TIBULLUS, ALB/US, the Roman elegiac poet, was born of equestrian family, probably 54 B.C., and died young, not long after Virgil, about 18 B.o. We know nothing of his youth or education. From his equestrian ancestors he inherited an estate at Pedum, between Tibur and Prmneste, which, like the estates of Virgil and Horace, had been either wholly or partially confiscated in the civil wars. Tibullus, however, recovered part of his property, and spent upon it the best part of his short life. He was patronized by Messala, whom, in 31, lie accompanied into Aquitania, to suppress a serious revolt which had broken out in that province. He was present at the battle of Atax, which gave the final blow to the insurgents; and he celebrates in a fine strain of poetry, the honorable part he bore iu the campaign. Next year, Messala was sent to the East and again Tibullus accompanied him; but having been obliged from illness to stop at Corcyra, he returned to Rome. At this point, the public life of Tibullus ceases; and henceforth lie devoted himself to the study and composition of poetry. His Elegies, divided into four books,
are mainly addressed to his mistresses, Delia, Nemesis, and Glycera, whose inconstancy or coldness lie bewails in tender and exquisitely finished verses. The third book, how ever, is now believed to be the work, not of Tibullus but of another and inferior poet; while the hexameter poem on Messala, with which the fourth book opens, is from inter nal evidence, supposed to be also by another and inferior hand. Only the first book was published during the poet's lifetime, which, brief as it was, yet passed peacefully away amid all the blessings of pecuniary competence, patronage of the great, health, and fame. The character of Tibullus was singularly pure, amiable, and winning. During life, he had the honor of being addressed in an ode and epistle by Horace; after death, of being bewailed in an elegy of matchless beauty by Ovid. The best edition of bit poems is that of Dissen (Gottingen, 1835).