CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

• Servius auctus in Verg. Aen. 2.37 [added to a Servian note ending in quomodo ergo has iunxit] cum non
utrumque, sed alterutrum fieri poterat quod suadebantur?
• Servius auctus in Verg. Aen. 3.516 quidam autem ‘arcturum uel pluuias hyadas’ accipiunt, quia non
utraque uno tempore oriuntur
There appears to be a development from the first meaning towards the second one, but this may be due to
chance (in the precise language of scientific, scholarly and legal texts non uterque is perhaps more likely to
mean ‘just one’ than ‘either one or zero’, and more such texts survive from the later Empire). The parallels
from Quintilian and Statius show that the construction could be used in both senses in the Flavian period.
These parallels certainly do not enable us to infer what the expression must mean in the present passage. I
suspect that here and elsewhere it must simply mean ‘not both’, and that one always has to infer from the
context whether this means ‘only one’, ‘at most one’, or ‘neither of the two’.
In this case we are forced to try to infer from the context what non utrumque must mean. Here the apologetic
tone of all of poem 68a and in particular the statement in lines 13f. that Manlius should not seek happy gifts
from a wretched man imply that Catullus has rejected both requests (see the Introduction, pp. 53f.).
petenti The contrast between petenti here and ultro in the following line makes good sense and is also
found at Liv. 5.18.5 Quirites, delatum mihi ultro honorem huic petenti ... mandatis, so there is no need to
adopt Parthenius’ emendation petiti.
copia posta est A puzzling phrase: while it appears easy to make out its overall meaning (something like ‘a
supply has been made available’), it is hard to pin down the exact force of posta. Two alternative
interpretations are possible.
pono often means ‘to set before one (as food)’, ‘to serve’: compare Pl. Aul. 836 qui mi holera cruda ponunt,
Cato Agr. 81 ubi coctum erit, irneam confringito, ita ponito, Verg. Aen. 1.705f. ministri / qui dapibus mensas
onerent et pocula ponant, Hor. Sat. 2.8.91, Liv. 6.40.12 etc. Perhaps one should include under the heading
the phrase in medio positus ‘open, available to all’ (Cic. Div. Caec. 33, Hor. Epist. 1.127f. in medio
positorum abstemius herbis / uiuis and Sat. 1.2.108, Sen. Dial. 11.17.2 uirtus in medio posita est and Epist.
73.2 and 82.12, Quint. Inst. 7.10.15 ars satis praestat si copias eloquentiae ponit in medio and decl. min.
271.5 = p. 110.14 Ritter, Curt. 4.1.31 and Plin. Paneg. 88.4). The OLD includes under this lemma (s.v. pono,
5) the present passage, and also Hor. Epist. 1.18.111 satis est orare Iouem quae (or less likely qui, with other
MSS) ponit et aufert. So here tibi … posta est could mean something like ‘served up to you’, ‘set before
you’.
Another use of the verb has to do with investment. It can mean ‘to lay out (money) at an interest’: thus at
Lucil. 550f. Marx cetera contemnit et in usura omnia ponit / non magna and Hor. A.P. 421 diues positis in
faenore nummis and Epod. 2.70, and also ‘to invest a sum’, as at Cic. Tul. 15 pecuniam nescio quo modo
quaesitam dum uolt in praedio ponere, non posuit, sed abiecit. However, it is also used for ‘investments’ that
take the form of favours of presents (thus at Cic. Fam. 13.54 apud gratos homines beneficium ponis, Ov. Am.
2.3.18 dum bene ponendi munera tempus habes, Liv. 34.49.11, Sen. Ben. 6.11.3) and sometimes even
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