CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

whether the evidence at our disposal points in this direction, and indeed whether it is compatible with such a
hypothesis at all.
Morgan argues that it is not, as the bridegroom of poem 61 had been sleeping with a puer concubinus before
his marriage, and after his marriage he would have had no occasion to ask Catullus for the munera et
Musarum et Veneris: “[t]he phrase desertum in lecto caelibe, which would be absurd if applied to Manlius
Torquatus when he was still sleeping with his own concubinus, would also seem inappropriate if his young
bride had died some time after their marriage, in which case he would much more appropriately have
requested that Catullus compose for him a consolatio than some bittersweet erotic verses.” 75 There is
certainly such a case to be made, though he might be overstating it. The bridegroom is teased for having been
excessively attached to his puer concubinus, so before his marriage he had little opportunity for being
frustrated sexually; 76 after his marriage he had a beautiful wife, and if she died, he would have reacted
differently; poem 68a implies romantic trouble of a sort that he cannot have had either before or after his
wedding; so – according to this line of thought – poem 68a must be addressed to a different person.
However, ribald jokes were a standard part of Roman weddings and perhaps they should not be taken at face
value here. 77 Nor does it seem impossible that the bridegroom of poem 61 should have faced a romantic
catastrophe after his wedding, for example if his wife decided to leave him. While it is far from certain that
poems 61 and 68a should refer to the same person, it is certainly not impossible.
Poem 68a only contains very general information as to the identity of its addressee; poem 61 tells slightly
more about the Manlius Torquatus whose wedding it is celebrating, and the question arises whether we can
identify him with any known individual. There come into question two Manlii Torquati: L. Manlius
Torquatus (80) 78 , praetor in 49 and therefore born in 88 B.C. or slightly earlier, and the Manlius Torquatus
(72) who was quaestor in 43 and was therefore born in 73 B.C. or slightly earlier. 79 Now those poems of
den Gedichten Katulls finden”), most famously Schwabe 1862: 332-344, and more recently also Most 1981: 116f., who
however assumes that this person is called Mallius Torquatus.
75
Morgan 2008: 141.
76
Cat. 61.134-141.
77
On the Fescennina iocatio (61.120) see Fordyce ad loc.
78
I distinguish the members of the family by the number of their prosopographical entry in RE 14.1 s.v. ’Manlius’.
79
According to Münzer (see his prosopographical entries in RE and esp. 14.1.1181f. for the family tree), Manlius
Torquatus (72), the quaestor of 43, was the son of A. Manlius Torquatus (76), the praetor of 70. Mitchell 1966: 27
points out that Cicero’s reference to the sons of A. Torquatus (76) as pueris quibus nihil potest esse festiuius (Fam.
6.4.3) cannot have included a young man who would have become quaestor only two years later (Sulla had fixed the
minimum age for this office at 30); hence she concludes that Manlius Torquatus (72) must rather have been the son of
L. Manlius Torquatus (79), consul in 65, and the brother of L. Manlius Torquatus (80), praetor in 49 (see her family tree
on pp. 30f.). However, our abundant sources on L. Manlius Torquatus (80) contain no mention of a brother, and Cat.
61.204-208 (’have children, so that your family may perpetuate itself’) would seem to imply that the addressee was an
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