The Roman Cultural View of Sparrows

The first step in contextualising Catullus 2 and 3 is to ask how Romans viewed sparrows. Here we must set down our own cultural baggage, for the place of sparrows in the modern world is far removed from the classical experience. The spread of intensive agriculture and urbanisation has seen sparrows increase their range and abundance in a dramatic way. Across the majority of its modern range, the sparrow is an invasive species and considered a serious agricultural pest for the damage it does to crops and grain stores. It is also a vector for many diseases.Footnote ¹⁶ With classification as a serious pest come other stereotypes: they are dirty, or a nuisance, or simply unpleasant.Footnote ¹⁷ In the UK, where they are native birds, sparrows are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981, but individuals can still seek permission to remove or eradicate sparrows if they present a threat to agriculture or to public health and safety. Sparrows are also not caught, kept, or sold as pet birds. Such factors cause many modern readers to react with instinctive scepticism or disbelief at the idea of beautiful Lesbia devoting her time to a sparrow.

In contrast to our views, sparrows were held in esteem in the ancient Mediterranean. They had a special connection with the erotic, evident from Sappho's Hymn to Aphrodite where she playfully describes the goddess riding in a chariot drawn by sparrows (στροῦθοι). Some choose to translate στροῦθοι as ‘swans’ or ‘doves’,Footnote ¹⁸ plainly disliking the association of Aphrodite with such common birds, but sparrows suit the love goddess well.Footnote ¹⁹ These birds are prolific and their sexual habits are easily observable, making them perfect symbols of fecundity and lechery.Footnote ²⁰ In Lysistrata (723–4), a sex-starved woman is said to be ready to fly off on a στρουθός.Footnote ²¹ In Rome, the birds were also considered salacious and said to love carnal pleasure.Footnote ²² ‘Sparrow’ could be a saucy pet name (Juv. 9.54). Venus was similarly surrounded by lusty sparrows, as in the following description from Apuleius: currum deae prosequentes gannitu constrepenti lasciuiunt passeres, et ceterae quae dulce cantitant aues melleis modulis suaue resonantes aduentum deae pronuntiant (‘Sparrows follow in the train of the goddess's chariot, frisking about with merry chirping; and all the other kinds of songbird too proclaim the goddess's approach by delightfully sounding their sweet melodies’, Apul. Met. 6.6).Footnote ²³ We are here reminded of Catullus inviting ‘Venuses and Cupids’ to mourn the passing of Lesbia's sparrow.

Passer could also be a term of endearment, and apparently in quite a wholesome sense. One example involves Marcus Aurelius addressing Gratia, the daughter of his tutor, Fronto.Footnote ²⁴ Along with swallows (Hirundo rustica), sparrows served as domestic familiars in Roman houses. The two birds are depicted together in Roman art.Footnote ²⁵ The domestic role of the sparrow is also mentioned in the Bible (Psalm 84:3) in a passage about the faithful yearning for the house of God. The link between sparrows, swallows, and the home is due to the fact that the birds nest in or on human houses.Footnote ²⁶ As guests that were friendly to man and sharing his house, it was appropriate to extend Homer's laws of hospitality to swallows.Footnote ²⁷ Romans tolerated or welcomed swallows in their houses and did not kill them out of respect.Footnote ²⁸ They were under the protection of the household gods and perceived as being both wild and tame simultaneously.Footnote ²⁹ We can extrapolate that Romans had few qualms about sharing their homes with sparrows, and that nesting and cohabitation inspired a greater depth of feeling. From these examples that associate passeres with Venus, the home, and objects of affection, we can conclude that the general cultural view of sparrows was positive. Any disbelieving automatic reaction to the image of Lesbia doting on a sparrow should be tempered by an appreciation of the fact that the Romans saw sparrows very differently to us.

Pet Birds in the Roman Context

Whether it would have been appropriate for Lesbia to keep a pet sparrow also depends on an investigation of Roman bird-keeping culture. Was it common to keep birds? What kinds of birds were kept, and by whom? The picture is instantly complicated by the fact that there is no word for ‘pet’ in Latin the way that it exists in our own vocabulary. Animals were generally classified as wild or tame, kept for the purpose of work or pleasure.Footnote ³⁰ The phrase that best expressed the idea of keeping a pet was in deliciis habere.Footnote ³¹ A pet was an animal that served no function except to bring delight to its owner. One is instantly reminded of the phrase deliciae meae puellae repeated twice in Catullus – ‘my girl's delight’, or perhaps, ‘my girl's pet’.

Birds in general were highly desirable pets in the Roman world. They afforded pleasure through song, appearance, and companionship. In Latin literature there are more references to pet birds than all other kinds of pet put together.Footnote ³² There was even the concept of being in aues morbosus – ‘bird-crazy’ (Petron. Sat. 46). In the Imperial period, it became a popular pastime to acquire talking birds, from parrots to ravens.Footnote ³³ Pliny records the labour-intensive method of teaching birds how to speak.Footnote ³⁴ Jays (Garrulus glandarius) are natural mimics, and these were popularly confined in cages and hung above doorways to greet visitors.Footnote ³⁵ Pigeons were a perennial favourite.Footnote ³⁶ Interestingly, those who spent fortunes on pet birds were met with more tolerance than those who lavished money on table birds:

When we choose a pet, consciously or not we ‘communicate a great deal about the way we view the world and our place in it’.Footnote ³⁸ In Rome, whether it was socially acceptable for an individual to keep a particular bird depended on one's class, sex, and age. These factors frequently converged, as we see in Plautus’ The Captives when the character Tyndarus sets up a joke about being given a ‘crowbar’, quasi patriciis pueris aut monerulae aut anites aut coturnices dantur quicum lusitent (‘just as patrician boys are given jackdaws or ducks or quails to play with…’, Plaut. Capt. 1002–3).Footnote ³⁹ Pet birds were fine companions for children, but if elites could provide their offspring with pets that were expensive and difficult to procure, so much the better. Pliny the Younger describes the funeral of a boy:

In this example, we see clearly how the father uses his son's expensive pets to make a spectacle of his grief. The desire and ability to procure and keep a particular bird were defined by one's means and status, and there are many other examples of elites, including the Imperial family, seeking rare or ostentatious birds.Footnote ⁴¹

Overwhelmingly, birds were depicted in the company of children.Footnote ⁴² Boys and girls kept birds from when they were infantes to when they were teenagers.Footnote ⁴³ Domestic poultry were the commonest pets.Footnote ⁴⁴ Art suggests that children were very young when first given birds. Often they are little more than toddlers clutching birds in their chubby fists. Goslings, ducks, chickens and pigeons are commonly seen with infantes, probably because they are harmless and easy to handle. As the child grew older, they might be given more exotic or delicate pets that required greater care.Footnote ⁴⁵ If the family had a natural pond on their property or a garden with water features, they might keep pet ducks, which were depicted with boys in art.Footnote ⁴⁶

Perhaps because children were given birds when they were very young, it appears that as they grew older it became less acceptable for them to dote on their pets. A teenage boy could not neglect his education in favour of playing with animals, as we see in the story of a blithe young man who is mad for birds and spends all his time whistling to his blackbirds and nightingales and teaching his pets to talk instead of focusing on his own schooling. What is the world coming to, the author asks, when his birds are more eloquent than he is! (Philostr. VA 6.36). In the Satyricon, during a long-winded speech the freedman Echion declares to his fellow dinner guests that ingeniosus est et bono filo, etiam si in aues morbosus est. Ego illi iam tres cardeles occidi, et dixi quia mustella comedit (‘[My son is] a clever lad and made of good quality, even if he has an almost unhealthy interest in birds. I've already killed three of his finches and said that a weasel ate them’, Petron. Sat. 46).Footnote ⁴⁷ This passage is mocking the freedman for his pretentions, but we can gather that part of a boy's maturation involved putting aside such sentimental pursuits. This is not to say that keeping birds was unacceptable in teens and adults, merely that it had to be enjoyed in moderation, lest one fall victim to idleness and luxury.

When it comes to pet passeres, there are a handful of references. In Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (8.15), sparrows are listed among various young or weak household animals like kids, chicks, and puppies that must be carried when moving to a new home. Pliny the Younger refers obliquely to ‘little sparrows’ and ‘little doves’ caged as pets (Plin. Ep. 9.25.3). Martial brags that the pet dove of his friend Stella surpasses even the sparrow of Catullus (Mart. 1.7). While the latter two are not particularly compelling since they engage more with poetry than with real birds, Fronto gives us clear proof in a private letter, where he says of his grandson:

In Apuleius we have a picture of passeres being a regular part of the household, while Fronto indicates that it was both normal and encouraged to give them to children for play. House sparrows are abundant and live alongside humans, so acquiring captive sparrows would have been a simple task. We even have descriptions of bird-catchers going after sparrows’ nests, presumably to procure eggs or chicks for sale (Ael. NA 4.38; see also Edictum de pretiis rerum uenalium, 4.37). But was it acceptable for adult women – especially noblewomen – to keep sparrows? Martial gives us a clue when he satirises the sentimentality people harboured for their pets:

We can say with confidence that Romans delighted in pet birds, including passeres, but that sentimental pet-keeping was for children. In adults, such behaviour could be tolerated, but it was also the subject of ridicule. In such a context where households had access to sparrows and children regularly played with them, it is perfectly feasible for Lesbia to have had a pet sparrow, but her devotion to it can be construed as childish and overly emotional.

Natural Sparrow Behaviour

Now that we have shown passeres were kept as pets, we can analyse whether Lesbia's passer exhibits behaviour typical of a sparrow. There are a few clues to betray its identity. It is depicted as nestling in Lesbia's lap, nibbling at her fingers and chirping to her – pipiare (OLD² s.vv. pipio and pipo). This is a rare verb worth noting because although it can be translated as chirp, cheep, or pipe, it cannot be translated as ‘sing’.Footnote ⁵⁰ This spells trouble for some of the proposed alternative translations of passer.Footnote ⁵¹ The blue rock thrush is certainly a beautiful bird that becomes deeply attached to its owner,Footnote ⁵² but it does not chirp – it warbles and sings, and it is much larger, almost the size of a blackbird. It is more likely to have been classed as a turdus than a passer. As for the bullfinch, these birds do not have naturally tuneful songs, but if hand-raised and whistled to, they can learn to perform striking melodies. However, we have no evidence that Romans tamed bullfinches. Evidence of the method of taming and ‘whistling bullfinches’ only appears to stretch to the Middle Ages.Footnote ⁵³ The inclination to identify passer as bullfinch stems from authors of the early twentieth century, who were discussing Catullus at a time when bullfinches were familiar, popular, and coveted pets.Footnote ⁵⁴

The most striking trait of the passer is its devotion to Lesbia. While it is true that sparrows generally do not make amiable pets, especially when contrasted against alternatives, there is still a way that a sparrow could behave as Catullus describes. Sparrows taken from the wild are fragile and difficult to train, but a hand-reared sparrow would exhibit deep attachment to Lesbia. That is, if Lesbia reared a sparrow chick, it would be tame, affectionate, and devoted to her. This is perhaps even intimated in the way Catullus says the bird knew Lesbia as well as a girl knows her own mother.Footnote ⁵⁵ Raising a sparrow chick would be a demanding task, but if accomplished successfully it would engender such behaviour as fluttering around and on Lesbia, and only chirping for her. Hand-reared birds also sexually imprint on humans. Imprinting is a learning process in young birds that involves rapid attachment during a ‘sensitive period’ to a mother figure.Footnote ⁵⁶ The most famous studies on imprinting were conducted on geese by animal behaviourist Konrad Lorenz. When humans raise birds from the moment they are hatched, they become sexually stunted as they fixate on humans rather than their own kind. In the ancient world, the attachment of imprinted birds was often attributed to them being ‘in love’ with their human.Footnote ⁵⁷ This would contribute to the erotic undertones of the poem and the sense that this sparrow loves Lesbia as a mate, making him Catullus’ rival.

Was it common for women to hand-raise birds in Rome? According to Pliny, Empress Livia nursed a hen's egg in her bosom when she was pregnant with Tiberius:

Pliny means that she hatched out a rooster. Suetonius also tells this story, remarking that she hatched out a male chick with a splendid comb (Tib. 14). Even if this particular story is a fabrication, it would seem that it was a practice common to women and girls, for in the same passage Pliny goes on to wonder if this method of hatching birds’ eggs was what led to the invention of artificial incubation and the use of fire to keep eggs warm.Footnote ⁵⁹ We therefore have evidence that high-born ladies could hatch birds’ eggs and raise the chicks if they were so inclined. Although at first glance it may not seem that a sparrow could behave in the way Lesbia's passer does, we must remember that hand-rearing and imprinting could easily account for this.

Possible Meanings of the Word Passer

Our last task is to ask: to what does the word passer refer? We shall deal with the obvious first: was the word passer an obscenity? There is a small amount of evidence on this front. Some indication exists that passer could function as a euphemism for mentula, though it is not particularly convincing. Strutheum was a Greek loan word that functioned as obscene, and passero and passera function as obscenities in modern Italian.Footnote ⁶⁰ The strongest example comes from a sexual scene in Apuleius: ‘Teneo te,’ inquit ‘teneo, meum palumbulum, meum passerem’ (‘Finally she said, “I am holding you, I am holding you, my little dove, my sparrow,”’ Apul. Met. 10.22).Footnote ⁶¹ Most of the sexual energy attached to the word seems to be derived from its known connection to Aphrodite rather than the fact it was a blatant obscenity, however. The pre-existing erotic symbolism of the sparrow allows Catullus to be playful, which might be why he says playing with the bird diverts Lesbia from amorous thoughts.Footnote ⁶² But an obscene interpretation is, on the strength of it, not particularly compelling, especially since extended allegories are not found anywhere else in Catullus.Footnote ⁶³

Leaving aside possible obscenities, let us examine which birds fell under the umbrella of passer. Roman categorisation and identification of birds were different to our own and varied locally and temporally too. We can say generally that passer and στρουθός both referred to sparrows. Aristotle describes only one στρουθός, a bird that dusts itself and washes, copulates swiftly, and has males with black heads – Passer domesticus (Arist. Hist. an. 633b.4–5; 539b33; 613a29–b2). Pliny writes of passeres as amorous little birds that have black heads and hop along the ground, again Passer domesticus (HN 10.107, 111). Where things become strange is when we consider that in Greek, the ostrich was the στρουθοκάμηλος – camel sparrow.Footnote ⁶⁴ In Latin the ostrich was marinus passer – sparrow from overseas. It seems passer and στρουθός could function as generalising terms for many kinds of birds. But though it has the general meaning of bird, passer primarily indicated little brown birds.Footnote ⁶⁵ In Roman paintings, brown birds that elude identification still look out at us.Footnote ⁶⁶ Dunnock, twite, linnet, tree sparrow, house sparrow, Italian sparrow – all would have fallen under the passer umbrella.Footnote ⁶⁷ Nevertheless, Passer domesticus remains the foremost identification, and though this word occasionally functioned as obscene the usage was rare.