CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

to leave for Troy, where he was the first Greek to disembark and was duly killed, but in the underworld he
obtained permission to return to the living to spend one day with his wife. In the surviving fragments of the
play we see Protesilaus being brought back from the dead by Hermes (TGF 5.2.646a) and meeting his father-
in-law Acastus (647), a debate of some sort taking place about the virtues of women (653 and 657, cfr. 654)
and Laodamia stating her loyalty to her deceased husband, perhaps still unawares of his return to life (655).
This was probably the first text in which the wife of the hero was called Laodamia. Subsequently there drew
on the myth Anaxandrides in his lost comedy Protesilaus (PCG 2.41f., plot uncertain) in the 4 th century B.C.,
Heliodorus of Athens in his Protesilaus (perhaps an epyllion: the only surviving fragment, SH 473, is a
hexameter) in the 2 nd century, and Harmodius of Tarsus in his satyr-play Protesilaus (known only from an
inscription from Magnesia on the Maeander: see TGH 1.309 with 1.37) in the 1 st .
The myth also found its way into Latin literature. The tragedies on Protesilaus attributed to Pacuvius and
Titius are probably inventions of the unreliable humanist Antonius Vulscus. 199 More solidly attested is the
Protesilaodamia of Laevius Melissus (frgg. 13-19 FPL 3 ), who probably wrote it a couple of decades before
Catullus. The poem appears to have included a description of the wedding festivities of Protesilaus and
Laodamia (frg. 13) and their wedding night (frg. 14), a letter by Laodamia to Protesilaus after he left for
Troy, or a speech addressed to him even though he was away, in which she accused him of infidelity (frg.
18) and a reference to the death of Protesilaus and to Laodamia’s subsequent desire for him (frg. 19). 200 Our
next surviving source for the myth is Catullus.
Catullus appears to imitating one of the surviving fragments of the Protesilaodamia (frg. 13) in line 46 of
this poem (see ad loc.). This makes it likely that he should be following Laevius elsewhere as well.
Particularly relevant here is frg. 19, cupidius miserulo obito, ‘more desiringly than the poor little deceased’.
The deceased is evidently Protesilaus; the person who is even more desirous than him has to be Laodamia. 201
According to Laevius she loved him even more than how he loved her. This is the loving, passionate
Laodamia whom we meet again in Catullus 68b. Catullus refers to Protesilaus’ return from the dead (lines
129f.), which is not mentioned in the surviving fragments of the Protesilaodamia. Either it was described in
a part of the poem that is now lost, or here Catullus could be following another source, for example
Euripides’ tragedy.
199
In his commentary on Ov. Her. 13 Vulscus (also known as Volscus) asserted that Ovid followed these plays in much
of the poem: see Ribbeck 1875: 326 and Manuwald 2003: 25 n. 4, with references. Vulscus may have been overconfident
rather than deceitful.
200
On the probable context of these fragments see also Courtney 1993: 131-134.
201
Courtney 1993: 134 interprets the fragment in a different way: “Protesilaus offered himself too eagerly to death” –
but this would not go well with cupidius (cupio indicates a desire for a thing or a person, and not longing to be in a
certain state), and the myth offers no hint that Protesilaus wanted to die; he just did his duty.
268