Author
Catullus
-84–-54
Catullus was a Roman lyric poet whose poems combine love, invective, friendship and elite late Republican society.
Catullus wrote short poems and longer learned pieces that survive as one of the most vivid bodies of personal Latin poetry. His work addresses desire, betrayal, insult, mourning, politics and literary rivalry.
He belongs in Classical for pages on late Republican culture, Roman poetry, elite social networks and the literary language of love and attack. His poetry is especially useful for showing Rome at an intimate and social scale.