Tibullus

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

ALBIUS, a Roman elegiac poet; born presumably in Gabii, about 54 B. C. His prænomen and parentage are unknown, though he was certainly born to a considerable estate. His father seems to have died early, but his ALBIUS TIBULLUS mother and sister survived him. While still a youth he acquired the friendship of the orator, poet, and statesman, M. he was Valerius Messala, on whose staff commissioned by Augustus, 30 B. C., to Aquitania. In this crush a revolt in campaign the poet displayed capacity enough to win him distinction and decorations, but he disliked a soldier's life and spent his time after the war in Roman society and in retirement at Pedum. He fell in love with Plania, whose husband was on service in Cilicia. Under the sobriquet of Delia she is the heroine of his first book of elegies, but his devotion did not survive the discovery In his that he was not her only lover. In his second book of elegies Delia is replaced this inamorata being a by Nemesis fashionable courtesan, with many other admirers besides Tibullus. Tibullus died in 19 B. c., immediately after Vergil, universally deplored in Rome, and years afterw afterward the subject of a magnificent elegy by Ovid. Doubt has been thrown on his identity with the Albius of Horace, but we are loath to part with the picture that poet gives of him, pacing pensively his woodland walks at Pedum, blessed with fortune, with personal beauty, and with all the capacities of refined enjoyment. His character, amiable, ble, to his generous, loya loyal friends, is reflected in his poems, which, "most musical, most melancholy," by their limpid clearness and their unaffected finish still justify Quintilian in placing him at the head of Roman elegy properly so called. The third book can hardly, even in part, be considered as his, while the fourth, also by another hand, is yet memorable for the 11 poems on the loves of Sulpicia and Cerinthus-Sulpicia's being unique as specimens of a Roman lady's passionate outburst in verse.