CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

exist in Latin, to –au–, which did; that inscriptions provide examples of Lau– as well as of Lao–; that forms
such as Laudomia (in the principal MSS of Catullus) and Laodomia (at CIL 5.1348 and a variant in the MSS
at Ov. Am. 2.356, Her. 13.2 and elsewhere) probably arose under the influence of an initial Lao- (unless they
are due to the influence of domare); and that “forms with Lau-, such as Laudiceni, probably represent a
diphthongized pronunciation, usual no doubt in ordinary speech, but ill-suited to metrical Muses” (Goold
1958: 113). In fact, all inscriptions appear to write the name of the heroine as LAODOMIA (CIL 5.1348),
LAODAMIA (6.26881) and LAODAMIA (10.5920); there seems to be no epigraphic evidence for LAVDAMIA or
LAVDOMIA. Goold and Oliver are certainly right to conclude that we should write Laodamia. This has been
printed by Goold in his editions as well as by Thomson.
Here too Trappes-Lomax (2007: 237) takes to the letter the principle that “Catullus and Ovid … transcribe
Greek names with minute exactitude” (Oliver 1959: 53) and proposes to write Laodameia; but there seem to
be found no forms of the name in –eia in the MSS and in the epigraphic evidence. In fact, Laodamia is a
correct phonetic transcription of the Greek word, since by this time ει was already pronounced as < ī >
(Cicero pointed out at Fam. 9.22.3 that Latin bini could be mistaken for the Greek βινε⇑).
75f. In what sense had Protesilaus’ house been begun in vain, and what sort of a sacrifice had not been
made first? Commentators assume very reasonably that the house had been begun for the married couple but
not yet been completed when Protesilaus left for Troy, and that things ended badly because no sacrifice had
been made to win the support of the gods for the new building. inceptam frustra could be seen as “a
paraphrase of the Homeric δ〉μο! ″μιτελ→!” (Ellis), the phrase with which the house of the dead Protesilaus
is described at Iliad 2.701. The omission of the sacrifice is more problematic: it is not found in any surviving
version of the myth, and Catullus could have drawn it either from a lost text such as Euripides’ Protesilaus
or Laevius’ Protesilaodamia, or he could have made it up himself to explain why the house was left
unfinished and the marriage failed (on this and the versions of the myth that are attested see the Appendix
II).
Thomas (1978) notes that this interpretation would lead to a contradiction between Catullus’ views (in lines
77f. he would appear to pray not to have to marry without due ceremony) and his practice (he is happy to
have an extramarital affair: lines 143-148). He proceeds to propose a radically different interpretation: he
identifies the hostia with Iphigenia and takes the cum-clause merely to be temporal, as an indication that the
house had been begun before the start of the Trojan War. But Catullus simply utters a general prayer that he
may not act rashly against the will of the gods; and it is not clear how even the most erudite Roman reader
would have been able to identify the wholly anonymous hostia with Iphigenia.
75 inceptam The principal MSS’ incepta is easily corrected to –am, as it cannot agree with anything other
than domum in the text, and a final m often goes missing; the correction was already made by 1470, when
MS 90 was copied. Fröhlich (1849: 262) proposed incepto, which would have to be taken with amore in line
73; he compares Ciris 328f. non ego te incepto, fieri quod non pote, conor / flectere amore. That is
195