John Percival Postgate

“ The character of Tibullus is reflected in his poems. Though not an admirable it is certainly an amiable one. He was a man of generous impulses and a gentle unselfish disposition. He was loyal to his friends to the verge of self-sacrifice, as is shown by his leaving Delia to accompany Messala to Asia, and constant to his mistresses with a constancy but ill deserved. His tenderness towards them is enhanced by a refinement and delicacy of feeling which are very rare amongst the ancients. ”

“ Delia seems to have been a woman of middle station. It is impossible to give an exact account of the intimacy. The poems which refer to her are arranged in no chronological order. She appears now as single, now as married; but we do not hear anything either of her marriage or of her husband's death. It is clear, however, that it was the absence of her husband on military service in Cilicia which gave Tibullus the opportunity of making or renewing the acquaintance. It was not dropped when he returned, probably with Messala in 27. It was not a difficult task to deceive the simple soldier ”

“ In both books occur poems which give evidence of internal disorder; but scholars cannot agree upon the remedies to be applied.
The third book, which contains 290 verses, is by a much inferior hand. The writer calls himself Lygdamus and the fair that he sings of Neæra. He was born in the same year as Ovid, in the consulship of Hirtius and Pansa; but there is nothing Ovidian about his work. He has very little poetical power, and his style is meagre and jejune. He has a good many reminiscences and imitations of Tibullus and Propertius; and they are not always happy. ”

“ They are very short, only forty lines in all; but they have a quite unique interest as being the only love poems by a Roman woman that have escaped the ravages of time. Their frank and passionate outpourings remind us of Catullus. The style and metrical handling betray the novice in poetical writing; and the Latinity is "feminine." The thirteenth poem (twenty-four lines) claims to be by Tibullus; but it is a miserable forgery. It is little more than a cento from Tibullus and Propertius. The fourteenth is a little epigram of four lines. ”

“ Tibullus distinguished himself in the campaign and was decorated for his services. But this did not rouse in him any military ardour. His tastes lay in quite other directions; and he always speaks of war with horror and dislike. At the end of the war in 29 Tibullus returned to Rome, and thenceforward his life seems to have been divided between Rome and his country estate, though his own preferences were altogether for the country life. Soon after his return he made the acquaintance of his first love, Delia. This is what he calls her in his poems ”

“ On the difficulty of "harmonizing" the Delia elegies, see F. Leo (in Kiessling and Wilamowitz-Mollendorfs Philol. Unters., ii. pp. 19-23) , who is, however, too sceptical. Any other attachments that Tibullus formed (such as the supposed one for Glycera) must have fallen between the end of the Delia and the beginning of the Nemesis connexion. Ovid, writing at the time of Tibullus's death (Am., iii. 9, 31) , says " Sic Nemesis loiigum, sic Delia, nomen habebunt, altera cura recens, altera primus amor." Nemesis is the sub ject of book ii. ”

“ Of these the Ambrosianus (A) , of date about 1374, and the Vaticanus (V) , end of the 14th or beginning of the 15th century, agree so closely that they can be referred to an original extant in the early part of the 12th or 13th century but long since lost. ”

“ For Sulpicia's style and its feminine Latinity, compare Gruppe (op. cit., i. 49 sq.) . The direct ascription of iv. 13 (verse 13 " nunc licet e caelo mittatur arnica Tibullo ") to Tibullus prob ably led to its being included in the collection. Later on, it and the epigram together caused the addition of the pseudo-Tibulliana to the genuine works. Although not suspected till recently, it is unquestionably spurious; see the examination by Postgate (Journ. of Phil., ix. 280 sq. ) . ”

“ The epigram of Domitius Marsus on his death is as follows: " Te quoque, Vergilio comitem, non sequa, Tibulle, Mors iuvenem campos misit ad Elysios, ne foret aut elegis molles qui fleret amores aut caueret forti regia bella pede." ”