As Important as Callimachus?

Abstract

This chapter departs from the fact that Sappho is a case in point for many kinds of translations in Roman culture, notably from Greek to Latin, female to male, and from one poetic form to another. By looking at Sappho and Callimachus as two sides of Catullus’ translational technique, this chapter proposes that Sappho can be regarded to be at least as important as Callimachus in the case of Catullus. Catullus, possibly inspired by an existing Hellenistic tradition, thus seems to introduce a model for pairing Sappho with another Greek, male poet, which proves productive in later Roman poets such as Horace, Propertius, Ovid, and Martial.