E. T. Merrill, Commentary on Catullus
E. T. Merrill, Ed.

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4. With regard to his full name we are left in some doubt. He refers to himself by name in his poems twenty-five times, but in each case only by the cognomen, Catullus, while the better manuscripts of his writings are inscribed simply Catulli Veronensis Liber . Yet there is no difficulty in ascertaining his gentile name from other writers. Varro (L. L. VII. 50), Suetonius (Iul.73), Porphyrio (on Hor. Sat. 1.10.19), Charisius (1.97), Jerome (T Chron. a. Abr.1930), all give it as Valerius. There are fewer references to his praenomen. Four of the later and interpolated manuscripts give it in their titles as Quintus, and until lately it was supposed that to this indication might be added the testimony of the elder Pliny (N H. XXXVII. 81) - Relying upon such authority Scaliger went so far as to emend c. 67.12 so as to bring in for the unintelligible words “qui te ”the praenomen of the poet in the vocative, “Quinte”; and his suggestion won the approval of even so keen a critic as Lachmann. But it is now universally conceded that the initial “Q.” prefixed to the word Catullus in the passage specified from Pliny is an interpolation, the best MS., the codex Bambergensis, containing only the cognomen without prefix. There is, moreover, positive evidence in favor of a different praenomen. Jerome (l.c.), in speaking of the birth of the poet, calls him in full C. Valerius Catullus, and Apuleius (Apol. 10), whose accuracy, however, in the matter of names is not above suspicion, calls him C. Catullus. In the face, then, of the testimony of interpolated manuscripts only, his praenomen must stand established as Gaius.