6. The year of his birth and that of his death are stated by Jerome in his edition of the Chronicles of Eusebius, probably on the authority of the De Poetis of Suetonius. Under date of the year of Abraham 1930 (= B.C. 87) Jerome says, “Gaius Valerius Catullus scriptor lyricus Veronae nascitur”, and under that of 1960, or, according to some MSS., 1959 (= B.C. 57,or 58), he says, Jerome, Chronicles of Eusebius “Catullus XXX. aetatis anno Romae moritur” . There is nothing to contradict Jerome's date for the birth of the poet, but unfortunately for our belief in his entire accuracy, a number of the poems of Catullus were clearly written later than B.C. 57, - some of them at least as late as the end of the year 55 B.C., or the beginning of the year 54 (e.g. cc. 11, 29, 53, 113). Jerome is, therefore, certainly wrong about the date of the poet's death, and hence about at least one of the two other statements, the date of his birth and his age at death. The only scrap of evidence from other sources on these points is the vague statement of Ovid that Catullus died young ( Am. III.9.62 “obvius huic [in Elysio] hedera iuvenalia cinctus tempora cum Calvo, docte Catulle, tuo” ).
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Catullus. Catullus. E. T. Merrill. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1893.
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