[Michael Juster]

Can anyone give me the page numbers for a July 11 The New Republic review by James Romm called "The Erotic Bard of Ancient Rome"? I have read it online but would like to cite it.

As always, I am grateful for the kindness of friends.

[Allen Tice]

If you can wait a few days, I think I have it in my files at home. Not there at the moment. I recall that the author got a thing or two right.

[Michael Juster]

Much obliged (although I didn't agree with the review at all).

[Allen Tice]

Well, I don't have it on-screen or in-hand at the moment. I recall questioning points and agreeing with points. We might agree on all points. Give me two or three days to get you the data. Right this hour I'm doing footnotes for a paper on Poem 63, about which the communis opinio is still ... unresolved. Best.

[Allen Tice]

Long story short: I packed a bit more than I thought when I left for where I am now, and I have my store-bought printed > July/August 2016 < issue of the New Republic in front of me. It's cover shows Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton below the headline "THE SPLIT". It contains is no review of anything by James Romm; there is no item called "The Erotic Bard of Ancient Rome"; there is nothing in it about Catullus, good or bad. There are no page numbers at all for him, or him.

Mr. Romm's review is therefore not actually real! His effort exists only on digital servers somewhere and could vanish with the corruption of a few hundred controller bytes. You could cite it as "retrieved mm/dd/yy". Interested people should get it before it gets lost.

Apologies. What I was thinking of in my monofocussed mind was an item on a recent book titled: "Catullus' Bedspread: The Life of Rome's Most Erotic Poet" by Daisy Dunn. Right here and now I'm unsure which publication that was in, maybe not even a US magazine. I buy things to read in stores and get them in the mail, and rip out pages. That's all I can do at present. Hope your review goes well.

[W.F. Lantry]

For the curious: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-a6825256.html

https://newrepublic.com/article/1349...d-ancient-rome

Decent list of reviews and recognitions here: http://www.daisydunn.co.uk/

[Allen Tice]

From Romm's review, an inconvenient truth on which I will stay mum for the moment (emphasis mine):

"The trouble is that Clodius had three sisters, all of whom were named Clodia, and at least one recent scholar has strongly argued that a different Clodia was the woman who drove young Catullus half-insane."

Best to all, regardless of your vote for whichever Clodia takes your fancy. Three wishes.

[Charlie Southerland]

Four Clodia's is a set. right?

[Michael Juster]

That's weird. Thanks, Alan. I'm not quite sure how to cite that, but my editor will have opinions anyway, so I won't worry about it.

The piece you found is Romm's review of Dunn's book, which I am also reviewing.

[Allen Tice]

No, Charlie, it's a Monopoly board railroad group.

Interested Clodia taxonomists should start by poring over T.P. Wiseman's 1985 (and reprinted often by Cambridge) 'Catullus and His World: A Reappraisal', especially Chapter VII, pp 211-218, on the inventive proto-cinematic theorizationes of Ludwig Schwabe (pp 217-18), and then read anything else by Wiseman on the subject. There's lots and lots here and there. His main and trenchant point is that there is no actual evidence at all that Clodia Metelli was that Clodia, and that there is plenty of secondary evidence that makes the usual name identifications for the Mettelli connection questionable or sometimes simply impossible. But that Metelli lady is a hot, hot number in Cicero's rendering. And so: hot, hot poet: hot, hot (seeming) lady. I ask, why would Catullus want to make babies with a woman who was married perhaps 20 years before he likely met her?

Takes all kinds, I guess. Three wishes.

Allen