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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 May 2015
The Coma Berenices is not taken very seriously as a poem by some critics of Catullus, and there are some obvious reasons for this attitude. The subject itself seems trivial, and the Catullan version of the poem is thought of as a mere translation, with the implication that it is somehow not an authentic poem in its own right. Moreover, there are a number of real problems in it of text and interpretation to which no agreed solution has been found, notably the problem of the ending. All these factors have combined to make lxvi the most avoided of all the longer poems of Catullus. The only aspect of the poem that has received adequate attention is the character of the translation and the detailed comparison of the Latin text with what has survived of the Greek.
1 E.A. Havelock, for example, calls it ‘a mannered and involved translation’ and ‘a piece of hack-work written to order’ (Lyric Genius of Catullus, p. 77).
2 See J. Kroymann’s bibliography (1929–1957) in the 3rd edn. of Kroll’s Catull (1959), pp. 309–10, and Herescu, N.I. ‘Catulle traducteur du grec et les parfums de Bérénice’, Eranos 4 (1957), 153–70.Google Scholar
3 Putnam, M.J.C. ‘Catullus 66.75–88’, CPh 4 (1960), 223–8.Google Scholar
4 Avallone, R. ‘II carme 66 di Catullo e la Chioma di Berenice di Callimaco’, Euphrosym 4 (1961), 23–48.Google Scholar
5 Callimachus calls it 
but Catullus seems to be thinking of a much larger bunch of hair when he calls it caesaries (8) and coma (93). The only parallel in Greek literature for a vow of hair against a safe return seems to be Iliad xxiii 144–6, the vow made by Peleus of his son’s hair 
to the river-god Spercheios if Achilles should return home from Troy. This may well have been the model for Berenice’s vow.
6 Astronomica 24.
7 See Schott, A and Böker, R.Aratos: Sternbilder und Wetterzeichen (1958), pp. 17–19,Google Scholar and n–42, PP. 92–4.
8 Phaen. 145–6. Gf. Schol. ad loc. 
9 Fordyce’s diagram on p. 338 of his Catullus: A Commentary (Oxford, 1961) is, incidentally, very inaccurate. The constellations are badly orientated, and the Coma Berenices should be more centrally placed in relation to the others.
10 Cat. lxv 16; lxviii 33–6; cxvi 2.
11 lxiii 5 and 59–60, where the double abero may be compared with the double afore in lxvi 75–6
12 lxiv 117–18, 132–3, 178–83, 218–ig, 245–8, 348–9.
13 lxviii 80–4, 105–7.
14 Op. cit., p. 332.
15 Il Libro di Catullo (Torino, 1966), p. 194. Cf. Jack Lindsay, Catullus: the Complete Poems (1948), p. 21:
‘You did not merely mourn a stricken bed, you mourned a brother’s absence in the king’s.’
16 M. Tulli Ciceronis Libri Tres, 7th edn. (Cambridge, 1891).
17 Op. cit., p. 334.
18 ‘A Catullan quotation in Virgil’s Aeneid VI’, AUMLA No. 17 (1962), 77–9.
19 Op. cit., Introd. p. lxviii.
20 Cf. Lobel,, E.The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Vol. 20, p. 70:Google Scholar ‘I should judge that it is now evident that it is impossible to depend on the Latin, which too often, as at 11. 45, 67 seq., 72, 77, 80–fin. recedes far from the Greek.’ I think ‘recedes far’ is an exaggeration, but I agree that the translation shows considerable independence.
21 There is no need to alter the reading of V, which is perfectly apt. Catullus comes back at the end to the idea of the Hair as a divinity, to whom offerings may be made.
22 ‘The Pattern of Phaenomena 367–85’, Antichthon i (1967), 12–15.
23 The more recent articles are: Rehm, B. ‘Zu Catull 66, 77’, RhMus xc (1941), 346–51;Google ScholarHerescu, N.I. ‘Catulle traducteur du grec et les parfums de Bérénice’, Eranos 4 (1957), 153–70;Google ScholarPighi, G.B. ‘Catull. LXVI, 75–78’, Euphrosyne 2 (1959), 203–8;Google ScholarHerescu, N.I. ‘Encore les parfums de Berenice’, Orpheus 7 (1960), 189–90;Google ScholarPutnam, M.J.C. ‘Catullus 66. 75–88’, CPh 4 (1960), 223–8;Google ScholarAxelson, B. ‘Das Haaröl der Berenike bei Catull und bei Kallimachos’, Studi in onore di L. Castiglioni (Florence, 1961), Vol. 1, pp. 15–21;Google ScholarLuppino, A. ‘Ancora su Catullo traduttore di Callimaco’, RFIC 39 (1961) 309–13.Google Scholar
24 This is well illustrated by Zicàri, M. ‘Some Metrical and Prosodical Features of Catullus’ Poetry’, Phoenix 15 (1964), 196.Google Scholar
25 Phaen. 399.
26 Aratea frgs 34. 56, 172, 173, 176, 274, 327, 473 Traglia.
27 Iliad xviii 486.
28 Cf. Böker, R. ‘Wetterzeichen’, RE Supplementband 9 (1962), 1628–9,Google Scholar and Schol. Germ. Arat. Strozz. p. 162, 21 Br. there quoted: Orion … tempore enim hiemis abortus mare et terras aquis ac tempestatibus turbat.
29 Pliny NH xviii 278 includes Orion among the horrida sidera which are responsible for stormy weather.
30 This article is a revised and amplified version of a paper read at the New Zealand Universities Classics Conference in Auckland on 14 May 1968. I am grateful to Mr R. P. Bond for some useful comments and references.