Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/105



Catullus, as we have seen, lays some claim to the credit of acclimatising the elegy as well as other Greek types of poetry at Rome, the neatness and finish of that form of verse may be attributed to Albius Tibullus, a Roman of equestrian family, whose birthplace was Pedum, perhaps the modern village of Gallicano, and in his day so ruined and insignificant that it survived rather as the name of a district than as an ancient and once famous Latin city. Tradition has not preserved the poet's prænomen; but his birthdate was probably 54: and, like the two other tuneful brethren with whom we associate him, his life and career were brief. He is supposed to have died 18, according to an epigram of Domitius Marsus only a few months later than Virgil. As is the case with Catullus and Propertius, the data for a life of