CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

me’ is a much more suitable expression for what Allius did to Catullus than fouerit ‘he cherished me’. It is a
striking coincidence that fouerit is also used by Agius in an apparent echo of this line. However, the
coincidence may simply be due to the fact that Agius and Cornelissen both decided that iuuerit needed
changing (Agius because the abbess Hathumod had not helped him in any way, Cornelissen because he
decided that the word had to be corrupt) and they came across the same substitute.
43f. There may be an echo of these lines at Sen. Her. F. 291-293 quidquid auida tot per annorum gradus /
abscondit aetas redde et oblitos sui / lucisque pauidos ante te populos age (Seneca makes a different use of
the association of memory with light).
43 ne This is a conjecture of Calphurnius’; the transmitted reading is nec, after which tegat in the
following line would have to be taken as a potential subjunctive. It is defended by Ellis ad loc., who
translates ‘nor can time conceal …’, but this would disrupt the run of thought, unlike the energetic final
subjunctive after ne. These lines constitute not a cautious assertion but a forceful and highly personal
statement by Catullus about how he is going to re-pay Allius the favour of having helped him in his love-
affair. Having defended nec in 1876 in his commentary and having printed it in his 1878 edition, Ellis
himself was converted to ne and wrote it in his 1904 Oxford Classical Text.
The corruption may well have triggered by nec at the start of line 49. Baehrens (1885 ad loc. and p. 51)
argues in favour of the spelling nei, but this does not appear to be attested after CIL 1.582.19, the Tabula
Bantina, which bears the text of a law written some time between 133 and 118 B.C.
fugiens … aetas It is here that fugio is first applied to time in surviving Latin literature, an usage that is
common in later poetry: compare Hor. Od. 1.11.7f. fugerit inuida / aetas and Sen. Phaedr. 446 aetate fruere:
mobili cursu fugit; less closely Verg. Geo. 3.284 fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus and see further OLD
s.v. fugio 8a and TLL 6.1.1484.11-27.
aetas stands for time itself, as also at Enn. Ann. 406 Skutsch postremo longinqua dies (gen.) confecerit aetas
and Cic. Marc. 11 ut tropaeis et monumentis tuis adlatura finem sit aetas; see further OLD s.v., 7a and TLL
1.1137.73-1138.21. aetas is often contrasted with shorter units of time: thus Cic. N.D. 2.64 consumit aetas
temporum spatia annisque praeteritis insaturabiliter expletur, Sen. Her. F. 291f. (quoted above on 43f.) and
Lucr. 1.467f. ea saecla hominum … irreuocabilis abstulerit iam praeterita aetas (note the contrast with
saecla).
saeclis obliuiscentibus Probably an ablative absolute. Note Varro’s definition of the noun at L.L. 6.11
saeclum spatium annorum centum uocarunt, dictum a sene, quod longissimum spatium senescendorum
hominum id putarunt (his etymology is wrong: see Ernout-Meillet s.v.). saec(u)lum can refer to a generation,
understood either as a group of people or as a period of a time, or to a race of men, or to a long period of
time, in particular to a century (OLD s.v.). Elsewhere, except at 64.22 o nimis optato saeclorum tempore
nati, Catullus always uses the word in connection with the relation of time to memory and literature, as here:
thus 1.8-10 quicquid hoc libelli, / qualecumque, quod … plus uno maneat perenne saeclo, 14.23 saecli
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