51. It is not to be supposed, however, that all of these poems saw the light for the first time after the death of their author. The manifest point of most of the personal poems would have been utterly lost, had they not been published immediately after their composition, and the passage already cited from Suetonius (Jul. 73) shows clearly that Caesar was acquainted before their author's death with some of the poems directed against him. One poem also (c. 16. 12) contains an evident reference to the earlier publication of c. 48 (or of cc. 5 and 7?). It seems likely, therefore, that many of the poems were published singly, at least among the circle of the poet's friends, while the extant dedication of a libellus to Cornelius Nepos suggests that a smaller collection of them was made and published by Catullus himself (cf. introductory note to c. 1).
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Catullus. Catullus. E. T. Merrill. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1893.
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