As milk-producers, and therefore as dairy cattle, certain strains of the Shorthorn (registered as well as non-pedigree), the Lincolnshire Red Shorthorn, South Devon, Longhorn, Red Polled, Ayrshire, Jersey, Guernsey, Kerry and Dexter breeds have acquired eminence. Such breeds as the Shorthorn, Lincolnshire Red Shorthorn, South Devon, Welsh, Red Polled and Dexter are claimed as useful beef-makers as well as milk-producers, and are classified as dual-purpose animals. The others belong to the beef-producers. As regards colour, red is characteristic of the Lincolnshire Shorthorn, the Hereford, Devon, Sussex and Red Polled. Black is the dominating colour of the Welsh, Aberdeen-Angus, Galloway, Kerry and Dexter. A yellowish hue is seen in the West Highland, Guernsey and South Devon breeds. Various shades of fawn colour are usual in Jersey cattle and also appear among Highlanders. The Herefords, though with red bodies, have white faces, manes, and dewlaps, whilst white prevails to a greater or less extent in the Shorthorn, Longhorn and Ayrshire breeds. The Shorthorn breed is exceedingly variable in colour; pure-bred specimens may be red, or white, or roan, or may be marked with two or more of these colours, the roan resulting from a blending of the white and red. Black is not seen in a pure-bred Shorthorn. The biggest and heaviest cattle come from the beef-making breeds, and are often cross-bred. Very large or heavy beasts, if pure-bred, usually belong to one or other of the Shorthorn, Hereford, Sussex, Welsh, West Highland, Aberdeen-Angus and Galloway breeds. The Devon, Red Polled and Guernsey are medium-sized cattle; the Ayrshires are smaller, although relatively the bullocks grow larger than bulls or cows. The Jerseys are small, graceful cattle, but the smaller type of Kerries, the Dexters and the Shetlanders furnish the smallest cattle of the British Isles.
See generally theHerd Booksof the various breed societies.
See generally theHerd Booksof the various breed societies.
(W. Fr.; R. W.)
Rearing and Feeding.7—A calf at birth scales from one-twelfth to one-fourteenth the weight of the dam. A sucking calf of one of the large breeds should gain 3 ℔ per day for the first month, 2.5 ℔ for the second, and 2 ℔ during the later calf period. Colostrum, or first-day milk after calving, contains more than five times the albuminoid compounds found in average cows’ milk. In the course of three or four days it gradually becomes normal in composition, although the peculiar flavour remains a few days longer. Nature has specially prepared it for the youngcalf with extremely nourishing and also laxative properties, and it is of practically no value for any other purpose. Normal cows’ milk has an albuminoid ratio slightly narrower than 1 : 4—colostrum 1 : .71. [The ratio is arrived at by adding to the percentage of milk-sugar, possessing about the food equivalent of starch, the fat multiplied by 2.268, and dividing by the total albuminoids—all digestible.]
Common nutrient ratios for older animals are stated in the following table of food standards by Dr Emil Wolff:—Food Consumed per Day.Dry.Digestible.LiveWeightOrganicMatterAlbu-minoidFatsCarbo-HydratesAlbuminoidRatio.℔℔℔℔℔℔Calves, growing, 2 to 3 months1503.30.60.302.11 : 4.7Young cattle ” 3 to 6 ”3007.01.00.304.11 : 5” ” 6 to 12 ”50012.01.20.306.81 : 6” ” 12 to 18 ”70016.81.40.289.11 : 7” ” 18 to 24 ”85020.41.40.2610.31 : 8Oxen in complete rest100027.50.70.158.01 : 12” fattening, 1st period100027.02.50.5015.01 : 65” ” 2nd period100026.03.00.7014.81 : 5.5” ” 3rd period100025.02.70.6014.81 : 6Milch cows100024.02.50.4012.51 : 5.4Digestible albuminoid nitrogen is the scarcest and consequently the costliest ingredient in food-stuffs, but, since the introduction of vegetable proteid made by Mitchell’s process from the castor bean, an easy and inexpensive means of balancing cattle food ratios is available. By this means the manurial value of the excrement is increased. The calculations necessary in arriving at a ratio are simplified by the employment of Jeffers’s calculator (Plainsboro, N.J.).
Common nutrient ratios for older animals are stated in the following table of food standards by Dr Emil Wolff:—
Digestible albuminoid nitrogen is the scarcest and consequently the costliest ingredient in food-stuffs, but, since the introduction of vegetable proteid made by Mitchell’s process from the castor bean, an easy and inexpensive means of balancing cattle food ratios is available. By this means the manurial value of the excrement is increased. The calculations necessary in arriving at a ratio are simplified by the employment of Jeffers’s calculator (Plainsboro, N.J.).
There are three common methods of rearing calves, (1) The calf sucks its mother or foster-mother. This is the natural method and the best for the show-yard and for early fattening purposes; but it is the most expensive, and the calves, if not handled, grow up wild and dangerous. Store stock may be also raised by putting two calves to one cow and weaning at three months old; a second pair in turn yielding place to a single calf. (2) Full milk from the cow at about 90° F. is given alone until the latter part of the milk period; then the calf is trained to eat supplementary foods to preserve the calf-fat after weaning. A large calf at first receives daily three quarts of milk at three meals. The amount is increased to 2 gallons by the end of the fourth week, and to 2½ gallons at 3 months, when gradual weaning begins. Linseed cake meal is specially suitable for such calves. (3) The calf receives full milk from the mother for one to two weeks, or better, for three to four weeks; then it is slowly transferred to fortified separated milk or milk substitutes. Cod-liver oil, 2 oz. daily, is a good substitute for butter fat. In America cotton-seed oil, ½ oz. to the quart of milk, or an equivalent of oleomargarine heated to 110° F. and churned with separated milk, has produced a live-weight-increase of 2 ℔ daily. Linseed simmered to a jelly and added to separated milk gives good results. Moderate amounts are easily digested. Oatmeal or maize meal containing 10% of linseed meal does well, later, at less cost. Milk substitutes and calf meals require close attention in preparation, and would not fetch the prices they do if feeders possessed the technical knowledge necessary to select and mix common foods. Ground cake or linseed meal is, after a time, better given dry than cooked, being then better masticated and not so liable to produce indigestion.
Grass or fine hay in racks is provided when the calf can chew the cud. As cattle get older, live-weight-increase grows less. Smithfield weights8show that a good bullock up to a year old will increase 2 ℔ daily, a two-year-old 1¾ ℔, and a three-year-old a little over 1½ ℔
Cattle feeding on a farm consume crude produce that is inconvenient to market, and make farmyard manure; but there is frequently no profit left. To secure the balance on the right side the inlaid price per live cwt. requires to be 5s. less than the sale price—say 32s. per cwt. for lean cattle, and 37s. per cwt. for the animal when sold fat and capable of producing 60% of dressed beef. The ordinary animal yields only about 57%. A well-bred fattening bullock begins with 2 ℔ of cake and meal per day, increasing to 8 ℔ at the end of five months (6 ℔ on an average), and receives ¾ cwt. of roots and 12 ℔ of straw; at an average cost of about 4s. 3d. per imperial stone or 50s. per cwt. of dressed carcase. Heifers feed faster than bullocks, and age tells on the rate at which an animal will mature: a three-year-old will develop into prime beef more quickly and easily than a two-year-old. It is difficult to produce “baby beef” at a profit, and it can only be done with picked animals of the best flesh-producing breeds, which cannot be bought at a price per cwt. below the finished sale price, for animals producing baby beef must from start to finish (under two years old) be at all times fit to go to the fat market. It is true that a very young animal can give a better account of food than an older one, but this advantage is counterbalanced by the tendency to grow rather than to fatten. (See alsoAgriculture.)
In cold and stormy districts cattle thrive best in covered courts, but in a mild climate they do equally well in open yards with shelter-sheds. The more air they get the less liable they are to tuberculosis—example Lincolnshire and the drier south-eastern counties. The ideal method of house-feeding cattle is singly in boxes 10 ft. square, where they are undisturbed, and where the best manure is made because it is not washed by rain.
On the finest British grazing lands two lots of cattle are fed in one season. The first is finished early in July, having, without artificial feeding, laid on eight to nine stones of beef. The second lot requires three or four pounds of undecorticated cotton cake each towards the end of September and in October when grass begins to fail.
(R. W.)
1Rev. J. Storer,The Wild White Cattle of Great Britain(1879).2See Wallace’sFarm Live Stock of Great Britain(1907), Low’sBreeds of the Domestic Animals of the British Isles(1842, illustrated, and 1845), and E.V. Wilcox’sFarm Animals(1907), an American work.3Shorthorn Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1822). Sec. E.J. Powell, 12 Hanover Square, London, W.4C.J. Bates, “The Brothers Colling,”Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc.(1899).5C.J. Bates,Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Shorthorns: a Contribution to the History of Pure Durham Cattle(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1897).6Housman, “Robert Bakewell,”Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc.(1894).7See E. Wolff,Farm Foods,by H.H. Cousins (1895); A.D. Hall,Rothamsted Experiments(1905); R. Warington,Chemistry of the Farm(15th ed., 1902); W.A. Henry,Feeds and Feeding(1907); H.W. Mumford,Beef Production(1907); H.P. Armsby,Animal Nutrition(2nd ed., 1906); T. Shaw,Animal Breeding(1903); R. Wallace,Farm Live Stock of Great Britain(4th ed., 1907).8E. J. Powell,History of the Smithfield Club from 1798 to 1900(1902).
1Rev. J. Storer,The Wild White Cattle of Great Britain(1879).
2See Wallace’sFarm Live Stock of Great Britain(1907), Low’sBreeds of the Domestic Animals of the British Isles(1842, illustrated, and 1845), and E.V. Wilcox’sFarm Animals(1907), an American work.
3Shorthorn Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1822). Sec. E.J. Powell, 12 Hanover Square, London, W.
4C.J. Bates, “The Brothers Colling,”Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc.(1899).
5C.J. Bates,Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Shorthorns: a Contribution to the History of Pure Durham Cattle(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1897).
6Housman, “Robert Bakewell,”Jour. Roy. Agric. Soc.(1894).
7See E. Wolff,Farm Foods,by H.H. Cousins (1895); A.D. Hall,Rothamsted Experiments(1905); R. Warington,Chemistry of the Farm(15th ed., 1902); W.A. Henry,Feeds and Feeding(1907); H.W. Mumford,Beef Production(1907); H.P. Armsby,Animal Nutrition(2nd ed., 1906); T. Shaw,Animal Breeding(1903); R. Wallace,Farm Live Stock of Great Britain(4th ed., 1907).
8E. J. Powell,History of the Smithfield Club from 1798 to 1900(1902).
CATULLUS, GAIUS VALERIUS(?84-54b.c.), the greatest lyric poet of Rome. As regards his names and the dates of his birth and death, the most important external witness is that of Jerome, in the continuation of the EusebianChronicle, under the year 87b.c., “Gaius Valerius Catullus, scriptor lyricus Veronae nascitur,” and under 57b.c., “Catullus xxx. aetatis anno Romae moritur.” There is no controversy as to the gentile name,Valerius. Suetonius, in hisLife of Julius Caesar(ch. 73), mentions the poet by the names “Valerium Catullum.” Other persons who had thecognomenCatullus belonged to the Valerian gens,e.g.M. Valerius Catullus Messalinus, adelatorin the reign of Domitian, mentioned in the fourth satire of Juvenal (l. 113):—
“Et cum mortifero prudens Veiento Catullo.”
Inscriptions show, further, thatValeriuswas a common name in the native province of Catullus, and belonged to other inhabitants of Verona besides the poet and his family (Schwabe,Quaestiones Catullianae, p. 27). Scholars have been divided in opinion as to whether hispraenomenwasGaiusorQuintus, and in the best MSS. the volume is called simplyCatulli Veronensis liber. ForGaiuswe have the undoubted testimony, not only of Jerome, which rests on the much earlier authority of Suetonius, but also that of Apuleius. In support ofQuintusa passage was quoted from theNatural Historyof Pliny (xxxvii. 6, 81). But thepraenomenQ. is omitted in the best MSS., and in other passages of the same author the poet is spoken of as “Catullus Veronensis.” The mistake may have arisen from confusion with Q. Catulus, the colleague of Marius in the Cimbric War, himself also the author of lyrical poems. Allusions in the poems show that the date of his death given by Jerome (57b.c.) is wrong, and that Catullus survived the second consulship of Pompey (55b.c.) (cf. lv. 6, cxiii. 2), and was present in August of thefollowing year at the prosecution of Vatinius by Licinius Calvus (cf. liii.). The allusion in lii. 3—
“Per consulatum peierat Vatinius,”
does not prove that Catullus must have lived to see the consulship bestowed on Vatinius in the end of 47b.c.but only that Vatinius, after being praetor in 55b.c., was in the habit of boasting of the certainty of his attaining the consulship, as Cleopatra was in the habit of confirming her most solemn declarations by appealing to her hope of one day administering justice in the Capitol (cf. Haupt, “Quaestiones Catullianae,”Opuscula, vol. i. 1875). There is then nothing to prove that Catullus lived beyond the month of August 54b.c.Some of the poems (as xxxvii. and lii.) may have been written during his last illness. If he died in 54b.c.or early in 53b.c., Catullus must either have been born later than 87b.c., or have lived to a greater age than thirty. Catullus is described by Ovid as “hedera iuvenalia cinctus Tempora” (Amor. iii. 9. 61),—a description somewhat more suitable to a man who dies in his thirtieth year than to one who dies three or four years later. Further, the age at which a man dies is more likely to be accurately remembered than the particular date either of his death or of his birth, and the common practice of recording the age of the deceased in sepulchral inscriptions must have rendered a mistake about this less likely to occur. It seems, therefore, on the whole, most likely that Jerome’s words “xxx. aetatis anno” are correct, and that Catullus was born in 84b.c.
The statement that he was born at Verona is confirmed by passages in Ovid and Martial. Pliny the elder, who was born at Como, speaks of Catullus in the preface to hisNatural History, as his “countryman” (conterraneus), and the poet speaks of Verona as his home, or at least his temporary residence, in more than one place. His occasional residence in his native place is further attested by the statement of Suetonius (Julius Caesar, 73), that “Julius Caesar accepted the poet’s apology for his scurrilous verses upon him, invited him to dine with him on the same day, and continued his intimacy with his father as before.” As this incident could only have happened during the time that Julius Caesar was pro-consul, the scene of it must have been in the Cisalpine province, and at the house of the poet’s father, in or near Verona. The verses apologized for were those contained in poems xxix. and lvii., the former of which must have been written after Caesar’s invasion of Britain, so that this interview probably took place in the winter of 55-54b.c.The fact that his father was the host of the great pro-consul, and lived on terms of intimacy with him, justifies the inference, that he was, in wealth and rank, one of the principal men of the province. The only other important statement concerning the poet’s life which rests on external authority is that of Apuleius, that the real name of the Lesbia of the poems was Clodia. Another, which concerns the reputation which he enjoyed after his death, is given in theLife of Atticusby Cornelius Nepos (12. 4). It is to the effect that he regarded Lucretius and Catullus as the two greatest poets of his own time.
The poems of Catullus consist of 116 pieces, varying in length from 2 to 408 lines, the great mass of them being, however, short pieces, written in lyric, iambic or elegiac metre. The arrangement cannot be the poet’s; it is neither chronological nor in accordance with the character of the topics. The shorter poems, lyric or iambic, are placed first, next the longer epithalamia, (most being written in hexameters) amongst which theAttisis inserted and then those written in the elegiac metre. But, though no chronological order is observed, yet internal evidence enables us to determine the occasions on which many of the poems were written, and the order in which they followed one another. They give a very vivid image of various phases of the poet’s life, and of the strong feelings with which persons and things affected him. They throw much light also on the social life of Rome and of the provincial towns of Italy in the years preceding the outbreak of the second civil war. In this respect they may be compared with the letters of Cicero.
The poems extend over a period of seven or eight years, from 61 or 62 till 54b.c.Among the earliest are those which record the various stages of the author’s passion for Lesbia. It is in connexion with this passion that he is generally mentioned, or alluded to, by the later Roman poets, such as Propertius, Ovid, Juvenal and Martial. Her real name, as we learn from Apuleius, was Clodia. The admiration of Catullus for Sappho, the Lesbian poetess, which is clearly indicated by the imitation of her language in his fifty-first and sixty-second poems, affords an obvious explanation of the Greek name which he gave to his Roman mistress. Clodia was the notorious sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher, and in the year 56 she charged M. Caelius Rufus, after tiring of him, as she had of Catullus, with an attempt to poison her. It was in defence of Rufus that Cicero described the spell she exercised over young men, in language which might have been applied to her previous relations with the youthful poet, as well as those with the youthful orator and politician.
Poems concerning Lesbia occur among both the earliest and the latest of those contained in the series. They record the various stages of passion through which Catullus passed, from absolute devotion and a secure sense of returned affection, through the various conditions of distrust and jealousy, attempts at renunciation, and short-lived “amoris integrationes,” through the “odi et amo” state, and the later state of savage indignation against both Lesbia and his rivals, and especially against Caelius Rufus, till he finally attains, not without much suffering and loss, the last state of scornful indifference. Among the earliest of the poems connected with Lesbia, and among those written in the happiest vein, are ii. and iii., and v. and vii. The 8th, “Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,” perhaps the most beautiful of them all, expresses the first awakening of the poet to a sense of her unworthiness, before the gentler have given place to the fiercer feelings of his nature. His final renunciation is sent in a poem written after his return from the East, with a union of imaginative and scornful power, to his two butts, Furius and Aurelius (xi., “Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli”), who, to judge by the way Catullus writes of them, appear to have been hangers-on upon him, who repaid the pecuniary and other favours they received by giving him grounds for jealousy, and making imputations on his character (cf. xv., xvi., xviii., xxiii.).
The intrigue of Caelius Rufus with Lesbia began in 59 or 58b.c.It was probably in the earlier stages of this liaison that the 68th poem was written, from which it appears that Catullus, at the time living at Verona, and grieving for the recent death of his brother in the Troad, had heard of Lesbia’s infidelity, and, in consideration of her previous faithlessness in his favour, was not inclined to resent it very warmly. Two other poems in the series express the grief which Catullus felt for the death of his brother,—one, the 65th, addressed to the orator Hortensius, who is there, as in some of Cicero’s letters, called Hortalus or Ortalus, and sent to him along with theComa Berenices(lxvi.), a translation of a famous elegy of Callimachus. The other poem referring to this event (ci.) must have been composed some years later, probably in 56b.c., when Catullus visited his brother’s tomb in the Troad, on his return from Bithynia. Between 59 and 57b.c.most of the lampoons on Lesbia and her numerous lovers must have been written (e.g.xxxvii., xxxix., &c.). Some, too, of the poems expressive of his more tender feelings to her, such as viii. and lxxvi. belong also to these years; and among the poems written either during this period or perhaps in the early and happier years of his liaison, some of the most charming of his shorter pieces, expressing the affection for his young friends Verannius and Fabullus (ix., xii., xiii.), may be included.
In the year 57 the routine of his life was for a short time broken by his accompanying the propraetor C. Memmius, the friend to whom Lucretius dedicates his great poem, as one of his staff, to the province of Bithynia. His object was probably to better his fortunes by this absence from Rome, as humorous complaints of poverty and debt (xiii., xxvi.) show that his ordinary means were insufficient for his mode of life. He frankly acknowledges the disappointment of these hopes, and still more frankly his disgust with his chief (x., xxviii.). Some of the most charming and perfect among the shorter poems express the delight with which the poet changed the dulness and sultry climate of theprovince for the freedom and keen enjoyment of his voyage home in his yacht, built for him at Amastris on the Euxine, and for the beauty and peace of his villa on the shores of Lake Benacus, which welcomed him home “wearied with foreign travel.” To this period and to his first return to Rome after his visit to his native district belong the poems xlvi., ci., iv., xxxi. and x., all showing by their freshness of feeling and vivid truth of expression the gain which the poet’s nature derived from his temporary escape from the passions, distractions and animosities of Roman society. Two poems, written in a very genial and joyous spirit, and addressed to his younger friend Licinius Calvus (xiv. and l.), who is ranked as second only to himself among the lyrical poets of the age, and whose youthful promise pointed him out as likely to become one of the greatest of Roman orators, may, indeed, with most probability be assigned to these later years (xiv.). From the expression “Odissem te odio Vatiniano,” in the third line of xiv., it may be inferred that the poem was written not earlier than December (the “Saturnalia”) of the year 56b.c., as it was early in that year, as we learn from a letter of Cicero to his brother Quintus (ii. 4. 1), that Calvus first announced his intention of prosecuting Vatinius. The short poem numbered liii. would be written in August 54b.c.The poems which have left the greatest stain on the fame of Catullus—those “referta contumeliis Caesaris,” the licentious abuse of Mamurra, and probably some of those personal scurrilities addressed to women as well as men, or too frank confessions, which posterity would willingly have let die, may well have been written in the last years of his life, under the influence of the bitterness and recklessness induced by his experience. It cannot be determined with certainty whether the longer and more artistic pieces, which occupy the middle of the volume—theEpithalamiumin celebration of the marriage of Manlius Torquatus, the 62nd poem, written in imitation of the Epithalamia of Sappho, “Vesper adest: iuvenes, consurgite”; theAttis, and the Epic Idyll representing the marriage festival of Peleus and Thetis—belong to the earlier or the later period of the poet’s career. If the person addressed in the first part of the 68th is the Manlius of theEpithalamium, and the lines from 3 to 8—
“Naufragum ut eiectum ... pervigilat,”
refer to the death of Vinia, it would follow that the first Epithalamium was written some time before that poem, and thus belongs to the earlier time. While the translations of Sappho,—
“Ille mi par esse deo videtur,”
and of Callimachus (lxvi.),—
“Omnia qui magni dispexit lumina mundi,”
belong to the earlier period, theAttisand thePeleus and Thetis; although perhaps suggested by the treatment of the same or similar subjects in Greek authors, are executed with such power and originality as declare them to be products of the most vigorous stage in the development of the poet’s genius. That his genius came soon to maturity is a reason for hesitation in assigning any particular time between 62 and 54b.c.for the composition of theAttisand of that part of theEpithalamium(“Peliaco quondam prognatae vertice pinus”) which deals with the main subject of the poem. But the criticism of Munro in his edition of Lucretius, which shows similarities of expression that cannot be mere casual coincidences, between the Ariadne-episode in theEpithalamiumof Catullus (from line 52 to 266) and the poem of Lucretius, leaves little doubt that that portion at least of the poem was written after the publication of theDe rerum natura, in the winter of 55-54b.c.
No ancient author has left a more vivid impression of himself on his writings than Catullus. Coming to Rome in early youth from a distant province, not at that time included within the limits of Italy, he lived as an equal with the men of his time of most intellectual activity and refinement, as well as of highest social and political eminence. Among those to whom his poems are addressed, or who are mentioned in them, we find the names of Hortensius, Cicero, Cornelius Nepos, Licinius Calvus, Helvius Cinna and Asinius Pollio, then only a youth (xii. 8). Catullus brought into this circle the genius of a great poet, the social vivacity of a vigorous nature, the simplicity and sincerity of an unambitious, and the warmth of an affectionate disposition. He betrays all the sensitiveness of the poetic temperament, but it is never the sensitiveness of vanity, for he is characterized by the modesty rather than the self-confidence which accompanies genius, but the sensitiveness of a heart which gives and expects more sympathy and loyalty in friendship than the world either wants or cares to give in return. He shows also in some of his lighter pieces the fastidiousness of a refined taste, intolerant of all boorishness, pedantry, affectation and sordid ways of life. The passionate intensity of his temperament displays itself with similar strength in the outpourings of his animosity as of his love and affection. It was, unfortunately, the fashion of the time to employ in the expression of these animosities a licence of speech and of imputation which it is difficult for men living under different social conditions to understand, still more difficult to tolerate. Munro has examined the 29th poem—
“Quis hoc potest videre, quis potest pati,”
the longest and most important of the lampoons on Caesar and Mamurra, and shown with much learning and acuteness the motives and intention of Catullus in writing them. Had Julius Caesar really believed, as Suetonius, writing two hundred years afterwards, says he did, that “an eternal stigma had been cast upon him by the verses concerning Mamurra,” we should scarcely apply the word magnanimity to his condonation of the offence. But these verses survive as a memorial not of any scandal affecting Julius Caesar which could possibly have been believed by his contemporaries, but of the licence of speech which was then indulged in, of the jealousy with which the younger members of the Roman aristocracy, who a little later fought on the side of Pompey, at that time regarded the ascendancy both of the “father-in-law and the son-in-law,” and the social elevation of some of their instruments, and also, to a certain extent, of the deterioration which the frank and generous nature of Catullus underwent from the passions which wasted, and the faithlessness which marred his life.
The great age of Latin poetry extends from about the year 60b.c.till the death of Ovid in 17a.d.There are three marked divisions in this period, each with a distinct character of its own: the first represented by Lucretius and Catullus, the second by Virgil and Horace, the last by Ovid. Force and sincerity are the great characteristics of the first period, maturity of art of the second, facility of the last. The educating influence of Greek art on the Roman mind was first fully experienced in the Ciceronian age, and none of his contemporaries was so susceptible of that influence as Catullus. With the susceptibility to art he combined a large share of the vigorous and genial qualities of the Italian race. Like most of his younger contemporaries, he studied in the school of the Alexandrine poets, with whom the favourite subjects of art were the passion of love, and stories from the Greek mythology, which admitted of being treated in a spirit similar to that in which they celebrated their own experiences. It was under this influence that Catullus wrote theComa Berenices, the 68th poem, which, after the manner of the Alexandrines, interweaves the old tale of Protesilaus and Laodamia with the personal experiences of the poet himself, and theEpithalamiumof Peleus and Thetis, which combines two pictures from the Greek mythology, one of the secure happiness of marriage, the other of the passionate despair of love betrayed. In this last poem Catullus displays a power of creative pictorial imagination far transcending that displayed in any of the extant poetry of Alexandria. We have no means of determining what suggested the subject of theAttisto Catullus, whether the previous treatment of the subject by some Greek writer, some survival of the myth which he found still existing during his residence among the “Phrygii Campi,” or the growth of various forms of Eastern superstition and fanaticism, at Rome, in the last age of the Republic. Whatever may have been its origin, it is the finest specimen we possess, in either Greek or Latin literature, of that kind of short poem more common in modern than ancient times, in which some situation or passion entirely alien to the writer, and to his own age, is realized with dramatic intensity.But the genius of Catullus is, perhaps, even happier in the direct expression of personal feeling than in artistic creation, or the reproduction of tales and situations from mythology. The warmth, intensity and sincerity of his own nature are the sources of the inspiration in these poems. The most elaborate and one of the finest of them is theEpithalamiumin honour of the marriage of a member of the old house of Manlius Torquatus with Vinia Aurunculeia, written in the glyconic in combination with the pherecratean metre. To this metre Catullus imparts a peculiar lightness and grace by making the trochee, instead of the spondee as in Horace’s glyconics and pherecrateans, the first foot in the line. His elegiac metre is constructed with less smoothness and regularity than that of Ovid and Tibullus or even of Propertius, but as employed by him it gives a true echo to the serious and plaintive feelings of some of his poems, while it adapts itself, as it did later in the hands of Martial, to the epigrammatic terseness of his invective. But the perfection of the art of Catullus is seen in his employment of those metres which he adapted to the Latin tongue from the earlier poets of Greece, the pure iambic trimeter, as in iv.—
“Phaselus ille quem videtis hospites,”
the scazon iambic, employed in viii. and xxxi.—
“Paeninsularum, Sirmio, insularumque,”
and the phalecian hendecasyllabic, a slight modification of the Sapphic line, which is his favourite metre for the expression of his more joyful moods, and of his lighter satiric vein. The Latin language never flowed with such ease, freshness and purity as in these poems. Their perfection consists in the entire absence of all appearance of effort or reflection, and in the fulness of life and feeling, which gives a lasting interest and charm to the most trivial incident of the passing hour. In reference to these poems Munro has said with truth and force: “A generation had yet to pass before the heroic attained to its perfection; while he (Catullus) had already produced glyconics, phalecians and iambics, each ‘one entire and perfect chrysolite,’ ‘cunningest patterns’ of excellence, such as Latium never saw before or after,—Alcaeus, Sappho, and the rest then and only then having met their match.”
The work of Catullus has not come down to us intact, as is shown by lacunae and quotations in ancient writers which cannot now be found in his poems. Out of the MSS. only three have claims to intrinsic importance. The oldest and best appears to be the Bodleian (Canon. 30). But little inferior is theSangermanensis(Par. 14137). Of the third, theRomanus, we shall be better able to judge when its discoverer, Prof. W.G. Hale, has published his collation. None of these MSS. are older than the 14th century. One poem, 62, is, however, preserved in a MS. of the 9th century (theThuaneus, Par. 8071). Prof. R. Ellis’s discovery of the Bodleian MS. and E. Baehrens’s recognition of its value opened a new chapter in the history of the text. Ellis’s contributions comprise an indispensable commentary (ed. 2, 1889), an elaborate critical edition (ed. 2, 1878) and an English translation (1871) in the metres of the original. The text in the Oxford series, published in 1905, is inferior to those specified below. Baehrens’s edition, 2 volumes (text 1876, the second edition by K.P. Schulze is a misnomer; and Latin commentary 1885) is still of value. Amongst other editions with critical or explanatory notes or both may be mentioned those of A. Riese (1884), L. Schwabe (1886, withindex verborum), B. Schmidt (1887), J.P. Postgate (1889, text differing little from that in the newCorpus Poetarunt), E. Benoist and E. Thomas, with French translation by Rostand (2 vols., 1882-1890), S.G. Owen (1893, anédition de luxe), W.T. Merrill (1893, Boston, U.S.A., with succinct English notes), A. Palmer (1896, one of the best of this scholar’s works); M. Haupt’s text of the three poets Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, edited by J. Vahlen, reached its sixth edition in 1904. Of the numerous contributions to the textual and literary criticism of the poems may be named the papers in M. Haupt’sOpuscula, L. Schwabe’sQuaestiones Catullianae(1862), B. Schmidt’sProlegomena, H.A.J. Munro’sCriticisms and Elucidations of Catullus(1878; second edition by J.D. Duff, 1905). Translations into English verse by J. Cranstoun (1867), Sir T. Martin (1861, 1876), R. Ellis (above); a recent version in prose with the Latin text by F.W. Cornish (1904). For further information see Teuffel’sHistory of Roman Literature(tr. by Warre), § 214, or the more recent accounts by M. Schanz,Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, i. §§ 102-106, and Frédéric Plessis,La Poésie latine(1909), pp. 143-173.
The work of Catullus has not come down to us intact, as is shown by lacunae and quotations in ancient writers which cannot now be found in his poems. Out of the MSS. only three have claims to intrinsic importance. The oldest and best appears to be the Bodleian (Canon. 30). But little inferior is theSangermanensis(Par. 14137). Of the third, theRomanus, we shall be better able to judge when its discoverer, Prof. W.G. Hale, has published his collation. None of these MSS. are older than the 14th century. One poem, 62, is, however, preserved in a MS. of the 9th century (theThuaneus, Par. 8071). Prof. R. Ellis’s discovery of the Bodleian MS. and E. Baehrens’s recognition of its value opened a new chapter in the history of the text. Ellis’s contributions comprise an indispensable commentary (ed. 2, 1889), an elaborate critical edition (ed. 2, 1878) and an English translation (1871) in the metres of the original. The text in the Oxford series, published in 1905, is inferior to those specified below. Baehrens’s edition, 2 volumes (text 1876, the second edition by K.P. Schulze is a misnomer; and Latin commentary 1885) is still of value. Amongst other editions with critical or explanatory notes or both may be mentioned those of A. Riese (1884), L. Schwabe (1886, withindex verborum), B. Schmidt (1887), J.P. Postgate (1889, text differing little from that in the newCorpus Poetarunt), E. Benoist and E. Thomas, with French translation by Rostand (2 vols., 1882-1890), S.G. Owen (1893, anédition de luxe), W.T. Merrill (1893, Boston, U.S.A., with succinct English notes), A. Palmer (1896, one of the best of this scholar’s works); M. Haupt’s text of the three poets Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, edited by J. Vahlen, reached its sixth edition in 1904. Of the numerous contributions to the textual and literary criticism of the poems may be named the papers in M. Haupt’sOpuscula, L. Schwabe’sQuaestiones Catullianae(1862), B. Schmidt’sProlegomena, H.A.J. Munro’sCriticisms and Elucidations of Catullus(1878; second edition by J.D. Duff, 1905). Translations into English verse by J. Cranstoun (1867), Sir T. Martin (1861, 1876), R. Ellis (above); a recent version in prose with the Latin text by F.W. Cornish (1904). For further information see Teuffel’sHistory of Roman Literature(tr. by Warre), § 214, or the more recent accounts by M. Schanz,Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, i. §§ 102-106, and Frédéric Plessis,La Poésie latine(1909), pp. 143-173.
(W. Y. S.; X.)
CATULUS,the name of a distinguished family of ancient Rome of the gens Lutatia. The following are its most important members.
1.Gaius Lutatius Catulus, Roman commander during the First Punic War, consul 242b.c.He was sent with a fleet of 200 ships to Sicilian waters, and almost without opposition occupied the harbours of Lilybaeum and Drepanum. A hurriedly equipped fleet sent out from Carthage under Hanno was intercepted by the praetor Publius Valerius Falto and totally defeated (battle of the Aegates Islands, March 10, 241). Catulus, who had been wounded at Drepanum, took no part in the operations, but on his return to Rome was accorded the honour of a triumph, which against his will he shared with Valerius. (SeePunic Wars: First, ad fin.).
2.Quintus Lutatius Catulus, Roman general and consul with Marius in 102b.c.In the war against the Cimbri and Teutones he was sent to defend the passage of the Alps but found himself compelled to retreat over the Po, his troops having been reduced to a state of panic (seeMarius, Gaius). In 101 the Cimbri were defeated on the Raudine plain, near Vercellae, by the united armies of Catulus and Marius. The chief honour being ascribed to Marius, Catulus became his bitter opponent. He sided with Sulla in the civil war, was included in the proscription list of 87, and when Marius declined to pardon him, committed suicide. He was distinguished as an orator, poet and prose writer, and was well versed in Greek literature. He is said to have written the history of his consulship and the Cimbrian War after the manner of Xenophon; two epigrams by him have been preserved, one on Roscius the celebrated actor (Cicero,De Nat. Deorum, i. 28), the other of an erotic character, imitated from Callimachus (Gellius xix. 9). He was a man of great wealth, which he spent in beautifying Rome. Two buildings were known as “Monumenta Catuli”: the temple ofFortuna hujusce diei, to commemorate the day of Vercellae, and the Porticus Catuli, built from the sale of the Cimbrian spoils.
See Plutarch,Marius, Sulla; Appian,B.C.i. 74; Vell. Pat. ii. 21; Florus iii. 21; Val. Max. vi. 3, ix. 13; Cicero,De Oratore, iii, 3. 8,Brutus, 35.
See Plutarch,Marius, Sulla; Appian,B.C.i. 74; Vell. Pat. ii. 21; Florus iii. 21; Val. Max. vi. 3, ix. 13; Cicero,De Oratore, iii, 3. 8,Brutus, 35.
3.Quintus Lutatius Catulus(c. 120-61b.c.), sometimes called Capitolinus, son of the above, consul in 102. He inherited his father’s hatred of Marius, and was a consistent though moderate supporter of the aristocracy. In 78 he was consul with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, who after the death of Sulla proposed the overthrow of his constitution, the re-establishment of the distribution of grain, the recall of the banished, and other democratic measures. Catulus vigorously opposed this, and a temporary compromise was effected. But Lepidus, having levied troops in his province of Transalpine Gaul, returned to Rome at the head of an army. Catulus defeated him at the Mulvian bridge and near Cosa in Etruria, and Lepidus made his escape to Sardinia, where he died soon afterwards. In 67 and 66 Catulus unsuccessfully opposed, as prejudicial to constitutional freedom, the Gabinian and Manilian laws, which conferred special powers upon Pompey (q.v.). He consistently opposed Caesar, whom he endeavoured to implicate in the Catilinarian conspiracy. Caesar, in return, accused him of embezzling public money during the reconstruction of the temple on the Capitol, and proposed to obliterate his name from the inscription and deprive him of the office of commissioner for its restoration. Catulus’s supporters rallied round him, and Caesar dropped the charge. Catulus was the lastprinceps senatusof republican times; he held the office of censor also, but soon resigned, being unable to agree with his colleague Licinius Crassus. Although not a man of great abilities, Catulus exercised considerable influence through his political consistency and his undoubted solicitude for the welfare of the state.
See Sallust,Catilina, 35. 49; Dio Cassius xxxvi. 13; Plutarch,Crassus; Suetonius,Caesar, 15.
See Sallust,Catilina, 35. 49; Dio Cassius xxxvi. 13; Plutarch,Crassus; Suetonius,Caesar, 15.
CAUB,orKaub, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on the right bank of the Rhine, 28 m. N.W. from Wiesbaden, on the railway from Frankfort-on-Main to Cologne. Pop. 2200. It has a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, and a statue of Blücher. The trade mainly consists of the wines of the district. On a crag above the town stands theimposing ruin of Gutenfels, and facing it, on a rock in the middle of the Rhine, the small castle Pfalz, or Pfalzgrafenstein, where, according to legend, the Palatine countesses awaited their confinement, but which in reality served as a toll-gate for merchandise on the Rhine.
Caub, first mentioned in the year 983, originally belonged to the lords of Falkenstein, passed in 1277 to the Rhenish Palatinate, and attained civic rights in 1324. Here Blücher crossed the Rhine with the Prussian and Russian armies, on New Year’s night 1813-1814, in pursuit of the French.
CAUCA,a large coast department of Colombia, South America, lying between the departments of Bolivar, Antioquia, Caldas and Tolima on the E., and the Pacific Ocean and Panama on the W., and extending from the Caribbean Sea S. to the department of Nariño. Pop. (1905, estimate) 400,000; area 26,930 sq. m. Although Cauca was deprived of extensive territories on the upper Caquetá and Putumayo, and of a large area bordering on Ecuador in the territorial redistribution of 1905, it remained the largest department of the republic. The Western Cordillera, traversing nearly its whole length from south to north, and the Central Cordillera, forming a part of its eastern frontier, give a very mountainous character to the region. It includes, besides, the fertile and healthful valley of the upper Cauca, the hot, low valley of the Atrato, and a long coastal plain on the Pacific. The region is rich in mines and valuable forests, but its inhabitants have made very little progress in agriculture because there are not adequate transportation facilities. The capital of the department is Popayán at its southern extremity, with an estimated population in 1905 of 10,000, other important towns are Cali (16,000), Buga, Cartago and Buenaventura.
CAUCASIA,orCaucasus, a governor-generalship of Russia, occupying the isthmus between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov on the west and the Caspian Sea on the east, as well as portions of the Armenian highlands. Its northern boundary is the Kuma-Manych depression, a succession of narrow, half-desiccated lakes and river-beds, only temporarily filled with water and connecting the Manych, a tributary of the Don, with the Kuma, which flows into the Caspian. This depression is supposed to be a relic of the former post-Pliocene connexion between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and is accepted by most geographers as the natural frontier between Europe and Asia, while others make the dividing-line coincide with the principal water-parting of the Caucasus mountain system. The southern boundary of Caucasia is in part coincident with the river Aras (Araxes), in part purely conventional and political. It was shifted several times during the 19th century, but now runs from a point on the Black Sea, some 20 m. south of Batum, in a south-easterly and easterly direction to Mt. Ararat, and thence along the Aras to within 30 m. of its confluence with the Kura, where it once more turns south-east, and eventually strikes the Caspian at Astara (30° 35′ N.). This large territory, covering an area of 180,843 sq. m., and having in 1897 9,248,695 inhabitants (51 per sq. m.), may be divided into four natural zones or sections:—(i.) the plains north of the Caucasus mountains, comprising the administrative division of Northern Caucasia; (ii.) the Caucasus range and the highlands of Daghestan; (iii.) the valleys of the Rion and the Kura, between the Caucasus range and the highlands of Armenia; and (iv.) the highlands of Armenia.