CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

Lucr. 2.65f. egestas / semota ab dulci uita and 2.997 dulcem ducunt uitam as well as CIL 14, suppl. Ost.
5186 DVLCISSIMA · VITA.
APPENDIX I: ECHOES OF CATULLUS IN AGIUS’ EPICEDIUM HATHUMODAE
When Hathumod, the first abbess of Gandersheim in central Germany, passed away on 29 November 874
A.D., a scholarly monk called Agius wrote her biography and a lament for her in elegiac distichs. Both
compositions still survive. The lament runs to no less than 718 verses and is known as the Epicedium
Hathumodae or the Dialogus Agii on account of its amoebean form (parts of the text are delivered alternately
by the poet and by Hathumod’s fellow nuns). 190 From Agius’ familiarity with the deceased and from his
evident learning Traube inferred that he must have been a member of the only monastic community in the
area that was a centre of learning at the time, that of the nearby Corvey (Nova Corbeia). 191
Agius was a poet of considerable learning. In his edition of the Epicedium Traube detected echoes especially
of the Christian poet Venantius Fortunatus, but also of Horace and Virgil; at one point the poem also echoes
a pseudo-Ovidian love elegy. 192 What about Catullus? Traube detected a similarity between line 77 of the
Epicedium and Catullus 68.42 as well as between line 417 and Catullus 55.7, which he attributed to chance;
but over half a century later Nisbet detected three more similarities, argued that Agius must have had access
to a manuscript of Catullus and used the parallel detected by Traube in support of a conjecture of
Cornelissen’s at 68.42 and tried to reconstruct 68.158 on the basis of another parallel. 193 In a pair of works
that appeared nearly simultaneously in 2007, Butrica and Trappes-Lomax reached radically different
conclusions about this matter: the former maintained strong doubts about Agius’ “alleged imitation of
Catullus 68”, while the latter added two more items to Nisbet’s list of parallels, accepted Cornelissen’s
190
For a brief introduction and a critical text see Traube 1892: 2.369-388.
191
Traube 1892: 2.370. Traube rejects Pertz’s suggestion that Agius was a monk at Lamspringe, and he tries to identify
the poet with one Agicus who is known to have joined the monastic community at Corvey between 826 and 856, and
also with Hathumod’s brother who joined a monastery at the behest of their father Liudolf, Duke of Saxony, as we
know from line 555 filiolum que coenobio iunxit monachorum. However, it remains to be seen how Agius could
be the same person as Agicus (would we be dealing with alternative names, or with textual corruption?) and especially
how he could be Hathumod’s brother mentioned in line 555: it is hard to believe that the author should refer to himself
in completely neutral terms, and that he should fail to mention altogether that the deceased was his sister.
192
[Ov.] Am. 3.5.1 nox erat et somnus lassos submisit ocellos ~ Agius, Epic. 653 nam quotiens somnus lassos obducit
ocellos.
193
Traube 1892: 2.373 and 1896: 3.781 “similitudines fortuitas deprendi has” (cfr. Ullman 1960: 1029f., who is
equally incredulous); Nisbet 1978: 106f. and 114, n. 47.
262