Who was Lesbia in Catullus’s poems?

In Catullus’s poetry, Lesbia is a pseudonym for a married woman with whom the poet shared an intense and tumultuous love affair, documented across 25 of his poems. While the name is a literary reference to the Greek poet Sappho, who hailed from the island of Lesbos, the identity of the woman behind the pseudonym is widely believed by scholars to be Clodia, a prominent Roman patrician.12

This identification, first suggested by a 16th-century scholar, is supported by historical accounts from writers such as Apuleius and the characterization of Clodia found in the works of Cicero. Clodia was one of the sisters of Publius Clodius Pulcher and was likely the wife of the aristocrat Metellus Celer. The poems dedicated to Lesbia capture the full spectrum of the relationship, ranging from moments of profound ecstasy to the bitterness of disillusionment and despair.12