CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

The parallels guarantee that the transmitted phrase is correct, and the conjectures that have been proposed are
not particularly convincing: Nicolaus Heinsius’ conjecture cinere would fit badly with torruerit, while
Schrader’s uenere would be odd after Amathusia.
torruerit All the MSS that I know of read corruerit, while torruerit was found by Santenius in two codices
and is defended by Turnebus. Here most editors print torruerit; only Kroll writes corruerit, but he proceeds
to comment that torruerit does, after all, seem more likely. torruerit is plausible (Baehrens rightly notes that
c and t are often exchanged for one another; they resemble each other very closely in Gothic minuscule), but
is it necessary?
corruerit would be a transitive use of corruo, unusual but attested, especially in archaic or archaizing
contexts: compare Plautus Rud. 542 ibi me conruere posse aiebas ditias, Varro L.L. 5.139 corbes ab eo quod
eo spicas aliudue quid corruebant (he is reconstructing an earlier usage), Lucr. 5.367f. quae possint ... /
corruere hanc rerum uiolento turbine summam, Apul. Met. 8.8 Charite ... uelut graui tonitru ... percussa
corruit corpus et obnubilauit animam (see Hijmans & al. 1985 ad loc.) and also Iulianus Aeclanensis
(Pseudo-Rufinus) in Osee 6.8f. = 2 29 r in sacrilegio corruendo. Elsewhere Catullus uses the verb once at the
very most, and intransitively, at 66.93, where Lachmann’s proposal corruerint for A’s cur iterent is possible,
but so is Pontanus’ cur retinent. Here the problem with corruerit is that it means the wrong thing: much
though Venus may have tormented Catullus, she did not destroy him or incapacitate him in any way.
torruerit, on the other hand, would refer to scorching, an activity proper to the forces of love in Catullus
(compare 100.7 cum uesana meas torreret flamma medullas) and elsewhere (Hor. Od. 4.1.12 si torrere iecur
quaeris idoneum, to Venus; also ibid. 1.33.6, 3.9.13, 3.19.28; Prop. 3.24.13 correptus saeuo Veneris torrebar
aeno; Ov. Am. 3.2.40; OLD s.v. 2b). Also, it would neatly anticipate the fire imagery in the following distich.
I am confident that it is correct.
53f. ‘When I was burning as much as Mount Etna and the hot springs of Thermopylae’: Catullus compares
his ardent passion to two well-known natural phaenomena. The exaggeration inherent in the comparison is
characteristic of Catullus at his most passionate.
The similes are cast in suitably recherché language: one should note the circumlocution Trinacria rupes and
the accumulation of Greek and Grecizing words in line 54.
53 arderem ardeo is first used for amorous passion by Catullus (see further TLL 2.485.20-67), and he is
rather fond of this root: note 2.8 credo, ut tum grauis acquiescat ardor, 45.15f. multo mihi maior acriorque /
ignis mollibus ardet in medullis and 62.23 iuueni ardenti castam donare puellam.
Trinacria rupes ‘The Trinacrian cliff’ is a learned circumlocution for Mount Etna on Sicily, one of the
best-known volcanoes of the Mediterranean. Trinacrius is a calque of the Greek adjective Τριν κριο!,
which comes from Τρινακρ⇔α, which is mentioned already by Thucydides 6.2.2 as an ancient name for the
triangular island Sicily (it appears to have arisen through popular etymology from Ψρινακ⇔η, the name of
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