PREFACE


Albius Tibullus was a Roman gentleman, whose father fought on Pompey's
side. The precise dates of his birth and death are in doubt, and what we
know of his life is all in his own poems; except that Horace condoles
with him about Glycera, and Apuleius says Delia's real name was Plautia.

Horace paid him this immortal compliment: (_Epist. 4 bk. I_).

"_Albi nostrorum sermonum candide judex,
Non tu corpus eras sine pectore; Di tibi formam,
Di tibi divitias dederant, artemque fruendi_."


After his death, Ovid wrote him a fine elegy (p. 115); and Domitius
Marsus a neat epigram. The former promised him an immortality equal to
Homer's; the latter sent him to Elysium at Virgil's side. These
excessive eulogies are the more remarkable in that Tibullus stood,
proudly or indolently, aloof from the court. He never flatters Augustus
nor mentions his name. He scoffs at riches, glory and war, wanting
nothing but to triumph as a lover. Ovid dares to group him with the
laurelled shades of Catullus and Gallus, of whom the former had
lampooned the divine Julius and the latter had been exiled by Augustus.