BEING BEATVS IN CATULLUS’ POEMS 9, 10, 22 and 23

This article offers a new examination of the place of philosophy in Catullus’ Carmina. It focuses on Egnatius, the ‘smiling Spaniard’ of poems 37 and 39, and argues that Catullus’ attacks on this character make use of many standard invective tropes against Epicureans in the late Republic. More than merely an opportunity to show off his whitened teeth, Egnatius’ smile may well have been proof of his philosophical detachment and ataraxia. Yet Catullus maliciously misrepresents this mark of Epicurean virtue as a social gaffe, and an unflattering reminder of Egnatius’ provincial origins. I then reinterpret poems 37, 38, and 39 as a poetic series unified by the ‘banalization’ of philosophical ideas. Ultimately, Catullus creates his own singular voice – the arbiter of style and taste – by representing aspects of other people's behaviour as trite and ordinary. To banalize is an act of power, and it is a weapon that Catullus wields to articulate a sense of difference from other poets and thinkers in his intellectual world.

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Egnatius the Epicurean: The Banalization of Philosophy in Catullus

Uden

2021

“… 47 On Catullan attitudes to acquiring wealth in the provinces in poems 9 and 10, see O'Hearn (2021), which also considers representations of being ‘fortunate’ in poems 22 and 23.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Conquering Ida: An Ecofeminist Reading of Catullus’ Poem 63

O'Hearn¹

2021

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Many have recognised poem 63 as a study in contrasts – light versus darkness, masculine versus feminine, rationality versus madness, animal versus human, culture versus nature. Caught between these polarities is the figure of Attis, removed from everything bright, male, sane, human, and civilised by one impassioned act. The poem suggests that it is partly the nature of the place, its quasi-Hippocratic airs, waters, and places, that emasculates Attis, making him like a notha mulier, iuvenca, and famula. This article will use ecofeminist theory – in particular, Val Plumwood's Feminism and the Mastery of Nature – to investigate the logic of domination running between the poem's polarities and to show how a foreign ‘Eastern’ wilderness effeminises Greek Attis. Moreover, it will be shown that the characterisation of Attis and the galli as a dux and his comites associates the story with the Roman imperial endeavour, suggesting that we can read the poem alongside others that portray conquest (11, 29) and the experience of young men abroad on provincial cohorts (10, 28, 47). In this way, Catullus implies that the imperial project is also made weak and feminine by its very contact with foreign places.

Introduction

Johnson¹,

O'Hearn²

2021

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The symposium marked fourteen years since the first Catullus gathering at Newcastle, which resulted in the first thematic issue of Antichthon, 'Catullus in Contemporary Perspective' in 2006. This inaugural thematic issue of Antichthon marked the fortieth anniversary of the foundation of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies and the publication of its journal. It is especially poignant that many of the original contributors and audience members returned in 2018, and their papers appear in this second thematic volume, 'Catullus in the 21st Century.'When one compares the content of this thematic issue with its 2006 predecessor, certain topics remain constant, while new ways of engaging with Catullus also emerge. The new millennium has seen the publication of several key collections on Catullan scholarship, including Julia Haig Gaisser's Catullus (2007) for the Oxford Readings in Classical Studies series, with twenty-five chapters on the poet from the second-half of the twentieth century. Serious students of Catullus would be familiar with most if not all of the readings in Gaisser's volume. The same year saw the publication of Marilyn B. Skinner's edited collection of new work on Catullus -A Companion to Catullusin the Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World series. Skinner's extensive collation of commissioned chapters captured the innovations as well as the traditions in Catullan scholarship and complemented Gaisser's retrospective volume. 1 The contributions in this special issue of Antichthon reflect the content of both eminent volumes: the scholarship and traditions of Gaisser's collection, and the recent developments in the field of Skinner's volume. Twenty-first-century monographs are also in evidence in the articles herein, be they in the extension of ideas or more robust engagement with them.