CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

fueris penetrale receptus / contigerisque tuam, scrinia curua, domum, / aspicies illic positos ex ordine fratres
and Pont. 1.1.23f. Antoni scripta leguntur / doctus et in promptu scrinia Brutus habet (i.e. the boxes
containing his works are ready to hand); also Pliny, Ep. Tra. 10.65.3 recitabatur autem apud me edictum,
quod dicebatur Diui Augusti ...; recitatae et epistulae diui Vespasiani ... et diui Titi ... et Domitiani …; quae
ideo tibi non misi, quia ... in scriniis tuis esse credebam and in later antiquity Hist. Apoll. 6.
A wall-painting from Pompeii. Naples, Museo Archeologico Nazionale inv. no. 4675.
Note the capsa containing seven papyrus rolls in the middle.
sequitur It is surprising to find sequitur where one would expect secuta est. Fordyce proposes two
explanations: ‘goes with me to Verona whenever I go there’ or ‘has gone with me now to Verona’, “the
present being used of a past action whose effect extends into the present”, while Thomson entertains the first
possibility along that of a loose ‘conversational’ use. In fact, sequitur is also used by the Claudian medical
writer Scribonius Largus to describe the books that he has taken along with him on a journey: sumus enim, ut
scis, peregre nec sequitur nos nisi necessarius numerus libellorum (praef. 14 Sconocchia, from the
introductory epistle to his Compositiones). This shows that we are not faced with a grammatical anomaly,
but with a surprising use of sequor. Evidently it is possible to speak of the books that one has taken along on
a trip as if they were part of one’s retinue.
37-40 ‘Therefore do not think that it is out of malice (mente maligna) or a lack of generosity (animo non
satis ingenuo) on my part that you do not receive a supply of both things you asked for: I would volunteer
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