Quintus Lutatius Catulus

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For his son, see Quintus Lutatius Catulus (Capitolinus).
For the more famous Latin poet, see Catullus.
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]

Contents

 1As general
 2As author
 3As builder
 4Marriage and descendants
 5See also
 6Ancient sources
 7References

As general[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]

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[clarification needed] 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[edit]
 Hortensius (Cicero)

Ancient sources[edit]
 Plutarch, Life of Marius and Life of Sulla
 Appian, Bellum Civile i. 74
 Velleius Paterculus ii. 21
 Florus iii. 21
 Valerius Maximus vi. 3, ix. 13
 Cicero, De Oratore iii. 8 and Brutus 35
 Aulus Gellius, i, 11, 16 and xix, 9, 10

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ "The Consuls, 179-49 BC", Chiron, 20 (1990), p. 387
2. Jump up^ See discussion by A. Clark, Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican
Rome(Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 127ff. online.
3. Jump up^ 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. Jump up^ Suetonius, De Grammaticis 3; Edward Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin
Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 75.
5. Jump up^ Gian Biaggio Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press,
1994), pp. 138–139 online.
6. Jump up^ Pliny, Epistula 5.3.5.
7. Jump up^ Mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 1.79).
8. Jump up^ Callimachus, Epigram 41 Pfeiffer (= 4 in the Gow-Page edition). The passage (Attic
Nights19.9) 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. Jump up^ 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. Jump up^ Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets p. 75 online.
11. Jump up^ 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. Jump up^ 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. Jump up^ The Berne scholium on Lucan.II, 173 (p.62, ed.Usener).
14. Jump up^ 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.