Gaius Valerius Catullus (Author) Very little is known about Gaius Valerius Catullus, though he was probably born around 84BC. He writes as a friend of Cicero and other leading figures, and appears as a leader of the new movement in poetry and a lover of the notorious Clodia Metelli, who was probably the Lesbia of the poems. He started writing in 69 or 68 and died around 54BC.Stephanie McCarter (Translator) Stephanie McCarter is a professor of classical literature at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. She has published translated work on Horace and has written for The Sewanee Review, Eidolon, Electric Literature and The Millions. She won the 2023 Harold Morton Landon Translation Prize from The Academy of American Poets for her Penguin Classics translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.