ABSTRACT
This poem is generally considered the first example of the elegiac genre. It offers the length and complexity typical of the form and anticipates later uses of mythological exempla. The poem is also important because it gives us a rare glimpse into the overall narrative of the Lesbia affair. Here Catullus clearly states that it is an adulterous affair, but that he nonetheless conceives of his relationship to Lesbia as a kind of marriage [10, 13, 37]. * Such a demand for fidelity in an adulterous liaison would have been highly unusual in the Roman world and highlights the eccentric nature of the affair portrayed by Catullus [12]. It is this commitment to a woman to whom one would normally owe no such thing that signals the unique status of the elegiac romance in Roman life. This poem also foreshadows later developments in the genre by showing that Catullus's sense of commitment was not shared by his beloved. It is this presumed inequality of feeling that lies behind the common elegiac theme of servitium amoris or “the slavery of love” [8]. One feature of this theme is the casting of the beloved in the figure of the domina [7], the poet's literal mistress, an inversion of the normal Roman hierarchy of gender relations. This poem features the first use of the word domina in an erotic context.
