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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.
But in spite of this contemporary _succes d'estime_, Tibullus is
clearly a minor poet. He expresses only one aspect of his time. His few
themes are oft-repeated and in monotonous rhythms. He sings of nothing
greater than his own lost loves. Yet of Delia, Nemesis and Neaera, we
learn only that all were fair, faithless and venal. For a man whose
ideal of love was life-long fidelity, he was tragically unsuccessful.
If this were all, his verse would have perished with that of Macer and
Gallus.
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