Cicero, in the second Philippic calls Antonius a catamite; but in Republican Rome, it is to Catullus that we must turn to find the most decisive evidence of their almost universal inclination to sodomy.

The first notice of this passage in its proper significance is found in the Burmann Petronius (ed.

1709): here, in a note on the correct reading of "intertitulos, nudasque meretrices furtim conspatiantes," the ancient reading would seem to have been "internuculos nudasque meretrices furtim conspatiantes" (and I am not at all certain but that it is to be preferred).

Burmann cites the passage from Catullus (Epithalamium of Manlius and Julia); Burmann sees the force of the passage but does not grasp its deeper meaning.

Marchena seems to have been the first scholar to read between the lines.