Abstract

That Catullus’ sixty-fourth poem influenced Virgil's work has long been accepted. We approach a little nearer a resolution of the enigma of the Fourth Eclogue when we recognize epithalamian elements within it that echo not only the song of the Parcae, but also the themes of the Golden Age, of the Voyage of the Argo, and of the relations between gods and men from Catullus’ poem. Similarly, Ariadne's part in the creation of Aeneid 4, both in the ‘marriage’ scene and in Dido's reproaches to Aeneas, has been noted.