ABSTRACT
Here it is: a simple, unruffled and unruffling poet who, i f not downright anaemic, at least lacked forceful creative talents.2 The myth about Catullus grants him personal intensity, that about Propertius passion and rough realism, that about Ovid lively imagination and smooth brilliance. But what is said o f Tibullus ? ‘The simple delicacy o f Tibullus has a winsomeness o f its own, which is totally distinct from the bold inventions o f Propertius and the sparkling vivacity o f Ovid’ .3 Why should Tibullus nowa days trail the other elegists ?
