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Catullus and the Brothel-Creepers: Carmen 371

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2015

Lindsay Watson
Lindsay Watson*
Affiliation:
The University of Sydney, lindsav.watson@usyd.edu.au
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Extract

Salax taberna vosque contubernales,

a pilleatis nona fratribus pila,

solis putatis esse mentulas vobis,

solis licere, quidquid est puellarum,

confutuere et putare ceteros hircos? 5

an, continenter quod sedetis insulsi

centum an ducenti, non putatis ausurum

me una ducentos irrumare sessores?

atqui putate: namque totius vobis

frontem tabernae sopionibus scribam. 10

puella nam mi, quae meo sinu fugit,

amata tantum quantum amabitur nulla,

pro qua mihi sunt magna bella pugnata,

consedit istic. hanc boni beatique

omnes amatis, et quidem, quod indignum est, 15

omnes pusilli et semitarii moechi;

tu praeter omnes une de capillatis,

cuniculosae Celtiberiae fili,

Egnati, opaca quem bonum facit barba

et dens Hibera defricatus urina. 20

Randy tavern and you tavern-men, nine pillars from the cap-clad brothers, do you think that you alone have pricks, that you alone are permitted comprehensively to fuck whatever girls there are and to consider the rest of us goats? Do you really think that, because you sit there, silly fools, one hundred or maybe two hundred in a row, I won't dare to mouth-fuck you as you sit there, all of you at once? Well, you had better believe it. For I will inscribe the front of the whole tavern for you with obscene graffiti. For my girl, who has fled from my embrace, beloved by me as no other woman will be loved, for whom great wars have been fought by me, has taken her seat there with you. Her all you great and rich men love, and – what is shameful – all of you cheap back-street lechers: you above all, you outstanding member of the long-haired crew, son of bunny-infested Celtiberia, Egnatius, to whom a thick beard and his teeth brushed in Spanish urine give respectability.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 43 , 2009 , pp. 123 - 136
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2009

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Footnotes

1

The term ‘brothel-creepers’ was, as I understand it, recontextualised in the 1980s to describe soft-soled shoes worn by persons of good social standing when going about, as quietly as possible, some disreputable activity. It seems not inappropriately transferred to the habitués of the taberna, at least to the boni beatique of line 14.

References

2 See e.g. Quinn, K.F., Catullus. An Interpretation (London 1972) 40Google Scholar: ‘an important and exciting poem’, a view endorsed by Wray, D., Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood (Cambridge 2001) 84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Nappa, C., Aspects of Catullus‘ Social Fiction (Frankfurt am Main 2001) 60Google Scholar. Cf. also Fitzgerald, W., Camilan Provocations. Lyric Poetry and the Drama of Position (Berkeley 1995) 251 n.11Google Scholar.

3 See Ellis, Robinson, A Commentary on Catullus (Oxford 1889) 131Google Scholar (‘prompted by jealousy’); Kroll, W., C. Valerius Catullus. Herausgeben und erklärt, 5th ed. (Stuttgart 1968) 69Google Scholar (‘die … Nachrichten von dem sittenlosen Treiben der früher Geliebten und die Nennung eines jetzt bevorzugten Liebhabers, des Egnatius, haben C. in solche Wut versetzt, dass er das Haus, in dem Lesbia mit ihren Liebhabern zu treffen pflegte, mit den ärgsten Schmähungen überschüttet. Der unerquickliche Eindruck wird durch den tiefen und aufrichtigen Schmerz, mit dem er von Lesbia spricht, gemildert’); Lenchantin de Gubernatis, M., II libro di Catullo. Introduzione testo e commento (Torino 1976) 70Google Scholar; Skinner, M.B., ‘The Dynamics of Canillan Obscenity’, SC 3 (1992) 1-11, at 6–7Google Scholar; and especially Quinn (n. 2) 54 (one of the ‘key poems’ in the Lesbia cycle) and passim.

4 Wray (n. 2) 87.

5 Nappa (n. 2) 62.

6 Krostenko, B., ‘Arbitria Urbanitatis. Language, Style and Characterization in Catullus cc. 39 and 37’, CA 20 (2001) 239–72Google Scholar.

7 This is not, however, so clearly the case if, as a number of the commentators believe, the precise locational details given in line 2 are meant to identify the taberna as none other than Lesbia's house, given this insulting label because of the disreputable goings-on there: see e.g. Syndikus, H.P., Catull. Eine Interpretation. Erster Teil. Die kleinen Gedichte (Darmstadt 1984) 212–3Google Scholar with n. 20. In view of the frequency with which Catullus’ contemporary, Cicero, described high-class dwellings as houses of ill-repute (Sex. Rose. 134Google Scholar, Verr. 2.4.83Google Scholar, Cael. 57Google Scholar (Clodia's domus), Phil. 2.69Google Scholar (Treggiari, Susan, ‘The Upper-class House as a Symbol and Focus of Emotion in Cicero’, JRA 12 [1999] 33–56Google Scholar), the identification seems by no means unlikely.

8 Cf. Nappa (n. 2) 62.

9 Quantitatively speaking, 11 and 13 are hardly Lesbia poems, yet she is a major, if not the primary, concern of both pieces. Cf. Nappa, C., ‘Place Settings: Convivium, Contrast, and Persona in Catullus 12 and 13*, AJPh 119 (1998) 385-97 at 392Google Scholar, ‘the most important themes [of cc. 12 and 13] emerge only as we reach the end. Catullus here exhibits an … obhque style of presentation (my italics).’

10 One might loosely compare the way in which – according to Cicero's account in the pro Caelio – Clodia was the real driving force behind the prosecution of M. Caelius Rufus.

11 They are thus contabernales Lesbiae. For the term used of a sexual relationship, cf. Catal. 13.7-8 prostitutae turpe contubemium / sororis, ‘the disgraceful concubinage of your prostituted sister’, and Suet. lui. 49.1 pudicitiae eius famam nihilquidempraeterNicomedis contabernium laesit (‘his reputation for chastity was damaged by nothing indeed except his intimacy with Nicomedes.’) Syndikus (n. 7) 210 also notes the use of contubemales in connexion with meretrices in an attack by M. Caelius upon Mark Antony (ap. Quint. 4.2.123). For other associations of contubemales in c. 37, see Johnson, Marguerite, ‘Catullus, C. 37, and the Theme of Magna Bella’, Helios 26 (1999) 85–96Google Scholar.

12 As he famously does to Furius and Aurelius in c. 16.

13 Thanks to John Penwill for suggesting the second point to me.

14 For the connexion of goatishness with sexual incapacity, cf. cc. 69 and 71, though the reference is there to smell. It is however gratuitous to read putere for putare in 37.5 (Herrmann: cf. Herescu, N., ‘Autour de la salax taberna. Catulle, 37’, in Hommages à Léon Herrmann (Brussels 1960) 431-5 at 431–3)Google Scholar.

15 While sinus is used primarily of the female genitalia (Adams, J.N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary [London 1982] 90–1)Google Scholar, it can also be used with a sexual colour of the male anatomy. Whether we read consent or conserere at Tib. 1.8.35-6, at Venus invem'et puero concumbere fiirtim, / dum timet, et teneros consent [conserere] usque sinus (‘but Venus will find a way to lie stealthily with the lad in his timidity and joins [to join] snug together tender laps’), the parallel of femori conseruissse femur in line 30 suggests that erotic contact between the respective sinus of Marathus and Pholoe is in question. Similarly, at Mart. 12.49.10-13, quos et noctibus et diebus opto / in nostro cupidus sinu videre, / formosos, niveos, pares, gemellos, / grandes - non pueros, sed uniones (‘which night and day I passionately long to see in our lap, beautiful, snow-white, matching twins, big - not boys, but pearls’), the elaborate assimilation of Postumilla's pearls to objects of paederastic desire makes clear the sexual flavour of sinu (11). Cf. also Lact. Inst. 1.20.6, Tutinus, in cuius sinu pudendo nubentespraesident, ‘Tutinus, in whose obscene lap brides sit’, with Adams (1982) 91.

16 For the sexual connotations of the term, particularly its association with prostitution, see the discussion in the text below. A propos of the latter point, Fitzgerald (n. 2) 66 interestingly comments ‘the marshalled ranks of the boors become waiting prostitutes (sedetis, 6) lined up for Catullus to service.’

17 Cf. 1, 38, 48, 49, si quae non nupta mulier domum suam patefecit omnium cupiditati palamque sese in meretricia vita collocarit… ut non solum meretrix sed etiam proterva meretrix procaxque videatur (‘if any woman without a husband has opened up her house to the lusts of all and openly positioned herself as prostitute … so as to appear not only a prostitute but a forward and wanton one at that’), 50, 57, also 62, quadrantaria ilia permutatione (‘the usual quarter-as deal’), with Austin, R.G., M. Tulli Ciceronis pro M. Caelio Oratio, 3rd edn (Oxford 1960)Google Scholar.

18 Cf. 1 -3, copa Surisca… críspum sub crotalo docta movere latus, / ebria fumosa saltai lasciva taberna (‘the female tavern-keeper Surisca, skilled in moving her shimmying flanks to the accompaniment of the castanet, tipsily dances in wanton fashion in the smoky tavern’), 20, est hie munda Ceres, est Amor, est Bromius (‘here is elegant Ceres [food], here Love, here Bromius.’)

19 McGinn, T.J., The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of Social History and the Brothel (Ann Arbor 2004) 15–19Google Scholar; also Kleberg, T., Hotels, restaurants et cabarets dans l'antiquité romaine (Uppsala 1957) 89–91Google Scholar, who cites, among other evidence, CIL 4.8442, futili coponam (T fucked the female innkeeper’), and CIL 9.2689, a fictional discussion between a copo, ‘innkeeper’, and a guest regarding the latter's itemised bill, which includes a charge of eight asses for a puella.

20 Cf. Wiseman, T.P., Catullus and his World. A Reappraisal (Cambridge 1985) 150Google Scholar; Thomson, D.F.S., Catullus. Edited with a Textual and Interpretative Commentary (Toronto 1997) 301–2Google Scholar.

21 ‘Conmbernales... plays on its common origin with taberna’, Johnson (n. 11 ) 86.

22 Cf. Thomson (n. 20) 301-2.

23 Further examples of sedere used thus are found in Herescu, N., ‘Sur le sens “érotique” de sedere,’ Gioita 38 (1959–1960) 125-34 at 125–9Google Scholar, Adams, , ‘Words for Prostitute in Latin’, RhM 126 (1983) 321-58 at 329–30Google Scholar, and Heiter, H., ‘The Sociology of Prostitution in Antiquity’ trans. Delong, L. in Golden, M. and Toohey, P. (eds), Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome (Edinburgh 2003) 57-113 at 81Google Scholar.

24 Herescu (n. 23) 129-34.

25 For some examples, see Clarke, John R., Looking at Lovemaking. Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C.- A.D. 250 (Berkeley 1998) plates 7-9, pp. 165-7, 172, 202-4 and 216–18Google Scholar. The last two instances listed belong to venues for prostitution, respectively a lupanar, ‘brothel’, and the Suburban Baths (= pl. 9): sex was on sale in balnea along with other commodities (cf. McGinn (n. 19) 23-6, 207-14). It has been suggested, not uncontroversially, that, within Roman society, explicit paintings of sexual acts tend to occur in the context of the brothel; cf. McGinn (n. 19) 113, 117, 133, 157-8.

26 Cf. Asclep, ./Poseidipp, . AP 5.202Google Scholar, Hor. Sat. 2.7.50, Ov. AA 3.777-8, Apul. Met. 2.17, where Fotis is markedly assimilated to a prostitute (cf. May, RegineApuleius and Drama (Oxford 2006) 175–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with 176 n. 132 for Venus pendula as a position favoured by meretrices).

27 Dig. 23.2.43Google Scholar pr. 3 and 7-9. Cf. Flemming, R., ‘Quae Corpore Quaestum Facit. The Sexual Economy of Female Prostitution in the Roman Empire’, JRS 89 (1999) 38-61 at 52Google Scholar. On the Julian and Papia-Poppaean laws on marriage, see Treggiari, , Roman Marriage (Oxford 1991) 60–80Google Scholar.

28 On the difficulties of extracting the core of genuinely early material from Roman legal codices which had been through various revisions, see DeFelice, J., Roman Hospitality. The Professional Women of Pompeii (Warren Center, Pennsylvania 2001) 39-43 and 92–4Google Scholar, who suggests however (94) that in the early centuries of the Empire there was little scope to deviate from the original intentions behind the Augustan laws bearing on marriage and the status of prostitutes.

29 Cf. supra with n. 19.

30 One wonders whether, in view of Lesbia's role in c. 37 and Catullus‘ emphasis on omnes, the poet might have had in mind the hospitable Pasiphile, ‘Lover of All’, in a line attributed to Archilochus, euethes xeinon dektria Pasiphile, ‘good-natured Pasiphile, receiver of strangers’ (frg. 331. 2 West).

31 Cf. 32 ea quam omnes semper amicam omnium quam cuiusquam inimicam putaverunt (‘a woman whom everyone has always thought of as everyone's friend rather than anyone's enemy’), 38 nihil iam in istam muh'erem dico, sed, si esset aliqua dissimilis istius quae omnibus sepervolgaret (‘I say nothing now against that woman. But if there were someone unlike her who made herself available to all and sundry.’), 49 quoted in n. 17.

32 Contrast Caelius' famous sneer that Clodia was a quadrantaria Clytemnestra, i.e. admitted her lovers for a quadrans. see Austin (n. 17) on Cie. Cael. 62. In a similar piece of quasi-verisimilitude, the meretrix Augusta, ‘imperial whore’, Messalina allegedly exacted a fee from her clients (Juv. Sat. 6.125).

33 Most plump for separate groups: cf. Krostenko (n. 6) 263 n.110 for details, adding Godwin, J., Catullus. The Shorter Poems. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Warminster 1999)Google Scholar on 15-16, Booth, A.D., ‘Une de Capillatis…Egnati’, EMC/CV 29 (1985) 111-20 at 114Google Scholar and Johnson (n. 11) 86. Kroll (n. 3) ad loc. sees the parties as one, as does Lenchantin (n. 3) ad 15, while Nappa (n. 2) 69 more subtly opines that ‘Catullus maintains [the] distinction [between the boni and the pusilli] so that we may observe its spectacular collapse.’

34 Krostenko (n. 6) 263-4, noting that, in the context of a single sentence in Cicero at least, et quidem, which here (15) links the omnes boni and the omnes pusilli, typically does not introduce another parallel constituent but rounds out the picture of an already mentioned constituent.

35 To my mind Krostenko's point about et quidem (previous note) is a more compelling argument than he allows for the homogenisation of the two groups. Additional support is lent by the parallel appearance of omnes at the beginning of lines 15 and 16, inviting their identification. Finally, it suits Catullus’ vituperative purposes to show the boni beatique to be no more than pusilli et semitaríi moechi (cf. Krostenko 263: ‘there is no reason someone well-off could not be given to sneaking around the backstreets in pursuit of cheap sex.’). As Kroll (n. 3) saw, it is the revelation that Lesbia's fine lovers are in the event merely low-grade lechers that is above all indignum(15).

36 Cf. Sen. Contr. 1.2.8 omnis sordida iniuriosaque turba hue (sc. in lupanar) influii (‘into this place flows a crowd of low-class, dangerous types’); Col. 1.8.2; Herter (n. 23) 77. Most of the clients of brothels were of lower-class, if not servile status: cf. McGinn (n. 19) 71-2, who examines the reasons for this.

37 Cf. McGinn (n. 19) 19-20, 84-6; Clarke (n. 25) 196-204, emphasising the unsalubrious character of such establishments; Treggiari (n. 27) 301-2. Cf. also Hor. Ep. 1.14.21-2 fornix tibi (his slave- vilicus) et uncta popina / incutiunt urbis desiderium (‘the brothel and the greasy cookhouse instil in you a longing for the City’) and Sat. 2.7.46 ff, where a visit to a prostitute is presented as an option readily available to a slave, but not an eques, who must instead resort to a risky liaison with a married woman.

38 ‘Prostitutes have always been criticised for not being selective’, Herter (n. 23) 78, with n.272.

39 [Quint.] Deel. Mai. 14.7.

40 A Roman would hardly use (cori)futuere of coitus with his wife.

41 An exception is the brief notice in Syndikus (n. 7) 214.

42 For puella = ‘whore’ see further Adams (n. 23) 346-8.

43 8.5 amata nobis quantum amabitar nulla (‘loved by us as no other woman will be loved’), 87.1 -2 nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam / vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea est (‘no woman can truly say that she has been loved as much as my Lesbia has been by me.’)

44 Syndikus (n. 7) 214 notes as a comparable effect the radically different connotations of amare in lines 15 and 12. flanc… omnes amatis (15) is grossly sexual (cf. Cie. Cat. 2.8, Adams [n. 15] 188; Wray [n. 2] 86). Amata tantum quantam amabitur nulla (12) records deep feelings of affection, now cruelly disappointed.

45 Indeed, as Maxine Lewis acutely points out to me, Catullus is in c. 37 objectifying Lesbia for supposedly making an object of herself, a notable piece of circularity.

46 Unsurprisingly, in talking of prostitutes, cost is often mentioned: cf. Latin quadrantaria, a whore costing a quarter of an as, or diobolaris, one who charges two obols; further Herter (n. 23) 71-2 and McGinn (n. 19) 40-55 for price scales.

47 For another passage in which the purely commercial, emotionless nature of the transaction between whore and customer is stressed, cf. Philemon frag. 3.13-15 K.-A. For ‘the emotional indifference of the parties to each other’ as characteristic of prostitution, see McGinn (n. 19) 7.

48 Cf. the word play at Apul. Met. 1.8, qui voluptatem veneriam et scortum scorteum Lari et liberis praetulisti (‘who chose the pleasures of sex and a leathery whore before home and children.’)

49 On all three terms see Adams (n. 23) 321-7.

50 Adams (n. 15) 120.

51 Ibid.

52 Alternatively, these could be instances of male boasting, akin to, if more graphic than, the claim of gladiators to be suspirium puellarum, ‘heartthrob of girls’ {CIL 4.4342) or puparru domnus, ‘ruler of girls’ hearts’ (CIL 4.4356). McGinn (n. 19) 41 expresses scepticism regarding graffiti in which a meretrix apparently praises a customer's sexual prowess.

53 For a further instance of fatuo in the context of prostitution, see n. 19.

54 So the commentators generally regard her. A heterodox view in Gratwick, A.S., ‘C. XXXII’, CQ 41 (1991) 547–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 A large collection of instances from the Pompeian graffiti in Krenkel, W.A., ‘Fellatio and Irrumatio‘, WZR 29.5 (1980) 77-88, at 85–7Google Scholar.

56 Adams (n. 23) 340.

57 Cf. Herter (n. 23) 79.

58 On the meaning of sopio here, see Adams (n. 15) 64-5.

59 See Krenkel (n. 55) 86.

60 Booth (n. 33) 114 n.13 compares Juventius’ alleged unwisdom in choice of lovers (cf. 24 and 81 ) – though here the numbers are immeasurably smaller than in Lesbia's case.

61 Note the deflating echo of boni beatique (14) in Egnati, opaca quem bonum facit barba (19).

62 Tatum, W.J., ‘Social Commentary and Political Invective’, in Skinner, M. (ed.), A Companion to Catullus (Oxford 2007) 333–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 The Lesbius of c. 79 and the Gellius of the Gellius-cycle (cc. 74, 80, 88-91) being cases in point: for the noble standing of the latter, see Wiseman, , ‘Who was Gellius?’, in his Cinna the Poet and Other Roman Essays (Leicester 1974) 119–29Google Scholar.

64 Cf. Val. Max. 9.1.8, Tac. Ann. 15.37.3, Juv. 6.114-32, with the comments of McGinn (n. 19) 159-62.