pseudonym are clear.1 But why the name of the goddess of Divine Vengeance was chosen for the second one we cannot tell. It has been ingeniously suggested that it was to signify that the new love would be a retribution for the faithlessness of the old. If so, readers of the second book will see how sadly the omen was falsified.

Delia.

Of the station and life of Delia we know but little. The Planii are an unknown and probably a plebeian family. A Roman lady, like Catullus' Lesbia, Delia was not. She had a mother alive who appears to have traded on her daughter's charms and of whom Tibullus speaks now with affection and now with bitter contempt. At one time Delia appears to be living alone, as at the time of her illness, at other times we hear of a husband.5 A knowledge of the facts would doubtless resolve these perplexities, but mere conjecture is powerless. One thing is clear: Delia, whether single or married, was not capable of fidelity, either to her poet or her husband and in the end this incapacity proved fatal to the connexion.

In his second attachment Tibullus was even more

1 Apol. 10'accusent Tibullum quod ei sit Plania in animo, Delia in uersu.' dλos is the Gk. translation of planus; and the two names scan alike. (On this see below p. xxxviii. n.). 2 As a name of real life, Nemesis was extremely rare.

3 See I. vi [4] 67 sq.

4 I. vi. [4] 57 sqq. cf. I. iii. [2] 84 notes. He calls her a lena I v. 48. The workings of passion and jealousy are enough to explain these violent changes of tone.

5 I. i. I. iii. [2] 9 sqq. on the other hand her coniunx is mentioned I. ii. 41, vi. 15. It is not necessary to suppose the marriage a regular one. It may have been that sort of morganatic marriage which custom allowed a Roman to contract with a woman who was his inferior in social position.

Nemesis.

unhappy than in his first. Delia had inspired in him
a quiet affection; his fancy for Nemesis
was a violent passion. Besides this,
Nemesis had a love of finery and a grasping avarice
of which we hear nothing in the case of the more
domestic Delia.1 Nor did she atone for these faults
by any greater fidelity. The subject of II. iii. [9] is a
rival who carries Nemesis off to his country estate,
leaving Tibullus to lament her absence in the town.
The unhappiness of the time is vividly reflected in
the beginning of II. iv. [10].

Bondage and mistress here, poor thrall, I see :
Farewell, my old birthright of liberty!
Yea, bondage harsh and riveted amain,
And Love to watch the never-loosened chain.
Sinning or guiltless, still the torturing brand:
I burn, I burn! ah, cruel, stay thy hand.
O, so this pain might cease at last to gride,
Were I the stone upon a bleak hill-side,
Or some stark rock, to raving winds a prey,
Whereon in thunder beats the wrecking sea!

Now on drear day the drearier night-shades fall,
And all the bitter time is steeped in gall.

Tibullus appears to have had but delicate health. We have already seen that he had one

Illnesses and

serious illness when on his way to Asia Death. with his friend Messalla. His poems

betray a certain lack of robustness, and his love of retirement and strong dislike to war and travel point in the same direction. His unfortunate attachment to Nemesis may have impaired his already weak constitution. Certainly he wrote nothing that we know of afterwards, nor did he survive for long.

In the year 19 B.C. Tibullus and Virgil died within a

1 II. iii. [9] 53 sqq. iv. (10) 25 sqq.
2 Compare introduction to II. v. [11].

few weeks of each other, leaving, as it seemed to the writer of the epitaph, elegy and epos both forlorn. Thee too, Tibullus, ere thy prime hath Death's relentless hand

Despatched to fare by Virgil's side to still Elysium's land,
That none should be to plain of love in elegy's soft lay,
Or in heroic numbers sweep with princes to the fray.

Works.

So far as we know Tibullus' tastes and activities were wholly literary. He took no part in Literary Life the political life of his time; and he was and Extant interested in it only so far as it touched the careers of his friends. The names of Caesar and Augustus are absent from his writings: but it would be a mistake to suppose that he regarded with disfavour the monarchical revolution which was then taking definite and permanent shape. The official poem II. v. (see the introduction to it) shows that he loyally accepted the new régime.

The only certainly genuine poems of Tibullus that have come down to us are those comprised in the first two books attributed to him. These two books were both published before the poet's death; Book I. not earlier than 26 B.C.; Book II. at some later date, which cannot be further determined. The shortness of Book II., some 430 lines, has given rise to the suspicion that it is imperfect. In II. iii. lines have unquestionably been lost about 14, 34 and 75, and II. v. seems to want a passage of some considerable length. But even if we had what has been lost, the book would contain considerably less than Book I. (over 800 lines). We may add that a fragment which cannot now be found in his works is attributed to him by the grammarian Charisius.1

1 Printed at the end of Hiller's text in the new Corpus Poetarum Latinorum. On the poems in Book III. which have been ascribed to Tibullus see Chapter II.

Character of

Tibullus.

The character of Tibullus, as revealed to us in his poems, is an attractive one. A simple, gentle, affectionate nature, singularly free from egotism and personal vanity. In his modest and retiring disposition, as in other respects, he furnishes a strong contrast to his brilliant contemporary and successor Propertius. A certain attention to dress and personal appearance he cultivated no doubt it was then the mode and his mistresses would expect it. But it was not the conscious foppishness of Propertius, and his heart was in other things. While Propertius loved the town for its bustle and glare, the heart of Tibullus turned to the shade and quiet of the country. We shall look in vain in the elegies of Tibullus for the clamant patriotism of his rival or his greedy anticipations of posthumous fame. Tibullus, as I wrote in the Encyclopædia Britannica (ed. ix.) 'has no ambition and not even the poet's yearning for immortality. His muse may go packing if it cannot propitiate the fair.' A pair of quotations will show the different attitudes of the two poets. Propertius writes, III. ii. 17 sq.--

fortunata, meo si qua es memorata libello :
carmina erunt formae tot monimenta tuae.

Tibullus, II. iv. 19 sq.

ad dominam faciles aditus per carmina quaero :
ite procul, Musae, si nihil ista ualent.

1 II. iii. 79 (81) nunc si clausa mea est, si copia rara uidendi, | heu miserum, laxam quid iuuat esse togam?'

2 With one exception I. vii. (=5) 5, where the adjective is necessary to fix the place, Roma and Romanus do not occur in Tibullus outside the official poem II. v. (11). For a contrast see a passage like Propertius 3. 4. 10 'ite et Romanae consulite historiae' or 2. 18. 26 turpis Romano Belgicus ore color.'

correct statement of the facts.

Characteristics

of his Poetry. Tibullus and

Propertius.

And so in his poetry. We miss in Tibullus the range, the vigour, the colour of Propertius: he is inferior in imagination; he lacks his fancy and his humour. But he is also free from his faults. The turgidity, the obscurity, the crudity of Propertius never darken or ruffle the limpid flow of Tibullus. If he never soars so high, at least he never falls so flat. It has often been said that Tibullus is free from the pedantry (such it seems to us), which strews Greek and especially Alexandrian learning, relevant or irrelevant, over the pages of Propertius. This is indeed not quite a Here and there the influence may be traced perhaps most noticeably in I. vii. (5) where however the poet probably thought the subject demanded it. But in the main it is most true; and we must bear it in mind, if we would understand the claim of originality (in the sense in which Roman writers understood the word) which Propertius puts forward on his own behalf, as the one who first domiciled the Alexandrian elegy at Rome.1 The two poets were undoubtedly writing together: but it is just as certain, from the evidence of Ovid, that Tibullus was the first to publish. It would be an interesting, if it were a soluble question, to determine what influence they exerted upon each other. Their poems undoubtedly contain a number of coincidences which can hardly be accidental. But which in any case was the borrower;

1 Callimachi Manes et Coi sacra Philetae, | in uestrum, quaeso, me sinite ire nemus. | primus ego ingredior puro de fonte sacerdos | Itala per Graios orgia ferre choros' 3. 1.

2 All the coincidences (and more) are collected in H. Belling's book Albius Tibullus: Untersuchung, Berlin 1897 Some of them I have given in the notes. Compare p. xviii, above with note.