Catullus deeply admired Sappho and Callimachus. Poem 66 is a quite faithful translation of Callimachus' poem Βερενίκης Πλόκαμος ("Berenice's Braid", Aetia fr. 110 Pfeiffer) and he adapted one of his epigrams, on the lover Callignotus who broke his promise to Ionis in favor of a boy (Ep. 11 Gow-Page) into poem 70. Poem 51, on the other hand, is an adaption and re-imagining of Sappho 31. Poems 51 and 11 are the only poems of Catullus written in the meter of Sapphic strophe, and may be respectively his first and last poems to Lesbia. He was also inspired by the corruption of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and the other aristocrats of his time.
