Born to one of Verona's leading families, Catullus spent most of his young adulthood in Rome, mingling with the likes of Caesar and Cicero, and chronicling his life through poetry. Famed for having a lyrical and subversive voice, his poems about friends were jocular and often ob…
"Daisy Dunn's vivid narrative rediscovers the life and poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome's first "modern" poet, a dandy who fell in love with another man's wife and made it known to the world through his timeless verse"--
After being banished to the Black Sea by the Roman emperor Augustus in 8 AD, Ovid responded in verse by composing the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Here the poet establishes for himself a place of intellectual refuge, where he can reflect out loud on how and why his own art ha…