CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

1549 – see Nomenclator 96), whose annotated copy of the editio princeps (now Vatican Incunab. III.18: see
Gaisser 1993: 27) I have not been able to consult. I have found the conjecture in the MSS 85 and 90.
All the modern editions that I have seen, starting with Doering, print paulo, but paulum is defended by
Streuli (1969: 39-42) and Trappes-Lomax (2007: 241), who points out that as “nihil and paulo are doing the
same job in the same sentence, they should be in the same case”, and this is exactly what we find in a
number of similar passages: thus Cic. N.D. 2.118 nihil ut fere intereat aut admodum paululum, Horace Epist.
1.15.33f. nequitiae fautoribus et timidis nil / aut paulum abstulerat and Apul. Flor. 15 Plato nihil ab hac
secta uel paululum deuius; see further Streuli loc. cit. and TLL 2.1568.82f. The phrase nihil aut paulum
appears to have been reasonably common, perhaps proper to lively conversation (in the parallels note the
colloquial forms paululum and nil).
For nihil concedo alicui ‘to yield in nothing to’, ‘to be inferior in no respect to’ compare Cic. Leg. 2.7 huic
amoenitati … Thyamis Epirotes tuus ille nihil (opinor) concesserit, Att. 14.18.3 neque ei quicquam in
desperatione concedo and Phil. 9.9 non multum eius perturbationi meus dolor concedebat, Prop. 4.2.9 at
postquem ille suis tantum (the word is suspect) concessit alumnis and Ov. F. 2.675 nec tu uicino quicquam
concede roganti.
132 lux mea A common term of endearment, also found in line 160 below: compare Ovid A.A. 523f.
mulier … dixit / ‘lux mea’ quaeque solent uerba iuuare uiros (of Tecmessa addressing Ajax), Cic. Fam.
14.2.2 hem, mea lux, meum desiderium … , mea Terentia (cfr. 14.5.1 si tu et Tullia, lux nostra, ualetis), Prop.
2.14.29 and 2.28.59, Sulpicia ap. Tib. 4.3.15, Mart. 7.14.7, etc.: see further OLD s.v. lux, 5b and TLL
7.2.1914.80-1915.19.
nostrum … in gremium “In what remains of Latin writing the noun gremium commonly denotes the area
of the human body which extends from the waist to the bent knees of a seated or half-reclining individual,
i.e. in plain English, the ‘lap’. Less commonly it denotes the enclosure formed by the chest and the arms, i.e.
the ‘bosom’ ” (Jocelyn 1984: 18). Here it plainly means ‘lap’, which is the proper place to seat one’s
girlfriend: compare 45.1f. Acmen Septimius suos amores / tenens in gremio (thus also at 3.8, while 67.30 is
hard to make sense of: see Jocelyn 1984: 29).
133f. When Lesbia came to meet Catullus, Cupid himself was flittering around her. “Cupid hovers round
these lovers as he does round Acme and Septimius in poem 45” (Fordyce). As has been already noted by
Baehrens, in Roman visual art it is not unusual to add one or more Cupids to scenes of a romantic sort (for
images see LIMC s.v. ‘Eros/Amor, Cupido’). Love himself is in the air: Cupid’s presence gives Lesbia’s
attractivity a supernatural dimension and sanctions Catullus’ love for her.
133 circumcursans hinc illinc An idiomatic expression, witness Ter. Heaut. 512 hac illac circumcursa,
and compare Cic. Att. 9.9.2 ne … cursem huc illuc uia deterrima and N.D. 2.115 tantus caeli ornatus ex
corporibus huc et illuc casu et temere cursantibus, Sen. Apocol. 9.6 modo huc modo illuc cursabat, Tac.
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