In a recent issue of CQ, N. J. Lowe refers to the ‘slyly Catullan appeal to the language of pietas’ in [Tib.] 3.7 1–2 . In this he follows Matthew Santirocco, who comments on these lines: ‘significantly, the expression for love here is not just cura as before [sc. in 3.16 [4.10] 3], but pia cura. We recall the pietas Catullus proclaimed in his affair with Lesbia and perhaps also pius Aeneas and all that pietas meant to the Augustan age, (...) and then we realise that Sulpicia is now concerned not so much with the mere fact of Cerinthus’ affection as with its quality. (shrink)