person
Q. Catulus
also: Quintus Catulus
Q. Lutatius Catulus, son of the above; consul 78 BC with M. Aemilius Lepidus, censor 65, princeps senatus and the unbending optimate leader of the post-Sullan generation; rebuilder of the Capitoline temple destroyed in 83 BC. Cicero treats him as the model of consular dignitas (De domo 114; Pro Sest. 121; Pro Caelio 59, 70, 78).
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 1.20 §3 since the death of Catulus
Q. Lutatius Catulus (consul 78 BC), the acknowledged leader of the senatorial conservatives (optimates), had died in 61 or 60 BC, leaving Cicero's "aristocratic course" without a senior champion.
- Ad Atticum 2.24 §3 ordered Q. Catulus to speak from a lower place
As praetor in 62 BC, Caesar humiliated the eminent senior consular Q. Lutatius Catulus by making him address the people from ground level rather than the elevated Rostra. Cicero recalls the slight to characterize Caesar's contempt for the optimate establishment.
- Ad Atticum 13.12 §3 Catulus and Lucullus we shall set down elsewhere
Quintus Lutatius Catulus (consul 78 BC) and Lucius Licinius Lucullus, the noble interlocutors of the first edition of the Academica, whose books bore their names. Cicero plans to drop them in favour of Varro as speaker; the companion note tags Lucullus.
- Second Philippic §12 Quintus Catulus
Q. Lutatius Catulus, consul 78 BC and a revered conservative elder statesman, who hailed Cicero as "father of his country" for crushing the Catilinarian conspiracy.