CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

and in a particularly bathetic epigram at 78.5. Here the bathetic word underscores how unsuitable it would be
for Catullus to object to Lesbia’s peccadilloes.
The conjecture tutorum ‘of guardians’ was published in the same year by Baehrens in the critical apparatus
of his edition and by Pleitner (1876: 9); more recently it has been advocated by Trappes-Lomax (2007: 242).
Baehrens in comm. and Trappes-Lomax find stultorum too general; Baehrens notes that “ratione caret,
stultos, quorum plurima sunt genera, simpliciter poni pro zelotypis”. But stultorum has the precise point that
it would not be an intelligent course of action for Catullus to reprimand Lesbia for her behaviour – and
thereby to trouble her and risk alienating her. He should rather act broad-mindedly and put up with her
peccadilloes. Compare the similar run of thought at Ter. Hec. 343f. nam qui amat quoi odio ipsus est, bis
facere stulte duco: / laborem inanem ipsus capit et illi molestiam affert.
Also, it is doubtful whether Baehrens’ tutorum would be suitable here. Trappes-Lomax explains that “tutores
were proverbially officious”, and compares Pl. Aul. 430 and Vid. 23 and Pers. 3.96. However, in all these
passages the person who would be kept in check by the hypothetical tutor is male; no source mentions an
over-protective tutor meddling with a female ward. Trappes-Lomax also quotes Cic. Mur. 27 mulieres omnes
propter infirmitatem consili maiores in tutorum potestate esse uoluerunt, but here Cicero is being imprecise
in an attempt to make fun of arcane legal stipulations to maximum effect. In fact, tutores were assigned to
two categories of people: to children of both sexes who were not in the patria potestas of a paterfamilias
(their father, paternal grandfather or paternal great-grandfather) and to adult women who “became
independent on the death of [their] father or husband” (Gardner 1986: 14). Lesbia, whose husband was very
much alive (cfr. line 146n.), did not fall into this category.
molesti ‘Troublesome’, an unpoetical word: it is common in comedy (Pl. 65x, Ter. 14x, Afran. 2x) but is
used very sparingly by other poets (Lucil. 1x, Lucr. 1x, Prop. 2x, Hor. Sat. 4x and Epist. 2x, Ov. Am. 2x and
A.A. 2x, Sulpicia 1x, Lucan 1x, not in Verg. or Tib.). Apart from here, Catullus uses it only in the polymetric
poems, at 10.33, 42.8, 51.13 and 55.1. Just like stultorum, this bathetic word aptly illustrates the harm that
could arise if Catullus were to criticize Lesbia.
138-140 Catullus sets as an example for himself Juno’s acquiescence in the face of her husband’s
infidelities. In fact her vindictiveness towards most of his lovers, including Semele, Danae, Alcmena and Io,
was a key motif of many myths. As so often, Catullus alters a canonical myth to let it suit his story.
138 maxima caelicolum A honorific reference to the goddess in the high poetic style: note the compound
adjective and the archaic genitive plural in –um. It is the result of the conflation of two lines from Ennius’
Annals, 444 and 445 Skutsch: o genitor noster Saturnie, maxime diuom and optima caelicolum, Saturnia,
magna dearum. The epithet caelicola seems to be an Ennian coinage (see also Ann. frg. dub. 6 Skutsch) and
is proper to high poetry, most of all to epic: it is found also in Lucilius (1x), the Aeneid (8x), the
Metamorphoses (2x), Lucan (4x), Petronius (at 126.18.4 in an epigram), Seneca’s tragedies (2x), Statius
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