I

See on LIV.

II

A dedicatory poem to Priapus, written at Lampsacus, one of the chief seats of the worship of the god. Few poems of Catullus are so often quoted by the grammarians as this; it is ascribed to him by Terentianus Maurus, Atilius Fortunatianus, and Marius Victorinus, and cited, though without the author's name, by Censorinus p. 97 Iahn. The metre is called Priapeus, and was particularly associated with this ithyphallic divinity: it recurs in this connexion Priap. 85 ed. L. Müller Hunc ego o iuuenes locum uillulamque palustrem, a poem which was long ascribed to Catullus and inserted in the editions of his works. Catullus himself uses the metre XVII O colonia quae cupis ponte ludere longo.

We can hardly infer from this tetrastich that Catullus actually consecrated a planted inclosure to Priapus. Possibly the poem was written for a Roman friend living at Lampsacus: it can hardly be a translation. We may conjecture that the occasion of a visit to the town prompted not only this, but whatever other poems Catullus wrote on the same subject. Dedicatory or epigrammatic verses on Priapus were common (Priap. 60). The Priapia contain (81) a hexastich ascribed to Tibullus, in which, like Catullus here, a certain Perspectus dedicates a temple to the god.