The Catalepton (from Greek Kapa and Lepton, meaning "Small Things") is a series of short poems traditionally attributed to Vergil from his youth; however, modern scholarship considers them spurious (not from a single source) and likely not by Vergil. The collection includes 15 epigrams that were heavily influenced by Catullus.
Catalepton 1 is about the author's friend Tucca, who is having an affair with a married woman, and Tucca keeps telling the author about the affair. The author is annoyed that he can't confront the woman about it directly. The women, according to some sources, is allegedaly
Catalepton 2 is an epigram mocking an orator/speaker who loves to use complex words. Quintilian reports that it is about T. Annaeus Cimber, whose brother was supposedly killed, according to Cicero.
Tucca, she often comes to you,
But she is not permitted to see you,
She is hidden behind her husband's closed door
She often comes to you,
Yet, she has not come to me
For, in fact, she is hidden far away,
Beyond where I can reach.
"She has come", I have heard,
But what benefit to me does this announcement have?
Tell that, instead, to the man she has returned to.
That lover of Corinthian [1] words,
That man, that very speaker,
For indeed, he is wholly Thucydides [2],
A tyrant of Attic [3] fever:
He uses a Gallic tau, a min, and a sphin [4];
May curses fall on him!
Thus he mixes all those words for his brother. [5]
Notes On Catalepton 2
Corinthian here most likely means complex, large/long, or obsolete
Thucydides was an Athenian general and historian, famous for using complex and dense words in his works
Attic here refers to Attica; the part of Greece where Athens is. In this context, it means the person likes to use a lot of Attic Greek words
Rare or archaic linguistic forms associated with Greek and Gaulish.
In the Latin, it is clear he is using ridiculous vocabulary to make fun of the subject
That lover of Corinthian words,
That man, that very speaker,
For indeed, he is wholly Thucydides,
A tyrant of Attic fever:
He uses a Gallic tau, a min, and a sphin;
May curses fall on him!
Thus he mixes all those words for his brother.
Fairclough, H. Rushton. “The Poems of the Appendix Vergiliana.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 53, 1922, pp. 5–34. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/282854. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
Text From: The Online Latin Library