"
But it was unjust to classify Tibullus merely as an erotic poet. The
gallants of the _ancien regime_ were quite capable of writing their
own valentines. Tibullus was popular as a sort of Latin Rousseau. He
satirized rank, riches and glory as corrupting man's primitive
simplicity. He pled for a return to nature, to country-side, thatched
cottages, ploughed fields, flocks, harvests, vintages and rustic
holidays. He made this plea, not with an armoury of Greek learning, such
as cumber Virgil and Horace, but with an original passion. He cannot
speak of the jewelled Roman coquettes without a sigh for those happy
times when Phoebus himself tended cattle and lived on curds and whey,
all for the love of a king's daughter.
For our own generation Tibullus has another claim to notice. All
Augustan writers express their dread and weariness of war. But Tibullus
protests as a survivor of the lost cause. He has been, himself, a
soldier-lover maddened by separation. As an heir of the old order, he
saw how vulgar and mercenary was this _parvenu_ imperial glory, won
at the expense of lost liberties and broken hearts.
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