CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

further OLD s.v., 5a and TLL 2.1291.48-71. The verb had an archaic equivalent clueo, which is construed
with an infinitive at Plautus Ba. 925 Atridae duo fratres cluent fecisse facinus maxumum and Lucr. 4.51f.
eius imago, / cuiuscumque cluet de corpore fusa uagari. In Greek κο⎛ϖ (LSJ s.v., III.1-3 and DGE II.3)
and κλ⎛ϖ (LSJ s.v., III) are similar but are generally construed with a nominative; note the infinitive at Hdt.
3.131.3 Αργε⇑οι ≥κουον μου!ικ↓ν εναι Ελλ→νϖν πρ∩τοι.
falsiparens ‘With a fake father’, because Hercules had famously been fathered not by Amphitryo, the
father of his mother Alcmena, but by Jupiter. The epithet is an absolute hapax legomenon and was probably
coined by Catullus himself. Other compounds starting with falsi- had been used by earlier poets (falsidicus
2x in Pl. and it is a uaria lectio at Acc. frg. 9.1 FPL 3 ; falsificus 1x Pl. and u.l. ibid. in Acc.; falsiiurius 1x in
Pl.; falsiloquus 2x in Pl.) and recur in late antique authors, often as the calques of Greek expressions: see
TLL 6.1.200.79-201.47. Here Catullus could have been inspired by χευδοπ τϖρ at Callim. Hy. Dem. 98,
though that epithet means ‘a deceitful father’ rather than ‘son of a fake father’.
Amphitryoniades This is the first occurrence in Latin of the Greek patronymic Αμφιτρυϖνι δη!, which
is found before Catullus in Hesiod and the Hesiodea (Theog. 1x, Scut. 4x, frgg. ca. 3x), Pindar (3x),
Bacchylides (3x), Theocritus (4x), Simmias of Rhodes (1x), Nicander of Colophon (1x) and two epigrams of
dubious date and authorship (see below). After Catullus the Latin epithet is used by Propertius (4.9.1) and by
Virgil in the Aeneid (8.103 and 8.214), by Ovid in the Metamorphoses (2x), by Lucan (1x), Petronius (1x in
a poetic passage at 123.206), Statius (8x), Valerius Flaccus (3x) and Silius Italicus (6x).
This is the only surviving passage in ancient literature in which this epithet fills the second half of a
pentameter; it fills the first half in an epigram present in a collection attributed to one Socrates (A.P. 14.55.6,
no later than the early 3 rd century A.D.?) and in an epigram probably by one Samius (A.P. 6.114.2, from
roughly around 200 B.C.?) Catullus’ source could be either of these epigrams or (more likely perhaps)
Theocritus.
113 tempore quo Bare tempore quo is not uncommon in hexameter poetry of the early Empire (Prop.
4.2.51 and 4.10.7, Hor. Sat. 2.3.34* and 2.5.62, Ov. Her. 4.67, Ciris 232, Juv. 3.53* and Sil. 3.101, always at
the start of the verse, as here, except for the two asterisked occurrences) but in prose it is not attested until
the later 1 st century A.D. (Fron. Aqu. 122.3), and it only becomes common in the 4 th (Vulg. Gen. 21.2, Job
6.17 and Ecl. 7.1 as well as Serv. in Verg. Aen. 1.448, 2.445, 6.359 and 6.431). It probably started its
existence as a variation on phrases from prose such as eo tempore quo (Cic. orat. 1x, Liv. 5x), ex eo tempore
quo (Cic. epist. 2x, Caes. 1x, Liv. 1x), ab eo tempore quo (Cic. orat. 1x), eo ipso tempore quo (Cic. orat. 1x
and epist. 1x), eodem (fere) tempore quo (Cic. rhet., Varro R.R., Liv., Plin. 1x each) and illo tempore quo
(Ascon. 1x). The innovation may be Catullus’.
certa … sagitta ‘With his unerring arrows’ (a collective singular), as at Hor. Od.. 1.12.23f. metuende certa,
/ Phoebe, sagitta, Ov. Met. 1.519f. (Apollo to Daphne) certa quidem nostra est, nostra tamen una sagitta /
certior and Sil. 2.111f. For certus ‘unerring’ see OLD s.v., 13 and TLL 3.924.17-55.
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