CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

108 The line is echoed by Virgil’s description of Charybdis at Aen. 3.421f. imo barathri ter gurgite uastos /
sorbet in abruptum fluctus.
abruptum … barathrum The Greek loan-word barathrum ‘chasm, abyss’ (not ‘gorge’) had already been
used by Plautus (Bac. 149, Curc. 121 and Rud. 570) and is also found in Lucretius (6.606). Later it is found
regularly, though not frequently, in poetry (Hor. 1x Sat. and 1x Epist., Verg. Aen. 2x, Colum. 1x in a verse
passage, Stat. 4x, Val. Fl. 2x, Mart. 2x, Sil. 1x), and it occurs only very rarely in prose (only at Vitr. 10.16.11
and 3x in Apul.). Here Catullus may be using it simply because it is the term with which Greek authors
referred to the cave dug by Hercules near Pheneus (see on lines 109-116); in any case as a Greek loan-word
it is well suited to the Greek myth, while its native Latin equivalents would have been less suitable: uorago
would have clashed with absorbens and uertice, while Hercules could not have dug a hiatus.
109-116 In an extended simile Catullus compares the depth of Laodamia’s love to that of the barathrum
dug by Hercules when he hunted down the Stymphalian birds (lines 113f.).
As one of his twelve labours, Hercules had to rid the town of Stymphalus in Arcadia of the pernicious birds
that were infesting it. Stymphalus lies in a depression between the Arcadian mountains, as does Pheneus,
lying just 15 km to the northwest. The waters that gather in the depression surrounding Pheneus are led off
through at least two caves that function as natural underground channels (see Frazer 1898: 4.231-234 on
Paus. 8.14.2 and especially Baker-Penoyre 1902). These unusual natural features seem to have had a
prominent role in local myth: according to one story, the people of Pheneus would have noticed Pluto
carrying off Core through such a channel (Conon FGH 1.15 Jacoby – note •ν δϒ τι ξ !μα ⁄ν Κυλλ→νηι),
while Pausanias 8.14.2 tells another story about the shafts: τ δ′ β ραψρα ο⇓ Φενε ται τα⎝τ φα!ιν
εναι ξειροπο⇔ητα, ποι°!αι δ′ α⎡τ Ηρακλϒα τηνικα⎝τα ⁄ν Φενε∩ι παρ Λαον〉μηι τ°ι
Αμφιτρ⎛ϖνο! μητρ⇐ ο⇒κο⎝ντα. One should note the word β ραψρα in Pausanias’ account; according
to Eratosthenes (frg. III B 105 Berger ap. Strabo 8.8.2 = p. 389 Corais) the locals called them ζϒρεψρα.
Pausanias was writing two centuries after Catullus and his version of the myth must reflect what he heard in
Pheneus: note the words ο⇓ Φενε ται τα⎝τ φα!ιν εναι … Catullus, on the other hand, does not appear
to have travelled through rural Arcadia and must have been using a literary source. He dates the construction
of the shafts to a different stage within the hero’s career than do Pausanias’ Pheneates – not to Hercules’ stay
with a local woman of Pheneus, which was evidently a local legend, but to his well-known expedition
against the birds infesting the nearby Stymphalus. Ellis suggests that Catullus could be following Callim.
Del. 71 φε⎝γεν δ ⌡ γϒρϖν μετ〉πι!ψε Φενει〉!, but Callimachus does not say anything about the βϒρεψρα
in this passage. In this case we cannot track the source of Catullus’ erudition; his reputation as a poeta doctus
is well-deserved.
In this passage Catullus uses elevated language; apart from the poetic vocabulary and the Grecisms one
should note the strong alliteration: siccari pingue palude solum, quod quondam, montis … medullis, tempore
… imperio, and so on. Hercules’ achievement calls for the high style.
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