Catullus, Gaius Valerius c.84-c.54BC
Roman lyric poet

Born in Verona, he began to write verses at the age of 16. About 62BC he settled in Rome where he became friendly with Cicero, and met 'Lesbia', a married woman whom he addresses in some of his most beautiful, and some of his most bitter poems. A fiery, unscrupulous partisan, he assailed his enemies, including Julius Caesar, with equal scurrility and wit. His extant works comprise 116 pieces (though three are spurious), including love poems, satiric poems, mythological pieces (some of them adapted from the Greek), and 'Attis'. The text depends on a single manuscript discovered in the 14th century at Verona, inaccurately transcribed and subsequently lost. He exerted a wide influence on his succesors and on English poetry, notably Robert Herrick, Lord Byron, and Tennyson.

Bibliography: K Quinn, Catullus, an interpretation (1972); and other works by Quinn