Lesbia

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Lesbia is the lover to whom the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54BC) dedicates a number of poems. Nothing is known about her other than what can be deduced from Catullus's poems. The name itself suggests literary and erotic connotations, evoking as it does the Lesbos Island, where the famed poet Sappho lived. According to Apuleius, a much later author from Africa, 'Lesbia' was actually a pen name invented by Catullus, a common practice. Lesbia is the subject of 25 of his 116 surviving poems, and these display a wide range of emotions, ranging from tender love, to sadness and disappointment, to bitter sarcasm, following the often unsteady course of Catullus' relationship.

Lesbia is traditionally identified with the infamous Clodia, prosecuted by Cicero in Pro Caelio, although this conclusion lacks direct evidence, and there is some disagreement in a minority of scholars. A recent article by the Roman historian Suzanne Dixon in Reading Roman Women mounts a strong argument against not only the Lesbia/Clodia identification but also against the notion that 'Lesbia' refers to a historical woman at all.