CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

Newman (1990: 236) suggests that communes is echoed at Prop. 1.11.15f. ut solet amota labi custode puella
/ perfida communis nec meminisse deos, but there communis is used in a slightly different sense and there are
no further points of contact between the two passages; however, Propertius’ poem does contain clear echoes
of Cat. 68.22ff. and 68.31 (see ad loc.).
70f. The first half of the description of Lesbia’s triumphant entry was imitated by Virgil at Aen. 8.608f. at
Venus aetherios inter dea candida nimbos / dona ferens aderat and apparently also at Ov. Am. 1.5.9f. ecce,
Corinna uenit tunica uelata recincta / candida diuidua colla tegente coma, where Corinna is subsequently
compared not to a goddess but to two legendary women of the past, Semiramis and the courtesan Lais (on
this echo see Hinds 1987: 8f. and Holzberg 2002: 167f.).
A contrast is implied between Lesbia’s soft feet and the hardness of the well-worn threshold.
70 Lesbia’s soft feet and white complexion indicate that she leads a sheltered indoor life and make her by
Roman standards all the more attractive. mollitia and candor were felt to be related, witness Pl. Vid. 35
mollitia urbana atque umbra corpus candidumst (addressed to a pampered young man).
mea … candida diua Lesbia is candida, she has a radiant white complexion, a sign of beauty that she
shares with a number of other Catullan belles (13.4 non sine candida puella, 35.8f. quamuis candida milies
puella / euntem reuocet and 86.1f. Quintia formosa est multis. mihi candida, longa, / recta est: haec ego sic
singula confiteor) and that was appreciated as early as Pl. Pseud. 1262 manu candida … amicissimam
amicam. She is not only candida, she is Catullus’ candida diua, his very own ‘shining goddess’ (on diui see
line 153n.). She shares the epithet with a range of goddesses in Latin literature (Maia: Verg. Aen. 8.138;
Venus: ibid. 8.608 dea candida; Concordia: Ov. Fast. 1.637; see further TLL 3.241.36-46) and with the
effeminate Bacchus and the youthful Cupid (see on line 134 below). Manlier deities such as Vulcan, Mars
and Neptune never receive this adjective, which suggests that when applied to a deity, it still refers to his or
her fair complexion, and not to a numinous glow (pace TLL 3.241.36f., Lieberg 1963: 188 and Clarke 2003:
57f.). All the same, there might also be an undertone of divine radiance to the words of shining in this
passage (cfr. 71n. fulgentem).
Lesbia is also mea … diua, ‘my … goddess’. The tradition of comparing a beautiful mortal and especially
one’s beloved to a god goes back as far as Odysseus’ ingratiating first words to Nausicaa (Od. 6.149-169)
and the topos is ably exploited by the Hellenistic epigrammatists, above all by Meleager, who writes that one
day chatty Heliodora will outstrip the Graces with her charming speech (A.P. 5.148, cfr. 5.149) and who ends
up praying to his beloved Theocles as if he were a god, not because of his beauty, but because his power over
him (A.P. 12.158.7f.); likewise, Polystratus as well as Alcaeus of Messene call their beloved the second son
of Aphrodite (A.P. 12.91.6 and 12.64); Antipater calls Lais ‘more delicate than Aphrodite’ and ‘the mortal
Cythereia’ (A.P. 7.218); and in an epigram that may be by Artemon Echedemus is called the new Apollo,
who has received Attica as his lot (A.P. 12.55.3). But there are no signs that Catullus is picking up a Greek
model here, and in fact it had been commonplace in Roman literature at least since Plautus to refer to one’s
188