CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

the Elder, N.H. 17.134 cum sit mutua cupiditas utrimque coeundi), while communis means ‘shared’ (cfr. Cic.
Leg. Agr. 1.26 communem rem publicam communi studio atque amore defendite, Lucr. 4.1207 quare etiam
atque etiam dico, est communis uoluptas with 4.1195, and Ov. Am. 2.5.31 haec tibi sunt mecum, mihi sunt
communia tecum), and the two adjectives are distinguished neatly at Lucr. 4.1201f. nonne uides etiam quos
mutua saepe uoluptas / uinxit, ut in uinclis communibus excrucientur? – mutual enjoyment of each other
yields to shared bonds. Nor is communis ever attested with the meaning ‘mutual’, pace Baehrens and
Horváth, who believe that this is the case in the Ovidian parallel quoted above, and Kroll, who compares the
three parallels from Lucretius. It will hardly have meant ‘mutual’ here alone.
As has been hinted at above, the entire phrase communes exercemus amores is problematic. What does
exercemus amores mean? Ellis and Baehrens saw a metaphor from physical exercise here. The similar phrase
at Cat. 61.227f. munere assiduo ualentem / exercete iuuentam may indeed have such associations; there
Baehrens compares Ov. Am. 1.8.53 forma, nisi admittas, nullo exercente senescit, Stat. Silu. 1.2.166 exerce
formam et fugientibus utere donis and Suet. Dom. 22 assiduitatem concubitus uelut exercitationis genus
clinopalen uocabat. However, it does not follow that this is the right way to interpret exercemus amores.
This phrase is puzzling, but hardly “unique” (“eine Singularität”, Streuli 1969: 22): Catullus’ surviving
works provide a parallel at 71.3 aemulus iste tuus, qui uestrum exercet amorem, but unfortunately that
passage is equally obscure: uestrum appears to equal tuum and uestrum exercet amorem seems to mean ‘he
enjoys the love-affair which by rights should be yours’, but one cannot be certain. In particular, there need be
no reference to love-making here, pace Németh (1984: 43), who has misunderstood OLD s.v. exerceo, 2b.
There is an earlier parallel at Plaut. Mil. 656 Venerem, amorem amoenitatemque accubans exerceo ‘reclining
for dinner I am all charm and grace’, but that is obviously very different from this passage. The one parallel
that appears to be both close and straightforward is Tac. Ann. 14.20 gymnasia et otia et turpis amores
exercendo ‘by pursuing … disgraceful love-affairs’. This meaning would suit the present passage. It
develops further two well-attested Latin usages: the use of the plural amores for the concretization of the
singular amor ‘love’, that is, for one or more love-affairs (thus also at Cat. 7.8 furtiuos hominum … amores,
64.372 optatos … amores, 78.3 dulces … amores and probably also 96.6 ueteres … amores) and the use for
exerceo with a broad variety of objects with a very general meaning such as ‘to pursue’, ‘to occupy oneself
with’ or even ‘to run’, ‘to let function’ (c[um] ui agendi, factitandi, exhibendi sim., TLL 5.2.1373.14;
compare e.g. Sall. Cat. 38.4 uictoriam crudeliter exercebant, Verg. Geo. 3.152 horribilis exercuit iras, Plin.
Epist. 1.10.10 promere et exercere iustitiam and Suet. Aug. 4.2 modo unguentariam tabernam modo
pistrinum Ariciae exercuisse). Neither exerceremus nor amores may refer to the physical side of love in
particular – which is not to say that Catullus’ love affair with Lesbia was purely Platonic.
communes exercemus amores means, then, ‘(so that) we should pursue a love-affair together’. The amores
are communes because they involve both Catullus and Lesbia; they are, as it were, their joint property. Even
though the phrase is slightly obscure, there is no need to emend the troubling adjective communes with Birt
(1904: 431) to coeuntes (which he took to mean no more than conuenientes) or to anything else.
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