Gaius Valerius Catullus
(84 - 54 BC) Rome
Poet
Catullus was born into a wealthy family of Celtic descent in the town of Verona in Cisalpine Gaul. His father was a friend of Julius Caesar, and sent his young son to Rome to learn the ways of the city. He was one of the most versatile of Roman poets, writing love poems, elegies, and satirical epigrams. He moved in the literary and political society of Rome and wrote lyrics describing his unhappy love affair with Clodia, probably the wife of the consul Metellus. His longer poems include two wedding-songs.
His work remained virtually unknown during the Middle Ages, until a manuscript of his poems came to light at Verona in the 14th century. Many of his poems, are short verses to the young boys he loved. Some of his verses have a real feeling... A cycle of eight poems (15, 16, 21, 24, 40, 48, 81, 99) concerns a youth, Juventius, which reveals that Catullus was comfortable working within the Hellenistic tradition of poetry in praise of boys.
If you want to read some of Catullus' verse, please go at his page in our book Famous Homoerotic Poems.
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