Milestones in the career of tibullus

The Classical Quarterly

Volumn 55, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 204-216

  Knox, Peter E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

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EID: 34347298722     PISSN: 00098388     EISSN: 14716844     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/cq/bmi015     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. For lack of a better term, I use the word ‘publication’ to refer to the final distribution of a completed work, aware as I do so of all the anachronistic associations of the term.
2. The consensus of scholars inclines to the earlier date. For a summary, see A. Perutelli, ‘Bucolics’, in N. Horsfall (ed.), A Companion to the Study of Virgil (Leiden, 1995), 28-31. Arguments for a later date, however, cannot be entirely dismissed, for which see most recently W. Clausen, Virgil: Eclogues (Oxford, 1994), 233-6.
3. The dates are inferred from the latest datable references in the first book of Satires, the journey to Brundisium in 38 or 37 (1.5), and the second book, the settlement of veterans in 30 (2.6.55-6). The date of the Epodes is generally fixed by the references to Actium in Epod. 1 and 9. For a summary of the data and interpretation, see G. D'Anna, ‘Questioni Cronologiche’, in S. Mariotti (ed.), Enciclopedia Oraziana 1 (Rome, 1996), 259-64.
4. See, most recently, R. O. A. M. Lyne, ‘Propertius and Tibullus: early exchanges’, CQ 48 (1998), 520-1.
5. This position was staked out in A. Cartault, Tibulle et les auteurs du Corpus Tibullianum (Paris, 1909), 23, and reaffirmed by A. Rostagni, ‘Tibullianá, RFIC 65 (1937), 358. It is reflected in standard handbooks (e.g. OCD3 s.v. ‘Tibullus’; F. Marx, RE 1.1 [1894], 1320) and literary histories (e.g. Schanz-Hosius 182; CHCL II.853; G. B. Conte, Latin Literature: A History, trans. J. B. Solodow [Baltimore and London, 1994], 326). Among commentators on Tibullus over the last century there is general agreement on 27/26 B.C. for the publication of the first book: e.g. K. F. Smith, The Elegies of Albius Tibullus (New York, 1913), 43; L. Dissen, Albii Tibulli carmina (Góttingen, 1935), xx; M. C. J. Putnam, Tibullus: A Commentary (Norman, 1973), 4; P. Murgatroyd, Tibullus I. A Commentary on the First Book of the Elegies of Albius Tibullus (Natal, 1980), 11; G. Lee, Tibullus: Elegies (Leeds, 19903), ix; R. Maltby, Tibullus: Elegies. Text, Introduction and Commentary (Leeds, 2002), 39-40. M. Ponchont, Tibulle et les auteurs du Corpus Tibullianum (Paris, 1955), ix, dates Book 1 even later to 26/25 and Schanz-Hosius 182 is willing to admit a date as late as 24.
6. See most recently Murgatroyd (n. 5), 13-15, and Lyne (n. 4), both of whom supply abundant references to relevant bibliography.
7. Murgatroyd (n. 5), 14. W. Wimmel, Tibull und Delia (Wiesbaden, 1976), 93-111 argues that Tib. 1.3 echoes Prop. 1.6, 1.9, and 1.17, while D. Bright, Haec mihi fingebam: Tibullus in his World (Leiden, 1978), 17, n. 5 is rightly sceptical.
8. Ovid's testimony is explicitly rejected by F. Leo, GGA 160 (1898) 723-4 (= Ausgewählte Kleine Schriften 2 [Rome, 1960], 180-1), who takes Prop. 2.31 as establishing a terminus ante quem of 9 October 28 B.C. for Propertius’ first book: ‘Die Zeit von II 31 aber ist ein Eckstein in der Geschichte der rómischen Elegie, denn sie führt Ovids Angabe über die diadoch’ der rómischen Elegiker auf das richtige Mass zurück und beweist dass Properz I vor Tibull I erschienen ist; so wichtig fü r die Litteraturgeschichte wie es für Ovids allgemeine Vorstellung unerheblich war.’ This view is accepted by P. Fedeli, Sesto Properzio: Il primo libro delle elegie (Florence, 1980), 10. Among commentators on either poet, only G. Luck, P. Ovidius Naso: Tristia (Heidelberg, 1977), on Tr. 4.10.53, supports Ovid's accuracy: ‘die Reihenfolge ist Gallus - Tibull-Properz - Ovid.’
9. For example, Smith (n. 5), 31; Murgatroyd (n. 5), 3; R. Maltby (n. 5), 39; F. Della Corte, Tibullo: Le elegie (Milan, 1980), ix.
10. The operative metaphor in successor, as in Tr. 2.467 successi, is of one who follows in office: cf, OLD s.vv. ‘successor’ a, ‘succedo’ 5a. Not surprisingly, this metaphor appears to be unique to Ovid in such a context. As is frequently noted, Ovid is more liberal than the other Augustan poets in his use of legal and technical terminology; cf. E. J. Kenney, ‘Ovid and the law’, YCS 21 (1969), 243-63.
11. The characterization by F. Cairns, Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (Edinburgh, 1972), 166 is particularly apt, ‘a genethliakon which includes a triumph-poem’.
12. CIL I2, p. 50.
13. T. Mommsen, Rómisches Geschichte (Berlin, 1904), 5.72.
14. Cf. O. Hirschfeld, ‘Aquitanen in der Rómerzeit’, Sitzb. der Berliner Akademie 16 (1896), 433-4 (= Kleine Schriften [Berlin, 1913], 214-15); J. Hammer, Prolegomena to an Edition of the Panegyricus Messalae. The Military and Political Career of M. Valerius Messala Corvinus (Diss. Columbia, 1925), 46-48; J. F. Drinkwater, Roman Gaul: The Three Provinces, 58 B.C.-A.D. 260 (London, 1983), 121. It is the consensus view of Tibullus’ recent commentators, and it is also the chronology to be found, for example, in OCD3, 1580 and Der Neue Pauly 12/1.1110. Others are less certain: for example, C. Jullian, Histoire de la Gaule IV: Le Gouvernement de Rome (Paris, 1921), 64, is ambivalent, while the wording of E. Gruen, ‘The expansion of the empire under Augustus’, in A. K. Bowman, E. Champlin, and A. Lintott (edd.), Cambridge Ancient History 10 (Cambridge, 19962), 169, ‘a few years later [sc. than the attack on the Salassi in 34]’, and C. Goudineau, ‘Gaul’, in Bowman et al., 489, ‘shortly after 30 B.C.’ is non-committal. R. Hanslik, RE 8A (1955), 147, is virtually alone in pressing for the earlier date.
15. R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford, 1986), 210.
16. Hanslik (n. 14), 149.
17. On Crassus’ career, see E. Groag, RE 13.1 (1926), 283-5; PIR2 L 186. Dio reports (51.25.2) that Augustus granted him the distinction of a triumph, but denied the title of imperator.
18. Also receiving a triumph in 28 was C. Carrinas for victories in Gaul in 30, at the same time as Messalla was active in the southwest.
19. Lentulus Spinther had to wait two to three years for his triumph in 51; cf. Shackleton Bailey on Cic. Att. 5.21.4.
20. Cf. e.g. Murgatroyd (n. 5) and Maltby (n. 5), ad loc.
21. Portabat is read by all editors since Lachmann, except Luck, and only Lenz even reports portabit. It is found in D (Berlin, Diez. B. Sant. 39b), a fifteenth-century manuscript no better and no worse than others. Variant or early conjecture? It scarcely matters in this tradition, for which see R. H. Rouse and M. D. Reeve in L.D. Reynolds (ed.), Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (Oxford, 1983), 420-5. In any case the author of the conjecture would not have known the date of Messallás triumph. Although Luck prints portabit in his edition, he never justifies this reading and reviewers passed over it in silence. In the same line we should probably accept niueis against the paradosis; cf. P. Fedeli in his review of Luck, Gnomon 63 (1991), 313.
22. Two passages in Martial-8.3.5 et cum rupta situ Messallae saxa iacebunt and 10.2.9 marmora Messallae findit caprificus-have sometimes been taken to refer to the Via Latina, but G. McCracken, ‘Tibullus, Messalla and the Via Latiná, AJP 53 (1932), 345-6, rightly rejects this interpretation.
23. On the background, see McCracken (n. 25).
24. CIL 10.6895, 10.6897, 10. 6899-6901; AE 1969/70, 89.
25. CIL 1, p. 18.
26. This reconstruction of events is found in all of Tibullus’ modern commentators.
27. For Augustus’ road projects, cf. T. Pekáry, Untersuchungen zu den rómischen Reichsstrassen (Bonn, 1968), 71-7.
28. Cf. Pekáry (n. 31), 46-53.
29. For the career of Sabinus, cf. F. Münzer, RE 3.1 (1897), 1411-12; PIR2 C 352.
30. For examples of inscriptions on miliaria of the Republic, see A. Degrassi, Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae (Florence, 1957), 251-65.
31. Cf. Mommsen (n. 35), 125.
32. There are some isolated instances suggesting that the title might still be used by individuals outside the imperial family in the early years of the principate: cf. Mommsen (n. 35), 125-6; A. Rosenberg, RE 9.1 (1916), 1144. An inscription of A.D. 3 (ILS 120) refers to L. Passienus Rufus (cos. 4 B.C.) as imperator, but it may be significant that this was set up in Africa, not Italy. Tac. Ann. 3.74.4 is further evidence that there could be exceptions to the imperial monopoly. According to him, concessit quibusdam et Augustus id uocabulum, ac tunc Tiberius Blaeso postremum.
33. Pekáry (n. 31), 71-72, notes how extraordinary would be the circumstances surrounding the dating of these milestones to 27: a private citizen, financing a public road and erecting miliaria commemorating himself.
34. Cf. Syme (n. 15), 211-12, A. Valvo, ‘M. Valerio Messalla Corvino negli studi piu’ recenti’, ANRW 2.30.3 (1983), 1673-4.
35. As noted by G. Luck, Properz und Tibull: Liebeselegien (Zürich and Stuttgart, 1964) on Tib. 1.7.57-8.
36. Especially J. Hammer, Prolegomena to an Edition of the Panegyricus Messalae. The Military and Political Career of M. Valerius Messala Corvinus (Diss. Columbia, 1925), 46-8.
37. Syme (n. 15), 209.
38. Cf. G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Rómer (Munich, 1912 2), 351-4 for the relevant texts.
39. Dio 47.15.5.
40. Cf. Dio 53.2.4 for the ban of 28, and on its extension, cf. Dio 53.2.4.
41. Cf. Res Gestae 13 Ianum Quirinum… ter me principe senatus claudendum esse censuit, 32 plurimaeque aliae gentes expertae sunt p. R. fidem me principe. This phraseology is echoed in other contemporaries such as Hor. Epist. 2.1.256 et formidatam Parthis te principe Romam: cf. Prop. 4.6.46; Ov. Pont. 4.12.40; L. Wickert, RE 22.2 (1954), 2057-9. In their notes on Tr. 2.464, Luck (n. 8) and S. G. Owen, P. Ovidi Nasonis Tristium Liber Secundus (Oxford, 1924) both recognize the chronological implications for Tibullus’ career, which are baselessly rejected by, for example, Schanz-Hosius 182.
42. There is a further indication of the appearance of the book in this period in the suggestion by F. Cairns, ‘Tibullus, Messalla, and the spicá, Emerita (1999), 230, that 10.67-8 refers to the closing of the temple of Janus in 29.
43. Cf. Vell. Pat. 2.36.3 Tibullusque et Naso, perfectissimi in forma operis sui. L. Alfonsi, Albio Tibullo e gli autori del ‘Corpus Tibullianum’ (Milan, 1946), 1-11, is still worth consulting on ancient appraisals of Tibullus and see, more recently, F. Cairns, Tibullus: A Hellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge, 1979), 1-6.
44. F. Jacoby, ‘Zur Entstehung der rómischer Elegie’, RhM 60 (1905) suggests that Tibullus picked up on the pastoral elements in Gallus, while Propertius focused on the mythological. See now Cairns (n. 53), 228, and, more recently, the same author's ‘Stile e Contenuti di Tibull ed Properzio’, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi su Albio Tibullo (Rome, 1986), 47-59. The influence of the Eclogues has not infrequently been noted, for example, by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Hellenistische Dichtung in der Zeit des Kallimachos (Berlin, 1924), 1.237; Alfonsi (n. 53), 18, n. 1; Bright (n. 7), 11. But its full extent and significance await detailed explication.
45. Alfonsi (n. 53), 13, n. 3: ‘Non e’ escluso che sia stato almeno nei suoi primi inizi di sentimenti anti-augustei, dato anche il precedente della spoliazione e poi il silenzio assoluto su Augusto, tanto piu strano in quanto Properzio, l’ altro elegiaco contemporaneo, verso Augusto invece si mostro’ assai deferente, almeno in successive fasi di suo vita.’ On this topic, see now the summary of the question in Maltby (n. 5), 53-55.