καιρ∫ν
⁄ρ⊕τϖν δρϒπε!ψαι, ψυμϒ, !⎜ν λικ⇔αι and Ovid Met. 10.83-85 amorem / in teneros transferre mares
citraque iuuentam / aetatis breue uer et primos carpere flores (note the erotic contents of both passages).
This interpretation is proposed by Levine (1976: 70) and Sarkissian (1983: 12). But it is hard to see how illic
mea carpitur aetas could refer to enjoying life to the full while standing alongside illa domus, / illa mihi
sedes, which patently do not mean anything of the sort. Perhaps it is simply a pathetic way of saying ‘I live
there’: such an emotional colouring is already present in domus and especially sedes (see ad loc.) and it is
also present in the epitaph quoted above as the closest parallel.
36 capsula The diminutive of capsa, a word which, like scrinium (Cat. 14.18), can refer to boxes of any
sort, but especially to those containing books: note Porphyry’s comment on Hor. Epist. 2.113 scrinium
capsas dicit, in quibus scripta omnia reponantur. The most detailed accounts of the evidence are still in
Daremberg-Saglio s.v. capsa and by Birt (1907: 248-255). These boxes were made of beechwood (Plin. N.H.
16.229) with luxury versions in metal and ivory (Daremberg-Saglio loc. cit.); in this period they were
normally cylindrical (scrinia curua, Ov. Tr. 1.1.106) and had space for about five to fifteen rolls: see the
illustration on the next page. They could be used for transporting papyrus rolls (Sall. Cat. 46.6 scrinium cum
litteris quas a legatis acceperat; cfr. Sen. Contr. 10.6 praef. and Dial. 4.23.4, and Juv. 10.117) as well as for
storage, in bookshops (Cat. 14.18 and Stat. Silu. 4.9.21) and also at home for one’s everyday papers (Cic.
Div. Caec. 51, Hor. Epist. 2.1.113, Suet. Nero 47.2, Plin. Epist. 7.27.14), for waste-paper (Hor. Epist.
2.1.268) and for one’s own writings (Hor. Sat. 1.1.120, 1.4.22 and 1.10.63f., Pliny N.H. 25.7). They could
even contain writing-tablets (Juv. 6.277f. quae scripta et quot lecture tabellas, / si tibi zelotypae retegantur
scrinia moechae).
The standard view has it that in Roman libraries the book-rolls were stacked on open shelves (thus e.g.
Strocka 1981, Fedeli 1989, Blanck 1992: 152-160 and Casson 2002: 61-89; cfr. Wendel 1943), but Catullus’
statement that he has taken with him to Verona only one capsula out of many implies that he stores his books
in boxes. There is more evidence for this use of capsae in libraries: note Ov. Tr. 1.1.105-107 in nostrum
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