Catullus

Question 1

(Cat 3) Venus

Answer 1

Goddess of Love

Question 2

(Cat 3) Cupid

Answer 2

• Venus’ son

- God who inspired Love

Question 3

(Cat 3) Orcus

Answer 3

Hell

Question 4

(Cat 5) one as

Answer 4

a coin of small value

Question 5

(Cat 5) so that no evil man can be jealous when they know there are so many kisses

Answer 5

Romans believed that if you knew how many things there were, you had power over them

Question 6

(Cat 7) Libya

Answer 6

• Country in North Africa
• Hot
• Under Roman control from 146 BC

Question 7

(Cat 7) silphium-bearing Cyrene

Answer 7

• Main city of Libya (country in North Africa)

- known to export a plant called silphium, may have been used for medicine

Question 8

(Cat 7) oracle of sweltering Jupiter

Answer 8

• Jupiter = Roman king of Gods

- ‘sweltering Jupiter’ is a god local to Libya = Ammon (Egyptian counterpart of Jupiter)

Question 9

(Cat 7) Battus

Answer 9

• First King of Cyrene (main city of Libya, North Africa)

- worshipped at tomb in Cyrene

Question 10

(Cat 7) which fussy men cannot count up nor bewitch with evil tongue

Answer 10

Romans believed that if you knew how many things there were, you had power over them, and could curse them

Question 11

(Cat 9) Veranius

Answer 11

Friend of Catullus from Spain

Question 12

(Cat 45) Libya

Answer 12

• Country in North Africa
• Hot
• Under Roman control from 146 BC
• could find lions there

Question 13

(Cat 45) India

Answer 13

• not under Roman rule but had trade links

- could find lions there

Question 14

(Cat 45) Love sneezed on the right

Answer 14

uncertain, but presumably a good omen

Question 15

(Cat 45) Syrians

Answer 15

• Syria = country in Middle East

Roman general Crassus sent an expedition there in 55 BC, but not conquered in Catullus’ time

Question 16

(Cat 45) Britons

Answer 16

• Julius Ceasar campaigned in Britain in 55 and 54 BC, but not conquered in Catullus’ time

Question 17

(Cat 45) Venus

Answer 17

Goddess of Love

Question 18

(Cat 50) Licinius

Answer 18

• Friend of Catullus

- orator and poet

Question 19

(Cat 50) Nemesis

Answer 19

Goddess of vengeance

Question 20

(Cat 65) Ortalus

Answer 20

• Hortalus, orator and poet

- Catullus promised to send him a translation of Callimachus

Question 21

(Cat 65) Muses

Answer 21

Goddess of poetry

Question 22

(Cat 65) Lethe

Answer 22

River in the Underworld. Once you drank from it, you forgot your previous life.

Question 23

(Cat 65) Trojan

Answer 23

Troy was a city in Asia Minor (modern Turkey). It no longer stood in Catullus’ time, but he uses the adjective ‘Trojan’ to refer to the region.

Question 24

(Cat 65) Rhoetean shore

Answer 24

Rhoeteum was a promontory on the Hellespont, but the word is used as a synonym of Trojan.

Question 25

(Cat 65) Daulian bird

Answer 25

Procne. Her sister Philomela was raped by her husband, Tereus, who cut out Philomela’s tongue so she could not speak of the crime. Procne killed her son, Itys/Itylus, and fed him to his father as punishment. The gods turned Procne into a nightingale, Philomela into a swallow and Tereus into a hoopoe.

Question 26

(Cat 65) Itys

Answer 26

Son of Procne and Philomela, killed by his mother

Question 27

(Cat 65) Battiades

Answer 27

‘Son of Battus’ = Callimachus. Called this because he was a descendant of Battus, first kingof Cyrene in Libya. Callimachus was a Hellenistic poet, writing in Greek, who inspired Catullus’ style of poetry.

Question 28

(Cat 72) Jupiter

Answer 28

Roman king of the gods.

Question 29

(Cat 107) O day with a whiter mark!

Answer 29

Cretans would drop a white pebble into their quivers to mark a happy day.

Question 30

(Cat 86) Quintia

Answer 30

Roman woman (unknown)