The Poems of Catulus

These Latin poems of the first century BCE mix short lyrics, invectives, and longer set pieces. The speaker addresses Lesbia in poems of desire, betrayal, and mourning for a dead sparrow; attacks rivals and public men in coarse epigrams; and writes wedding songs, a lock-of-Berenice translation, and the long narrative of Attis. Settings are Rome, Verona, and a season of service in Bithynia. The collection has no single plot: each poem is a separate address, some tender, some abusive, some mythological. The book is a lyric corpus of late Republican Rome, not a biography of the poet and not an epic of the civil wars.

Quarter bound in dark green leather, pale green cloth boards. Pale brown endleaves. White slipcase. Exists in two states: one where the translator’s name on the title page is misspelt as ‘Mitchie’ and he other with the correct spelling of ‘Michie’.