CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

We have six passages where the text of Agius appears to echo that of Catullus; in all but one (6) the echo
involves several words, and in three (1, 3 and 4) the resemblance also involves the broader context in which
these words are used. In one case (1) there are other sources which he could have used. Most of the echoes
involve Catullus’ poems in elegiac distichs (poems 68A and B, 77 and 96), which is the metre of the
Epicedium, but Agius also echoes at least one poem in phalaecian hendecasyllables (3 and possibly also 55).
He must have been familiar with many of the poems of Catullus that survive today, perhaps with all of them.
Evidently in Corvey (or somewhere else in central Germany) there existed a MS of Catullus in the mid-9 th
century.
While it appears practically certain that Agius repeatedly echoes Catullus, it is the question whether Nisbet
and Trappes-Lomax are right to base their reconstruction of Catullus 68.42 and 68.158 on the echoes of these
passages in the Epicedium. Such an approach is problematic because an echo is not a quotation: the presence
of a word that has been lifted to the letter from the source text does not guarantee that the next word will
have been lifted from there as well. In fact, Agius tends to re-phrase the passages that he echoes rather than
quoting them literally; his longest certain verbatim quotation from Catullus, quo desiderio at line 77 which
picks up Catullus 96.3, consists of just two words. His longest continuous quotation from any author is
iterumque iterumque monebo in line 397, taken from Verg. Aen. 3.436, which only runs to three words.
Nisbet and Trappes-Lomax assume that fouerit officiis in line 74 is likewise a verbatim quotation from
Catullus 68.42, where Catullus’ archetype read iuuerit officiis but Cornelissen had already conjectured
fouerit unawares of the parallel in Agius. This is suggestive, but fouerit is not an attractive reading at
Catullus 68.42 and we may just be dealing with a coincidence (see the commentary ad loc.). At line 58 of the
Epicedium, on the other hand, it complicates matters that Agius is echoing not only Catullus 68.158 but also
77.4, collapsing two Catullan passages into one, as it were; and since Catullus 68.158 is clearly corrupt as it
stands in the MSS, there is no straightforward way of telling how much of the line that does not come from
77.4 has to come from 68.158.
While Agius’ Epicedium provides a unique indication that Catullus was read in Germany in the second half
of the 9 th century A.D., and that he was understood, which is no small matter, its value is questionable when
one tries to reconstruct Catullus’ text.
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