Catullus

Catullus, Gaius Valerius, poet, was born about 84 B.C. in Verona. Little is known of the details of his life. While still a boy, however, he tells us that he played at rhyming. Settling in Rome, he included amongst his friends Cicero, Hortensius, Metellus, and other leading men of the time. He also fell in love with Clodia, the beautiful sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, and vented his passion in numerous lyrics, which are the best of their time. In the political struggles that subsequently disturbed Rome, he embraced the cause of the senate and fiercely attacked Caesar and others in his verses. He was seriously affected by the loss of a loved brother towards the end of his own brief career, which ended about B.C. 54. Upwards of a hundred pieces from the pen of this great poet are extant, mostly short. The Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis and the Atys are the longest and most remarkable. For over three hundred years the text of Catullus was lost. It was recovered at his birthplace in the fourteenth century. Reniains of a villa said to have been his exist at Sirmio, a promontory on the S. of the Lago di Garda, whose beauties he celebrates.