Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Volume/Issue:
Volume 63: Issue 1
Komödie und Pornographie
Catulls Carm. 10 über die Gefahren erotischer Literatur
Author:
Heiko Ullrich Independent Scholar, Germany

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Pages:
25–58
Online Publication Date:
07 Jul 2023
Publication Date:
30 Aug 2023
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/068.2023.00072
Keywords:
Catullus; Plautus; Terence; intertextuality; poetics; Neoterics
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Abstract

Catullusʼ Carm. 10 seems to present the speaker as a miles gloriosus duped by the girlfriend of Varus, presumably a friend of the poet and fellow Neoteric. While it has been claimed that Plautusʼ Miles Gloriosus is the most influential role model for Carm. 10, the present article shows that the speaker employs a variety of scenes both from Plautusʼ and Terenceʼs comedies to adopt and maintain the mask of the parasitus who suffers from his financial failure and personal humiliation during the time spent with the praetor Memmius in Bithynia. But Varus and his girlfriend want to hear other stories from the famous province of the infamous encounter between King Nikomedes and young Julius Caesar – and the speaker seems to perform according to this expectations when he calls Memmius an irrumator and (one of) his hosts a cinaedior. But in the end he is not willing to write pornography on demand even if some of his friends (including Aurelius and Furius of Carm. 16 as well as Varus of Carm. 10) consider the poet not just up to the task but currently the best choice for such delicate matters.

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Cover Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
Print ISSN:
0044-5975
Online ISSN:
1588-2543

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Editor(s)-in-Chief: Takács, László

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  • Tamás DEZSŐ (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
  • Miklós MARÓTH (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies)
  • Gyula MAYER (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Classical Philology Research Group)
  • János NAGYILLÉS (University of Szeged)
  • Lajos Zoltán SIMON (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
  • Csilla SZEKERES (University of Debrecen)
  • Kornél SZOVÁK (Pázmány Péter Catholic University)
  • Zsolt VISY (University of Pécs)

 

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  • Michael CRAWFORD (University College London, prof. em.)
  • Patricia EASTERLING (Newnham College, University of Cambridge, prof. em.)
  • László HORVÁTH (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest)
  • Patricia JOHNSTON (Brandeis University Boston, prof. em.)
  • Csaba LÁDA (University of Kent)
  • Herwig MAEHLER
  • Attilio MASTROCINQUE (University of Verona)
  • Zsigmond RITOÓK (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, prof. em.)

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Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae
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