Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus: life, poems and relationship with Catullus

Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus, was a Latin scholar, poet, and orator, born in Rome, and lived between 82 BC. and 47 BC; writer of as many as 21 orations, as well as a writer of poems of love and satire, similar to the poems of Catullus, of whom Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus was a friend, but also Epyllion, elegies, and Epithalamium; he was finally an adversary speaker of the famous Cicero, who considered him in some sense “dry” and “skeletal” in the physical and probably also in the style, while on the contrary, Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus considered him verbose and artificial.

The origins and style of Licinio Calvo

We know that the father of Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus was the Roman politician and historian Gaius Licinius Macro, remembered for very important measures in Republican Rome as the obligation of a minimum age for access to the judiciary, for example allowing the attainment of the position of praetor only after 39 years, as well as the rule that a pause interval of two years should be respected between one charge and another; his father sought in his policy to restore the tribunicia potestas.
Accused of concussion (lex repetundarum) by Cicero, his father was sentenced to imprisonment, where he will found death.

The works and style of Licinio Calvo

Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus, as can also be guessed from the weight of his paternal name, was not a poor man, so much so that his villa near the Roman Forum was bought and used as a residence nothing less than by the rich and powerful Augustus.

The style of Licinius Calvus’s speeches recalls atticism; the poetic current instead followed the neoteric currents.

We can also say that Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus became a famous speaker, so much to participate in the trial against Publius Vatinius; finally, it seems that he was neither a friend of Pompey nor of Cesare. Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus married Quintilla, who unfortunately soon died, leaving him alone, but to which the poet will leave some of the most beautiful love compositions in Latin literature, of which unfortunately today (at least until the next archaeological discovery), they remain only less than 24 verses, which constitute all the remaining production of this Latin author.

In addition to the verses of love, Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus will also write epigrams of various kinds, including those in which he accuses his opponent, Pompey, of being homosexual; probably, the author himself is also responsible for the authorship of a long series of epitaphs and poems written to ridicule a part of the most important slice of the Roman society of the time, such as Giulio Cesare himself. The lyric of Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus was of the Alexandrian type.

Catullus and Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus: history and characteristics of the relationship of friendship between the two

Licinius Calvo, perhaps bearing the weight of his father’s death, was an adversary orator of Cicero, an aspect shared with Catullus, as rivalry to Caesar is shared between Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus and Catullus. The two were probably almost the same age, in fact Catullus was born around 84 BC while Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus was born two years later to the Veronese poet, in 82 BC; despite his rather short life (he died at 36), Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus will live a few years longer than Catullus, about 6.

Catullus may have known Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus shortly after his transfer to Rome, the city where he arrived between 61 BC and 60 BC .; having become a friend of the speaker, together with the poet Elvio Cinna the two established a common literary union, influencing each other, their style and their arguments. Although at first sight the two were quite different in character, with a more traveling and lively Catullo in love and Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus conscientious, attentive, diligent, meticulous, dedicated instead to his studies and his job as a speaker (so much to physically feel, it seems even that his attitude may have contributed not a little to his premature death), the two had in common not only political adversaries, but also having deeply loved a woman and having transformed her into a recurring literary theme. In fact, Catullus will have his heartbroken by Lesbia, who after having had it with him will decide to move on to other lovers, occasionally mediating a reconciliation and the other with the poet; Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus, on the other hand, will write verses of love for his Quintilla, probably continuing even after her death.

Both Catullus and Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus were Neoterikoi, of the same circle, and probably had the opportunity to interchange some themes.

The common themes in the literature of Licinius Calvo and Catullus

Thus, as indeed Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus wrote love compositions for his beloved wife, now dead, Catullus will also take the concept of eternity in his poems, as will be done for example in the poem 101, dedicated to the death of his brother; through literature they both find a way to continue to communicate their affections to their loved ones, creating a common literary theme.

Another common element between the two is the writing of poems or satires relating to the politicians themselves; this commonality remained not only in the persons but also in the modalities: in fact when Catullus will ask the forgiveness of Caesar (interesting is the fact that while Catullus has accused Cesare of being homosexual, Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus has done the same addressed to Pompeo) for the carmi indirectly against of him or against his men of power, like Mamurra (see poems 29, 43, 94, 105, 114 and 115 of the Liber of Catullus), the same is thought (probably in a similar time) will also do Licinius Calvo.

Licinius Calvo described by the poems of Catullus

Catullus speaks of Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus directly in the poem 53, jokingly calling it “salaputium disertum”, or “that little thing”; in the poem Catullus “photographs” the image of Calvus during the prayer against Vatinio, explaining how the public shouted and approved in listening to the powerful and eloquent prayer of Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus against the politician. Calvo is thought to be of low stature, also due to the testimony of Catullus poem 53, and in fact from the appellative reported by Catullus for Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus derives an Italian “insult” today little used in Italy: “Salpuzio”.