Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet. He was born into an influential family and his father was close to Julius Caesar. He studied in Rome. His work consists of some 116 poems that include love poems, others addressed to friends or enemies, ingenious improvisations, anecdotes, satires, and short lyrics.

Catullus’s poetry was written towards the end of the Roman Republic and highlights the description of his lifestyle and that of his friends, as well as his love for the woman he calls “Lesbia”. His erotic poems were also about his attraction to other men. In modern terms, he would probably be called bi, although the Romans didn’t have labels like this. Catullus deals overtly with sexuality, love, and manners, in a period of social freedom before the puritanical mood of the early Empire held sway.