Introduction Catullus is one of the most popular and most translated Latin poets. His popularity continues to grow, with the variety of translations proliferating and accelerating since the 1960s. The dates of his birth and death are uncertain; according to St Jerome, Gaius Valerius Catullus was born in Verona in 87 bce and died in Rome in 57 bce. However, evidence from the poems shows that he was still alive as late as 54 bce: Poem 11 alludes to Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain. Mention of the soldier and politician in a scattering of poems make it clear Catullus was living at the time of Caesar (apparently a friend of his father’s) and other Roman notables, who walk into (and then out of ) the poems, such as Cicero. He was on the staff of Memmius in the province of Bithynia in 57 (Poem 10), and knew contemporary Roman poets and writers such as Cornelius Nepos, the dedicatee of the poems (Poem 1). The identification of his lover, the noblewoman Clodia Metelli, named ‘Lesbia’ in the poems, is not a certainty, although likely. In addition, the text shows the poet was familiar with, and translated versions of, the Greek and Hellenic poets Sappho and Callimachus. These facts, and others gleaned from the poems and corroborated by secondary sources, are as much as we can be certain of. Despite the scarcity of facts about Catullus’s life, there is enough circumstantial evidence, wider historical record and textual allusion to build a biographical interpretation of the poems. Indeed, Daisy Dunn’s Catullus’ Bedspread: The Life of Rome’s Most Erotic Poet is full-blown biography, proving that this approach to Catullus and his poems, which perpetuates his reputation as Latin literature’s most popular and accessible poet, can yield a fast-paced read. Fictional accounts of Catullus’s life and times are not unheard of either, nor are they particularly new: Thornton Wilder’s epistolary novel The Ides of March, dating from 1948, is a minor masterpiece in its own right. The biographical approach to Catullus is so attractive because of, rather than despite, the limited factual evidence. What facts we introduction . ix