Quintus Lutatius Catulus

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For the more famous Latin poet, see Catullus.

Quintus Lutatius Catulus (149-87 BC) was consul of the Roman Republic in 102 BC, and the leading public figure of the gens Lutatia of the time. His colleague in the consulship was Gaius Marius, but the two feuded and Catulus sided with Sulla in the civil war of 88–87 BC. When the Marians regained control of Rome in 87, Catulus committed suicide rather than face prosecution.

As general[edit]

In the war against the Cimbri and Teutones, Catulus was sent to defend the passage of the Alps but found himself compelled to retreat across the Po River, his troops having been reduced to a state of panic. But the Cimbri were defeated on the Raudine plain, near Vercellae, by the united armies of Catulus and Marius. Despite their joint success, the two commanders regarded each other as bitter rivals and after the war built competing temples to demonstrate divine favor.[1]

When the chief honour for victory over the Cimbri was given to Marius, Catulus turned vehemently against his former co-commander and sided with Sulla to expel Marius, Cornelius Cinna, and their supporters from Rome. When Cinna and Marius regained control of the city in 87, Catulus was prosecuted by Marius's nephew, Marcus Marius Gratidianus. Rather than accept the inevitable guilty verdict, he committed suicide.[2]

As author[edit]

Catulus was distinguished as an orator, poet and prose writer, and was well versed in Greek literature. He wrote a history of his consulship (De consulatu et de rebus gestis suis) in the manner of Xenophon. A non-extant epic on the Cimbrian War, sometimes attributed to him, was more likely written by Archias.[3] Catulus's contributions to Latin poetry are considered his most significant literary achievements. He is credited with introducing the Hellenistic epigram to Rome and fostering a taste for short, personal poems that comes to fruition with the lyric oeuvre of Valerius Catullus in the 50s BC. Among his circle of literary friends, who ranged widely in social position and political sympathies, were Valerius Aedituus, Aulus Furius, and Porcius Licinius.[4]

Pliny lists him among distinguished men who wrote short poems that were less than austere (versiculi parum severi).[5] Only two epigrams by Catulus have been preserved, both directed at men. Cicero preserves two of Catulus's couplets on the celebrated actor Roscius, who is said to make an entrance like a sunrise: "though he is human, he seems more beautiful than a god."[6]

The other epigram, modeled directly after Callimachus, is quoted by Aulus Gellius and may be paraphrased in prose as follows:[7]

My mind escapes me; I imagine it's decamped to the usual place: Theotimus. That's right, he runs the asylum. What if I don't outlaw it, and instead of letting the fugitive come to him inside, he prefers ejection? We'll go on a manhunt, but in truth I'm alarmed that we might be captured in the flesh ourselves. What to do? Venus, I need a plan.[8]

"The willingness of a member of the highest Roman aristocracy to toss off imitations of Hellenistic sentimental erotic poetry (homosexual at that)," notes Edward Courtney, "is a new phenomenon in Roman culture at this time."[9]

As builder[edit]

Catulus was a man of great wealth, which he spent in beautifying Rome. Two buildings were known as Monumenta Catuli: the Temple of Fortuna Huiusce Diei (the "Fortune of This Day"), to commemorate the day of Vercellae, and the Porticus Catuli, built from the sale of the Cimbrian spoils.

Marriage and descendants[edit]

Three wives are attested for Catulus:

  1. Domitia of the Ahenobarbi, the mother of his homonymous son Quintus Lutatius Catulus (consul 78, censor 65 BC).[10]
  2. Servilia of the Caepiones, who was mother of his daughter Lutatia Q. Hortensi, the wife of the great orator Quintus Hortensius Hortalus (consul 69).[11]
  3. Claudia, of uncertain family but probably of the Marian aligned branch of Claudi Marcelli. This was probably Catulus' longest marriage (c. 103-87 BC) if, as seems likely, he wed her to secure Marian support for his election as a consul, which he only belatedly achieved at the comitia in 103 for 102 BC. However, she is only attested as his wife at the time of his death at the end of 87 BC.[12] There is no record of any children by this match.

An approximate chronology of the marital affairs of Catulus is as follows:
c.126 Married Domitia
125 or 124 Birth of Catulus Capitolinus
c.111 Death or divorce of Domitia
c.109 Praetor this year, married Servilia
She was probably eldest daughter (born around 124) of his coeval, and colleague as praetor, Q. Servilius Caepio (cos. 106). The latter's apparently promiscuous daughters were harshly abused as whores by Timagenes of Alexandreia.[13]
c.108 Birth of Lutatia (mother of Hortensia oratrix and Q. Hortensius the poet and Caesarian)
105 Arausio disaster, and disgrace and imprisonment of Q. Caepio
104 Caepio escaped into exile and Catulus discarded[clarification needed] his daughter Servilia
103 Catulus married Claudia (probably of the Marcelli, daughter of Marius' friend and legate M. Marcellus pr.c.105) and finally elected cos. for 102 after three previous defeats. About the same year the discarded Servilia was married by M. Livius Drusus (tr.pl. 91; c.127-91 BC) and Caepio filius (q.urb. 100; c.127-90 BC) wed Livia the sister of his close friend Drusus.

Ancient sources[edit]


  1. ^ See discussion by A. Clark, Divine Qualities: Cult and Community in Republican Rome (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 127ff. online.
  2. ^ A.R. Dyck, A Commentary on Cicero, De officiis (University of Michigan Press, 1996), p. 598 online; Bruce Marshall, "Catilina and the Execution of M. Marius Gratidianus," Classical Quarterly 35 (1985), p. 125, note 8; Erich Gruen, Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149–78 B.C. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 232–234.
  3. ^ Suetonius, De Grammaticis 3; Edward Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 75.
  4. ^ Gian Biaggio Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 138–139 online.
  5. ^ Pliny, Epistula 5.3.5.
  6. ^ Mortalis visus pulchrior esse deo (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 1.79).
  7. ^ Callimachus, Epigram 41 Pfeiffer (= 4 in the Gow-Page edition). The passage (Attic Nights 19.9) by Aulus Gellius is one of the sources for Catulus's literary associations with Valerius Aedituus and Porcius Licinius; see also Apuleius, Apologia 9.
  8. ^ Latin text in Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets p. 70 online, with explication and discussion pp. 75–76. Catulus's shifts from first-person singular to first-person plural are preserved in this translation.
  9. ^ Courtney, The Fragmentary Latin Poets p. 75 online.
  10. ^ A fragment of Cicero pro C.Cornelio, quoted at Asconius 86-7G, calls Cn. Domitius (cos. 96) maternal uncle (avunculus) of Catulus Capitolinus (cos. 78). Therefore the mother of Catulus Capitolinus (born c.125) was a Domitia of the Ahenobarbi born c.141 and the first wife of Catulus the consul 102 (born 149)
  11. ^ Cicero, de Oratore III, 228 calls Q.Hortensius Hortalus the orator (cos. 69) Catulus' son-in-law and sodalis (companion in some college or religious association) at the dramatic date of September 91 BC. Then at the dramatic date of 70 BC Cicero, Verr.II 2.24 names Hortensius' mother-in-law as a Servilia femina primaria. Presuming that Hortensius' first wife, Lutatia, was still his wife in 70 BC then her mother was this Servilia who was, in turn, the second wife of Catulus cos. 102.
  12. ^ The Berne scholium on Lucan.II, 173 (p.62, ed.Usener).
  13. ^ cited by Strabo IV, 1.13 = Timagenes F11 ed. Jacoby (FGrH no. 88)
Political offices
Preceded by
Lucius Aurelius Orestes and Gaius Marius
Consul of the Roman Republic
with Gaius Marius
102 BCE
Succeeded by
Manius Aquillius and Gaius Marius