Sound, Sense, and Sequence in Meleager and Catullus

This study addresses the old question of poem-arrangement in the Catullan corpus from a new angle. It looks to a close-predecessor of Catullus, the epigrammatist Meleager, and traces of his Garland preserved in the Anthologia Palatina (hereafter AP), for parallels of compositional and organizational technique. Examination of a pair of Meleagrean sequences (AP 7.195–6; 5.6–8) and individual Catullan poems (2; 70) shows Catullus carefully included key words and sounds from the sequences he imitated. Comparison of AP 6.300–303 and Catullus 12–14 shows Catullus also imitated Meleager's use of key words and sounds in the composition of sequences of poems.