Catullus et Cicero:   A dive into
the twilight of the Roman Republic

Foreword

Rome of the 1st century BC saw the emergence of two prominent voices —in the names of Cicero and Catullus—as sociopolitical tensions tightened the Republic in its twilight years. 

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Marcus Tullius Cicero, born 106 BCE, was a celebrated orator, lawyer, and statesman who championed tradition. Originally of Equestrian rank, he wore the title novus homo for his rhetorical skills, which won him great auctoritas among other honors. Particularly, his successful quelling of the Catilinarian conspiracies—an attempted coup d'état in 63 BC by the debt-ridden nobleman Lucius Sergius Catilina—won him his later title as pater patriae, albeit not without qualms of legitimacy that led to his exile in 58 BC. In four volumes of speech, the first of which is featured in this book, Cicero protected the voice of the conservative aristocrats, known as the optimates, condemning Catiline’s attempts as subversive to order and detrimental to the Republic’s health. His passionate, and oftentimes, unrelenting advocacy of the conservative order, including his scathing criticism of Caesar and Antony via The Philippics, ultimately brought his severe death by proscription in 43 BC.

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Standing in contrast to the austere orator Cicero was the neoteric poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, born just two decades later, in 84 BCE. As a prominent figure of the νεωτερικοί—avant-garde Latin poets—he worshipped poetry of deep personal reflection and venustas and brevitas, marking a major deviation from the verbose, collective-oriented, and narrative-leaning epic tradition. Just as his voice, his themes were progressive, often challenging the cultural norms of Roman society regarding sexuality and gender roles, nor did he shy away from indulging in mischief and the occasional vulgarity. 

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Cicero and Catullus, as one may postulate, were far from being favorite contemporaries of each other. Cicero despised all things subversive to tradition; Catullus disdained all things political, as demonstrated by his playful address to Cicero in poem #49 and other satirical pieces about Caesar and Pompey. However, woven through this volume is a conversation of two great forces at odds—the traditional, collective, and rational of Cicero’s In Catilinam, and the progressive, personal, and humanistic of Catullus’ verses—that marked the heightening impetus for change in the last decades of the Roman Republic, as it foresaw the years ahead of what is to be known as the most influential empire in history. 

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Through the pages of these volumes, the reader will find a flame burn in their innermost marrows through Catullus’ impassioned confessions of love affair with Lesbia, or his civil duties prompted by Cicero’s call for the restoration of virtues in the Republic. A close examination of the two writers will inspire a deeper reflection on the nature of social change, and within, the tension between self and collective, emotion and rationality, and freedom and duty, which have resonated in many societies around the world throughout time, and especially in the strikingly polarized world of today