The very presence of the elite matrona Postumia in this drinking song is startling; her portrayal is nothing less than shocking. She was a member of the noble gens Postumia (see names), rich in statesmen, the most famous being the stern Aulus Postumius Tubertus Maior, dictator and triumphant victor over the Aequians and Volscians in 431 BCE (see Livy Ab Urbe Condita 4.29.5). She was the wife of the famous lawyer Servius Sulpicius Rufus (consul 51 BCE and friend of Cicero), and the mother of young Servius (named for his literary cultivation in Horace Sermones 1.10.86). In 49 BCE, she and her son met with Cicero to confer about her husband's political situation (Epistulae ad Familiares 4.2). However, Catullus was quick to sieze upon a reputation that was not blameless, for Suetonius names the wife of Servius Sulpicius among the mistresses of Julius Caesar (Vita Divi Iuli 50.1). Since Catullus attacks Caesar in succeeding poems, this poem may be lampooning Postumia as a prologue to satirizing her powerful male associate; in any case, it is important not to read it literally. Catullus represents Postumia as tipsy female Master of the Feast (magister bibendi), forcing the guests into drunkenness by banishing water from their cups. The poem is patterned on the Greek skolia, agonistic drinking songs, featured at symposia from the 7th century BCE onward (see G. Nagy's article Transmission). Note the clever rhythmic effects of the hendecasyllabic meter (Phalaecean).