Quintus Lutatius Catulus

Quintus Lutatius Catulus (149–87 BC) was consul of the Roman Republic in 102 BC, and the leading public figure of the gens Lutatia of the time. His colleague in the consulship was Gaius Marius, but the two feuded and Catulus sided with Sulla in the civil war of 88–87 BC. When the Marians regained control of Rome in 87 BC, Catulus committed suicide rather than face prosecution.

Based on the attested filiation of his son Quintus Lutatius Catulus, his father was also named Quintus Lutatius Catulus. Although the name of his grandfather is not recorded, Ernst Badian is certain that Catulus was descended from Gaius Lutatius Catulus, the consul of 242 BC.[1]

As general

In the war against the Cimbri and Teutones, Catulus was sent to defend the passage of the Alps but found himself compelled to retreat across the Po River, his troops having been reduced to a state of panic. But the Cimbri were defeated on the Raudine plain, near Vercellae, by the united armies of Catulus and Marius. Despite their joint success, the two commanders regarded each other as bitter rivals and after the war built competing temples to demonstrate divine favour.[2]

When the chief honour for victory over the Cimbri was given to Marius, Catulus turned vehemently against his former co-commander and sided with Sulla to expel Marius, Cornelius Cinna and their supporters from Rome. When Cinna and Marius regained control of the city in 87 BC, Catulus was prosecuted by Marius's nephew, Marcus Marius Gratidianus. Rather than accept the inevitable guilty verdict, he committed suicide.[3]

As author

Catulus was a distinguished orator, poet and prose writer, and was well versed in Greek literature. He wrote a history of his consulship (De consulatu et de rebus gestis suis) in the manner of Xenophon. A non-extant epic on the Cimbrian War, sometimes attributed to him, was more likely written by Archias.[4] Catulus's contributions to Latin poetry are considered his most significant literary achievements. He is credited with introducing the Hellenistic epigram to Rome and fostering a taste for short, personal poems that comes to fruition with the lyric oeuvre of Valerius Catullus in the 50s BC. Among his circle of literary friends, who ranged widely in social position and political sympathies, were Valerius Aedituus, Aulus Furius, and Porcius Licinius.[5]

Pliny lists him among distinguished men who wrote short poems that were less than austere (versiculi parum severi).[6] Only two epigrams by Catulus have been preserved, both directed at men. Cicero preserves two of Catulus's couplets on the celebrated actor Roscius, who is said to make an entrance like a sunrise: "though he is human, he seems more beautiful than a god."[7]

The other epigram, modelled directly after Callimachus, is quoted by Aulus Gellius and may be paraphrased in prose as follows:[8]

My mind escapes me; I imagine it's decamped to the usual place: Theotimus. That's right, he runs the asylum. What if I don't outlaw it, and instead of letting the fugitive come to him inside, he prefers ejection? We'll go on a manhunt, but in truth I'm alarmed that we might be captured in the flesh ourselves. What to do? Venus, I need a plan.[9]

"The willingness of a member of the highest Roman aristocracy to toss off imitations of Hellenistic sentimental erotic poetry (homosexual at that)," notes Edward Courtney, "is a new phenomenon in Roman culture at this time."[10]

As builder

Catulus was a man of great wealth, which he spent in beautifying Rome. Two buildings were known as Monumenta Catuli: the Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei (the "Fortune of This Day"), to commemorate the day of Vercellae, and the Porticus Catuli, built from the sale of the Cimbrian spoils.

Marriage and descendants

Three wives are attested for Catulus:

  1. Domitia of the Ahenobarbi, the mother of his homonymous son Quintus Lutatius Catulus (consul 78, censor 65 BC).[11]
  2. Servilia of the Caepiones, who was mother of his daughter Lutatia Q. Hortensi, the wife of the great orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (consul 69).[12]
  3. Claudia, of uncertain family but probably of the Marian aligned branch of Claudi Marcelli. This was probably Catulus' longest marriage (c. 103-87 BC) if, as seems likely, he wed her to secure Marian support for his election as a consul, which he only belatedly achieved at the comitia in 103 for 102 BC. However, she is only attested as his wife at the time of his death at the end of 87 BC.[13] There is no record of any children by this match.

An approximate chronology of the marital affairs of Catulus:

  • c.126 BC: Married Domitia
  • 125 or 124 BC: Birth of Catulus Capitolinus
  • c.111 BC: Death or divorce of Domitia
  • c.109 BC: Praetor, married Servilia. She was probably eldest daughter (born around 124 BC) of his coeval, and colleague as praetor, Q. Servilius Caepio (cos. 106). The latter's apparently promiscuous daughters were harshly abused as whores by Timagenes of Alexandreia.[14]
  • c.108 BC: Birth of Lutatia (mother of Hortensia Oratrix and Quintus Hortensius, the poet and Caesarian)
  • 105 BC: Arausio disaster, and disgrace and imprisonment of Quintus Caepio
  • 104 BC: Caepio escaped into exile and Catulus discarded his daughter Servilia
  • 103 BC: Catulus married Claudia (probably of the Marcelli, daughter of Marius' friend and legate M. Marcellus, praetor in c. 105 BC) and finally elected consul for 102BC after three previous defeats. About the same year the discarded Servilia married M. Livius Drusus (tribune of the plebs, 91 BC; c. 127-91 BC) and Caepio filius (q.urb. 100; c. 127-90 BC) wed Livia, the sister of his close friend Drusus.

See also

Ancient sources

References

  1. ↑ "The Consuls, 179-49 BC", Chiron, 20 (1990), p. 387
  2. ↑ See discussion by A. Clark, Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 127ff. online.
  3. ↑ A.R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero, De officiis (University of Michigan Press, 1996), p. 598 online; Bruce Marshall, "Catilina and the Execution of M. Marius Gratidianus," Classical Quarterly 35 (1985), p. 125, note 8; Erich Gruen, Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149–78 B.C. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 232–234.
  4. ↑ Suetonius, De Grammaticis 3; Edward Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 75.
  5. ↑ Gian Biaggio Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 138–139 online.
  6. ↑ Pliny, Epistula 5.3.5.
  7. ↑ Mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 1.79).
  8. ↑ Callimachus, Epigram 41 Pfeiffer (= 4 in the Gow-Page edition). The passage (Attic Nights 19.9) by Aulus Gellius is one of the sources for Catulus's literary associations with Valerius Aedituus and Porcius Licinius; see also Apuleius, Apologia 9.
  9. ↑ Latin text in Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets p. 70 online, with explication and discussion pp. 75–76. Catulus's shifts from first-person singular to first-person plural are preserved in this translation.
  10. ↑ Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets p. 75 online.
  11. ↑ A fragment of Cicero pro C.Cornelio, quoted at Asconius 86-7G, calls Cn. Domitius (cos. 96) maternal uncle (avunculus) of Catulus Capitolinus (cos. 78). Therefore the mother of Catulus Capitolinus (born c.125) was a Domitia of the Ahenobarbi born c.141 and the first wife of Catulus the consul 102 (born 149)
  12. ↑ Cicero, de Oratore III, 228 calls Q.Hortensius Hortalus the orator (cos. 69) Catulus' son-in-law and sodalis (companion in some college or religious association) at the dramatic date of September 91 BC. Then at the dramatic date of 70 BC Cicero, Verr.II 2.24 names Hortensius' mother-in-law as a Servilia femina primaria. Presuming that Hortensius' first wife, Lutatia, was still his wife in 70 BC then her mother was this Servilia who was, in turn, the second wife of Catulus cos. 102.
  13. ↑ The Berne scholium on Lucan.II, 173 (p.62, ed.Usener).
  14. ↑ cited by Strabo IV, 1.13 = Timagenes F11 ed. Jacoby (FGrH no. 88)
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Catulus". Encyclopædia Britannica. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 545.
Political offices
Preceded by
Lucius Aurelius Orestes and Gaius Marius		 Consul of the Roman Republic
with Gaius Marius
102 BCE		 Succeeded by
Manius Aquillius and Gaius Marius
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