CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

Catullus calls Protesilaus’ house inceptam frustra: it had been begun in vain (line 75). This surely goes back
to a puzzling passage in the Iliad, το⎝ δ′ κα⇐ μφιδρυφ↓! λοξο! Φυλ κηι ⁄λϒλειπτο / κα⇐ δ〉μο!
″μιτελ→! ‘both his wife, with both cheeks torn, and his half-built house remained in Phylace’ after the
hero’s death (Il. 2.700f.). The half-built house, which I suspect may have been nothing more than a pathetic
detail added by Homer to illustrate the situation of a newlywed, puzzled readers throughout antiquity and
gave rise to a surprising number of interpretations. Strabo (7.3.3) thought that the hero’s house (that is, his
family) had been left incomplete because his wife had been widowed, while Strabo’s friend the
epigrammatist Diodorus of Sardis wrote about a young man who had left behind a ″μιτελ° ψ λαμον, a
‘bedchamber that was imcomplete’, because he had not been able to marry (A.P. 7.627.1f.). Lucian, who let
Protesilaus say πϒψανον ″μιτελ° μ′ν τ∫ν δ〉μον καταλιπ⊕ν, ξ→ραν τε νε〉γαμον γυνα⇑κα (D.Mort.
27.1), apparently took it to refer to an unfinished building, as did his contemporary Philostratus (Her. 12.3 =
p. 144 Kayser ″μιτελ° δ′ τ↓ν ο⇒κ⇔αν). The commentators of the Iliad too were in disagreement. In his
rambling note on δ〉μο! ″μιτελ→! Eustathius states that the correct interpretation is metaphorical: the house
is half complete because it has been deprived of one of its owners – but he adds that some prefer the literal
interpretation: ƒνιοι δ′ κα⇐ πλ∩! ο⎧τϖ, δι〉τι, φα!⇔ν, ο⇒κοδομ∩ν ψ λαμον πϒπλευ!εν (p. 325 ed.
Rom. = 506.13-22 Van der Valk). 202 Such a controversy is only possible as long as the situation is not
clarified by any major literary text: Euripides certainly cannot have taken sides in the debate. 203
Catullus’ statement that Protesilaus’ house has been begun in vain because no sacrifice has been offered to
the gods surely constitutes yet another attempt to make sense of this difficult phrase from the Iliad. Catullus
may either have stumbled upon it himself while reading the epic, or his attention could have been drawn to it
by a schoolmaster, grammarian or commentator, or else the motif of the unfinished house could already have
been present in Laevius (this seems the least likely: Laevius’ main source was not Homer but Euripides).
Wilamowitz declared that “Thessalicam fabulam novis inventionibus auxit in Protesilai tragoedia Euripides
traxitque omnes, qui post eum Laodamiae res tetigerunt”; 204 accordingly, Kießling argued that Catullus took
202 Eustathius’ note has evidently been cobbled together from several shorter notes, the authors of most of which
(including one Geographus Abius) have pronounced themselves in favour of the metaphorical interpretation. It may
appear attractive because it avoids introducing the unexplained and distracting new narrative element of the unbuilt
house, but it can be ruled out for example because in the Iliad the word δ〉μο! ‘house’ always refers to a building and
never to a family. – Compare also the alternative interpretations offered by the scholium in A: ≥τοι τεκνο! ∝ [ ]
λλ πρ〉τερον ⁄!τρ τευ!εν.
203
Buonamici 1902: 10f. assumes that the ancient sources do not contradict each other at this point and the houses
mentioned at Il. 2.701 and at Cat. 68.74f. are metaphorical. This can be the case neither in the Iliad (see the previous
note) nor in Catullus, where Lesbia entering the house (domum, line 68) in which she meets Catullus is compared to
Laodamia entering Protesilaus’ house (domum, line 74), which clearly has to be a physical entity.
204
Wilamowitz 1929: 91 = 1931: 524f.
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