CATULLUS 68 - Scuola Normale Superiore

1f. The poem starts with a reference to the letter of the addressee, just like a letter read out in a Plautine
comedy: miles lenoni Ballioni epistulam / conscriptam mittit Polymachaeroplagides (Pl. Pseud. 998f.). Here
Catullus uses the vocabulary of epistolography (quod, conscriptum, mittis, epistolium) to start his poem with
a typical epistolary topos, that of the reference to a letter, whether one’s own or that of the addressee (see
further on quod in line 1).
1 The verse is echoed by Virgil at Aen. 5.700 at pater Aeneas casu concussus acerbo and possibly also
by Ciris 313 tene etiam fortuna mihi crudelis ademit, which echoes line 20 below.
Quod Not to be taken with hoc epistolium (pace Quinn), as a noun cannot be accompanied by a relative as
well as a deictic pronoun: here and at lines 27 and 33 below quod is used on its own as if it were a sort of
accusative of extent, meaning ‘as to the fact that’, ‘as for’ (see Kühner-Stegmann 2.269f. and Hofmann-
Szantyr 573f.). The construction is found in Plautus and prose authors ranging from Cicero through Caesar to
Tacitus (see OLD s.v. quod, 6a,) and occasionally in poetry outside comedy (thus at Lucr. 2.532 and 5.916,
Verg. Aen. 11.177, Ov. Her. 17.261 and 17.43 but Kenney 1996 ad loc. interprets it as ‘though’, [Ov.] Am.
3.5.41 and Priap. 6.1) but not in Tibullus, Propertius and Horace, nor in any other poem of Catullus’. It is
used especially in letters, typically to pick up a subject that has been brought up by the correspondent in the
letter one is responding to (thus Cic. Fam. 5.2.6 quod scribis non oportuisse Metellum, fratrem tuum, ob
dictum a me oppugnari and Ov. Her. 17.261f. quod petis ut furtim praesentes ista loquamur, / scimus quid
captes conloquiumque uoces). It is used most often within the letter as a formula of transition (‘Now as for
…’), but it is also found as an introductory formula, as here (thus in Cic. Fam. 7.25, 7.32, 7.33, 14.12 and
14.13, Caec. ap. Cic. Fam. 6.7 and Cael. ap. Cic. Fam. 8.1). Also paralleled in prose letters is the reference
to the letter of the correspondent (Cic. Fam. 7.32.1 quod sine praenomine familiariter, ut debebas, ad me
litteram misisti) and the way quod (whether or not meaning ‘As for’) is taken up by id gratum est in line 9
(thus Cic. Fam. 12.28.2 quod societatem rei publicae conseruandae tibi mecum a patre acceptam renouas,
gratum est … gratum etiam illud, quod mihi tuo nomine gratias agendas non putas: nec enim id inter nos
facere debemus, 14.8 quod celeriter me fecisti de Caesaris litteris certiorem, fecisti mihi gratum, Cicero fils
ap. Cic. 16.21.8 de mandatis quod tibi curae fuit est mihi gratum, Plin. Ep. 6.7.2 gratum est quod nos
requiris, gratum quod his fomentis adquiescis and 3.5.1 pergratum est mihi quod tam diligenter libros
auunculi mei lectitas and Fronto Epist. p. 60.17f. Naber = 55.6 van den Hout 2 utique illud ipsum, quod tanta
ad me scripsisti, cum cras uenturus essem: id uero mihi longe fuit gratissimum; cfr. also Plin. Ep. 6.3.1 and
Sulpicia ap. [Tib.] 4.10.1). The poem starts with the vocabulary and syntax proper to Roman letters.
O writes Quo, which was found by Vossius in a MS (possibly in O itself: I know of no other MS that
presents this reading, though here my notes only cover about half the recentiores) and Santenius reports that
Nicolaus Heinsius found it worth preserving, probably in order to turn the first distich into a question (Quo
… mittis epistolium?), which would have been answered in the following verses (naufragum ut …).
However, Santenius noted that “quod firmari tamen videtur v. 9.”, that is, id in line 9 must pick up an
epistolary Quod.
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