CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

them to the Moirai of Greek mythology, who spin the thread of life, and this passage too shows Greek
influence: Catullus’ Parcae have foreknowledge about a man’s life and death.
longo tempore This weighty expression suits well the grave contents of this passage. It is found on
occasion in prose (1x in Cic. at Div. 1.12, 1x in Colum., 2x in Liv., 8x in Plin. N.H., 1x in Sen. N.Q.),
especially in the precise and ponderous language of the law (1x in Gai. Inst., 21x in Dig.) and also in poetry
from Catullus onwards (Ov. A.A. 1.38, F. 3.682 and 6.670, Tr. 3.1.76, etc.). It stands in the same position
within the verse at Ov. Met. 7.280f. fit uiridis primo nec longo tempore frondes / induunt and Her. 19.39
quid loquar interea tam longo tempore, quaeris? (tam longo tempore thus also at Lucan 7.72 and Mart.
Epigr. 10.36.7), which may be echoing the present passage or a common model. Compare the apparent
echoes of Cat. 66.35 haud in tempore longo at Ov. Her. 20.15 nunc tempore longo, Lucan 5.120 sic tempore
longo and Juv. 9.16 tempore longo, all at the end of the verse.
abesse The principal MSS’ abisse is still printed by Kroll; abesse is a conjecture from the Renaissance,
while Baehrens proposed obisse and Ribbeck (1862: 377f.) suggested uixe. The perfects abisse, obisse and
uixe are not suitable to conditional foreknowledge regarding the future; and we need a word that refers not to
Protesilaus, nor to his marriage, but to its end or breakdown (abrupto … coniugio). Ribbeck interprets quod
scibant Parcae non longo tempore uixe as ‘which [marriage] the Parcae knew him [i.e. Protesilaus] not to
have lived out for long’, but this twists the words, and such a phrase would also have to contain a subject-
accusative (eum or something similar). So the only candidate to remain in the field is abesse, which is close
to the transmitted reading and makes sense, though there seem to be no parallels for the construction non
longo tempore abesse. When used temporally, absum is either construed with an adverb (longe abest) or with
a neuter (multum abestis). The present phrase may have arisen through analogy from expressions containing
an ablative of comparison such as multo maior. Alternatively, one could write quo scibant … non longum
tempus abesse; but I prefer to retain longo tempore.
86 The line is echoed by Prop. 2.13.48 Iliacus Grais miles in aggeribus.
miles Referring predicatively to Protesilaus (‘if he went … as a soldier’), and not a collective singular (‘if
the soldiers went …’): Protesilaus had to die because he went to Troy himself, not because the Greeks did.
Iliacos The calque of the Greek Ιλιακ〉! (Cypria frg. 1.5 PEG = 1.5 EGF, Callim. Aet. frg. 114.25
Pfeiffer) is first found here in Latin. From this period onwards it is common in Latin (Hor. 3x, Prop. 2x,
Verg. Aen. 24x, Ov. 26x, Manil. 2x, Mela 1x, Lucan. 6x in Civ., and he wrote poem entitled Iliaca that no
longer survives: Plin. N.H. 7x), and by no means rare in Greek.
87 Helenae raptu An ablative of external cause (‘due to …’): see on line 25 cuius … interitu.
87f. primores Argiuorum … uiros The phrase recalls expressions from the Iliad such as 2.82 μϒγ
ρι!το! Αξαι∩ν, 3.227 ƒϕοξο! Αργε⇔ϖν and 15.643 ⁄ν πρ⊕τοι!ι Μυκηνα⇔ϖν. But it has been cast
in the conventional language of Latin high poetry, where both Argiuus and primores were well established
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