Gaius Valerius Catullus, born about 84 BC and probably dead by about 54 BC, occupies a singular place in Latin literature: he is at once one of antiquity’s most polished craftsmen and one of its most startlingly intimate voices. His surviving poems move from affectionate invitations and erotic delight to devastating grief, learned mythological narrative, social comedy, and abusive satire so ferocious that it can unse…
Compare Poets
Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.
Poet A
Gaius Valerius Catullus
Poet B
Theognis of Megara
Compare two related contemporaries
A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.
Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 61%
Blended 61%
Swap sides
Another related pair
In the landscape of ancient Greek poetry, few figures present as fascinating a paradox as Theognis of Megara. A poet whose verses have endured for over two and a half millennia, yet whose life remains shrouded in uncertainty and scholarly debate. The collection of elegiac poetry attributed to him—comprising approximately 1,400 lines—represents one of the most substantial surviving bodies of archaic Greek elegiac vers…
“The best of all things for earthly men is not to be born and not to see the beams of the bright sun; but if born, then as quickly as possible to pass the gates of Hades.”
In time
Gaius Valerius Catullus
Theognis of Megara
570 BC
54 BC
Their lives did not overlap.
401 years separate the earlier death from the later birth.
On the map
About 1,316 km separate Verona, Veneto, Italy from Megara, Greece. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.
Gaius Valerius Catullus
Theognis of Megara
Themes they return to
Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.
Shared
Gaius Valerius Catullus only
Theognis of Megara only
From the biographies
social
Gaius Valerius Catullus: verona, lesbia, gaius licinius calvus, helvius cinna, cornificius, carmina, neoterics, sirmio. Theognis of Megara: elegiac poetry, cyrnus, aristocracy, political upheaval, exile, megara hyblaea, byzantium, 7th century bce.
Poems that secretly rhyme
The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.
The world around them
Gaius Valerius Catullus
60 BC
Relocation to Rome
57 BC
Travel to Bithynia
56 BC
Return to Verona
54 BC
Final Poems Written
Theognis of Megara
550 BC
Education in Megara
520 BC
Marriage and Family Life
510 BC
Political Upheaval in Megara
500 BC
Colonial Ventures of Megara
490 BC
Exile from Megara
485 BC
Return to Megara
480 BC
Friendship with Other Poets
Emotional landscapes
Gaius Valerius Catullus: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality. Theognis of Megara: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.