Those lucky enough to have learnt Latin at school might remember Catullus with affection. Or possibly not. Somehow he seemed a bit livelier than some of the other poets whose work we slaved over and slaughtered in our translations.

Helen Dunmore uses his poems to retell the story of his love affair with the glamorous older woman who used the pseudonym Lesbia in Counting the Stars.

Dunmore sets her scene well, effortlessly moving from the slums of Rome to its high society, and the story is a compelling one as Clodia Pulcher, Catullus’ Lesbia, is supected of killing her husband.

Was it an accident or was it murder? And what about the death of Lesbia’s pet sparrow, immortalised by Catullus in two poems?

The story takes a while to get going, which may be understandable given it is based on poems thousands of years old, but once Dunmore moves on to the deaths it picks up momentum and becomes positively exciting. And it just might inspire a return to the poems themselves.