Ricerc@Sapienza

In the last poem of his elegiac cycle the lover poet Lygdamus bides his sad farewell to the unfaithful mistress, Neaera, by recalling the prototypical figure of decepta puella, the Catullian heroine Ariadne of poem 64 ([Tib.] 3, 6, 37-44). This paper focuses on the intertextual allusions to Catullus in the six elegies of the Lygdamean cycle (opening the third book of the Tibullian corpus) and suggests that the elegiac poet recounts his discidium with the puella Neaera in Catullian terms. By constructing his poetry-book as a Catullian, polite and refined libellus, a love gift and a weapon of seduction, and alluding to the polymetric and elegiac poems to Lesbia that point to the end of the sentimental relationship between the poet and his woman, Lygdamus models his story of passion and infidelity on Catullus’ romantic affair with Lesbia and invites his readers to rely on his love romance to learn how to tolerate sorrow and love pains.