Editing Catullus (section)

===Sources and organization===
Catullus's poems have been preserved in an [[anthology]] of 116 ''carmina'' (the actual number of poems may slightly vary in various editions), which can be divided into three parts according to their form: approximately sixty short poems in varying meters, called ''polymetra'', nine longer poems, and forty-eight [[epigram]]s in elegiac couplets. Each of these three parts – approximately 860 (or more), 1136, and 330  lines respectively – would fit onto a single scroll.<ref>Dettmer (1997), p. 2. A single scroll usually contained between 800 and 1100 verses.</ref>

There is no scholarly consensus on whether Catullus himself arranged the order of the poems. The longer poems differ from the ''polymetra'' and the epigrams not only in length but also in their subjects: several of them are based on the theme of marriage. The longest (64) of 408 lines, contains two myths (the abandonment of [[Ariadne]] and the marriage of [[Peleus]] and [[Thetis]]), one story included inside the other.

The ''polymetra'' and the epigrams can be divided into four major [[Theme (literature)|thematic]] groups (ignoring a rather large number of poems that elude such categorization):

* poems to and about his friends (e.g., an invitation like poem 13).
* [[erotic]] poems: some of them about his attraction for a boy named Juventius, but others about women, especially about one he calls "[[Lesbia]]" (which likely  served as a false name for the married woman [[Clodia (wife of Metellus)|Clodia]]. "Lesbia" served as a source of inspiration for many of his poems).
* [[invective]]s: often rude and sometimes downright [[Obscenity|obscene]] poems targeted at friends-turned-traitors (e.g., poem [[Catullus 16|16]]), other lovers of Lesbia, well-known poets, and politicians (e.g., [[Julius Caesar]] and [[Cicero]]).
* [[condolence]]s: some poems of Catullus are solemn in nature. [[Catullus 96|96]] comforts a friend in the death of a loved one; several others, most famously [[Catullus 101|101]], lament the death of his brother.

Above all other qualities, Catullus seems to have valued {{lang|la|venustas}}, or charm, in his acquaintances, a theme which he explores in a number of his poems.