Gaius Valerius Catullus
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Literature & Poetry • Historical Archive • 🇮🇹 Cisalpine Gaul, Roman Republic • 5 views

Gaius Valerius Catullus 🇮🇹

Gaius Valerius Catullus (Known as "Catullus")
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Born c. 84 BCE 🇮🇹 Verona, Cisalpine Gaul, Roman Republic
Passed Away c. 54 BCE Rome, Roman Republic
Lifespan ~30 years old
5 views
Notice / Correction
"I hate and I love. Why do I do so, perhaps you ask? I do not know, but I feel it happening, and I am tortured."

Archival Overview

Passionate Roman neoteric poet whose intense lyrics of love, fury, and grief addressed to 'Lesbia' revolutionized Latin lyric poetry.

Biographical Record

Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 BCE) was a Roman lyric poet of the late Republic whose work exemplifies the Neoteric ('new poets') movement. Born to a prominent equestrian family in Verona, Catullus moved to Rome, where he mingled with intellectuals, senators, and poets while rejecting traditional civic epic in favor of intimate, meticulously crafted personal verse.

His surviving collection of 116 poems ranges from tender affection to incandescent obscenity. He is most celebrated for his tumultuous cycle of love poems dedicated to 'Lesbia' (widely believed to be Clodia Metelli), capturing the contradictory extremes of human passion immortalized in his iconic declaration Odi et amo ('I hate and I love').

Key Life Milestones

57 BCE

Staff of Memmius in Bithynia

Served in Bithynia and composed his heartbreaking elegiac farewell to his brother's grave ('Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale').

55 BCE

Lesbia Cycle Completed

Circulated the groundbreaking Lesbia lyric cycle, permanently reshaping European love poetry with raw emotional vulnerability.

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Final Resting Place

Perpetual Memorial
Appian Way Roman Sepulchre
Rome, Italy
GPS: 41.8500, 12.5200
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