Hvem daterede Catullus?

Lesbia var den romerske digter Gaius Valerius Catullus elskerinde. Hun hed Clodia, men i Catuls digte blev hun kaldt Lesbia. Hun var gift med rigmanden Metellus Celer. Catul beskriver hendes store trang til nydelse og heftige temperament. Tilnavnet Lesbia fik hun, da hun stammede fra øen Lesbos: "Fra Lebos".

Clodia (born Claudia, c. 95 or 94 BC), nicknamed Quadrantaria ("Quarter", from quadrantarius, the price of a visit to the public baths), Nola ("The Unwilling", from the verb nolo, in sarcastic reference to her alleged wantonness), Medea Palatina ("Medea of the Palatine") by Cicero (see below), and occasionally referred to in scholarship as Clodia Metelli ("Metellus's Clodia"), was one of three known daughters of the ancient Roman patrician Appius Claudius Pulcher.

Like many other women of the Roman elite, Clodia was very well-educated in Greek and philosophy, with a special talent for writing poetry. Her life, which was characterized by perpetual scandal, is immortalized in the writings of Marcus Tullius Cicero and, it is generally believed, in the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus.