Tibullus is one of the four top elegiac poets of Rome. Ovid places him in the Canon of the Roman elegists (

Tr

. 4.10.51-4): “Vergilium vidi tantum, nec avara Tibullo / tempus amicitiae fata dedere meae. / successor fuit hic tibi, Galle, Propertius illi; / quartus ab his serie temporis ipse fui” [“Vergil I only saw, and to Tibullus greedy fate gave no time for friendship with me. Tibullus was thy successor, Gallus, and Propertius his; after them came I, fourth in order of time”, trans. A.L. Wheeler]. About a century later the rhetorician and literary critic Quintilian, in his brief reference to the genre of love elegy and its major exponents calls Tibullus “tersus atque elegans [polished and elegant] (

Inst

. 10.1.93).

Information on the life of Tibullus can be gathered from the

1843 words

Citation: Michalopoulos, Andreas. "Albius Tibullus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12457, accessed 19 March 2024.]

12457 Albius Tibullus 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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