TIBUL'LUS, ALBIUS c.54-e.19 B.C.). A Roman elegiac poet, born of an equestrian family. Be inherited an estate at Pedum, between Tibur and Prieneste, which had been either wholly or partially confiscated in the civil wars. Tibullus, however, recovered part of his property, and spent there the best part of his short life. He was patronized by Messala, whom in 31 he ac companied into Aquitania, to suppress a serious revolt. He was present at the battle of Atax, which gave the final blow to the insurgents; and Ire celebrates in a fine strain of poetry the honor able part he bore in the campaign. Next year Messala was sent to the East and again Tibullus accompanied him; hut having been obliged from illness to stop at Corcyra, he returned to Rome. Henceforth he devoted himself to the study and composition of poetry. His Elegies, divided into four books, are mainly addressed to his mis tresses, Delia, Nemesis, and Glycera, whose in constancy or coldness he bewails in tender and exquisitely finished verses. The third book,
however, 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 supposed to be also by an other. 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 editions are those of Baehrens (Leipzig, 1378), Hiller (ib., 1885) ), and Muller (ib., 1885). The poems were translated into Eng lish by Grainger (1752) and Cranstoun (1872)„ and into English prose by Kelly (1854). Con sult Sellar, Roman Poets of the Republic (Lon don, 1863).