STOP
Early Journal Content on JSTOR, Free to Anyone in the World
This article is one of nearly 500,000 scholarly works digitized and made freely available to everyone in
the world by JSTOR.
Known as the Early Journal Content, this set of works include research articles, news, letters, and other
writings published in more than 200 of the oldest leading academic journals. The works date from the
mid-seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries.
We encourage people to read and share the Early Journal Content openly and to tell others that this
resource exists. People may post this content online or redistribute in any way for non-commercial
purposes.
Read more about Early Journal Content at http://about.jstor.org/participate-jstor/individuals/early-
journal-content .
JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary source objects. JSTOR helps people
discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content through a powerful research and teaching
platform, and preserves this content for future generations. JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit
organization that also includes Ithaka S+R and Portico. For more information about JSTOR, please
contact support@jstor.org.
REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES.
The Elegies of Albius Tibullus. The Corpus Tibullianum, edited
with Introduction and Notes on Books i, ii, and iv, 2-14, by
Kirby Flower Smith, Professor of Latin in The Johns
Hopkins University. New York: American Book Com-
pany, 1913.
' Eine Erneuerung des veralteten Kommentars von L. Dissen
(Gott. 1835) ist ein Bediirfniss'. These words of Eduard Nor-
den (Einl. in die Alt., i, 1912, p. 437) are a concise expression of
a want long felt. Several excellent texts of Tibullus exist, selec-
tions for use in schools have been well edited by such scholars as
K. P. Schulze, K. Jacoby, and J. P. Postgate, but the complete
commentaries of Martinon (1895) and N6methy (1905) were half
hearted attempts from which scholars turned back with relief to
Dissen. Meantime valuable contributions to our knowledge of
Tibullus have continued to accumulate until the need of an edition
which should present the results in scholarly form has become
urgent. Professor Smith has answered the call. At last we have
a real edition — an edition which supersedes that of Dissen and
becomes the standard interpretation of Tibullus.
The purpose of the book more than justifies its bulk. At first
thought an introduction of 93 pages and a commentary of 343
pages on a Latin text of 48 pages seem entirely disproportionate.
But to all who care for a real interpretation of Tibullus, his posi-
tion in the history of elegy, and his relation to ancient and mod-
ern poetry, Professor Smith's book will seem none too large. On
the contrary the reader will regret the loss of much valuable ma-
terial when he learns (p. 9) that the volume even in its present
generous size is the result of rigid condensation and excision.
Anong other losses are a full apparatus criticus and a complete
list of authorities.
The form of the book is conditioned by the requirements of a
series ' edited for use in schools and colleges,' but since alter all
Professor Smith's appeal is primarily to scholars and advanced
students the world over, there will be a feeling of regret that the
book could not appear in a form more in harmony with its char-
acter — with a page large enough to admit a critical apparatus
and notes beneath the text.
The text, which includes the entire Corpus Tibullianum with
the exception of the two Priapea, is based on that of Hiller's
30
462 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.
edition, Leipsic (Tauchnitz), 1885. Professor Smith makes no
claim of originality for his text ; he has collated no manuscripts
(this has been adequately done by others), and he makes no
conjectures. Nevertheless every real commentator must consti-
tute his own text, and even when the manuscript materials have
been supplied by others the task requires nice judgment. The
choice of Hiller's text (1885) as a basis was wise. It is conve-
nient and accessible, it contains the manuscript readings, and
it has the necessary quality of sane conservatism. It is superior
in one or more of these points to each of the other texts which
were available: Hiller's of 1893 in the Corpus poetarum latino-
rum, vol. i, Postgate's in the Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, 1905,
Haupt-Vahlen's sixth edition, 1904 (the seventh published by
Helm, 1912, appeared too late for Professor Smith's use), and
Cartault's, Paris, 1909.
The process of condensation to which Professor Smith has
subjected his material has inevitably produced errors and incon-
sistencies and the parts concerned with the manuscripts and the
text seem to have suffered especially. I record these, following
in general the order in which they occur. The remarks on
Textual Tradition (Introd. §vi) are sometimes misleading and
sometimes inconsistent with the Appendix. Is there other evi-
dence than Norden's (Kunstpr., 1 p. 724) that in all likelihood we
owe a special debt of gratitude to Hildebert, f H34> for the pre-
servation of Tibullus from the 9th to the 13th century? Hilde-
bert's influence is possible, not 'likely'. He was 'a famous
Latin poet and teacher ', a great admirer of the classical poets,
and his elegiac verse is remarkably pure, but he does not men-
tion Tibullus, and the purity of his elegiacs is probably due to
the influence of Ovid, which was incomparably greater in the
middle ages than that of Tibullus. At p. 89 we read that the
Codex Eboracensis 'is occasionally of some value', but that
' other manuscrips of this family . . . have no independent value ',
and (p. 90) ' the exact position of the Guelferbytanus in our
textual tradition is not altogether certain '. This seems to imply
that no members of the ^ group, the inferior manuscripts, except
possibly y (cod. Ebor.) and g (Guelf.) have a value independent
of A and V, the two best of the complete manuscripts. Such a
view would mean that no excellent reading of ^ not in AV is
pure, i. e. comes from the archetype by a route different from
that of AV, but that all such readings are due to conjectures of
the Itali. It seems to me unsafe to adopt this view at present.
Excluding agreements with Fr. Par. more than 60 readings of \fr
are accepted by Hiller (1885), Vahlen 6 , and Postgate (1905) in
the first book (nearly half the Corpus) and more than 20 such
readings are accepted in addition by one or more of these editors.
Thus over 80 or, if we substitute Hiller (1893) for his text of
1885, over ioo of these readings are either right or worthy of
notice. Now it is just possible that all these good readings may
REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 463
be conjectures, but it is far more likely that some at least
are derived from the archetype through a copy or copies now
lost. So too the account of the Freising and Paris Excerpts (Fr.
Par.) is misleading because it has been condensed into one para-
graph (p. 89). All the statements are not true of Fr., for the
two collections differ in important details. It is not correct to
say that the editors oiboth excerpts 'do not scruple to Bowdlerize*.
I can find no certain case of Bowdlerizing in Fr.; on the contrary
Bowdler would hardly have excerpted III. 2, 1-2 :
Qui primus caram iuveni carumque puellae
Eripuit iuvenem ferreus ille fuit,
or I. 2, 19.
Ilia docet molli furtim derepere lecto.
It is true that Fr. occasionally cite from the midst of an erotic
passage without representing the erotic context (I. 6, 33-34),
but the same conciseness is observed where no erotic content
is at hand (I. 1, 25, etc.). The excerptor of Par., on the other
hand, actually changes erotic allusions to a form not offensive to
monkish ears (III. 3, 32 ; II. 4, 29, etc.). Again many of the Fr.
excerpts are single words — which is not true of Par. — so that it is
not certain that all of Fr. come from florilegia. Nor is it by any
means certain that Fr. 'enjoyed a wide popularity from the
eleventh to the fourteenth century '. The dates assigned to Fr.
and Par. in the Introd. (p. 89) are respectively the eleventh and
twelfth (or thirteenth) centuries, but in the Appendix (p. 527)
the tenth and eleventh centuries. The former statement is the
one usually made by experts who have inspected them. 1
The brief statements (p. 90) about editions need some revision
and expansion. I. G. Huschke's ed. of 1814 had notes on only
three elegies (I, 1, 3 and 7). Huschke's complete ed. appeared
in Leipsic in 1819. Not enough credit is given to Baehrens
(1876-1878). His 'great service lay' not so much, I should say,
'in demonstrating the position and value in our textual tradition
of the Ambrosianus ' as in virtually discovering the two mainstays
of the text (AV), although he wrongly set g above them.
One cannot help regretting that Professor Smith did not retain
in some form an adnotatio critica containing just the bare manu-
script variants. As it is we find in the Appendix a mere record
of the variations from Hiller's text (1885) and even so it is not
always clear what Hiller's reading is, for the latter's name is
omitted from many of the readings and the assumption that the
second reading cited in each record is Hiller's does not work out,
since at I. 7, 49 two readings (centum ludis ^ Smith ; centum
ludos A) are printed, neither of which is Hiller's. So at II. 3,
'Postdate, 1905, assigns Fr. to the 10th, and Par. to the nth, and Hiller
1893, both to the eleventh.
464 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.
14c and III. 4, 26 Hiller's reading is not given at all, and at IV.
1, 1 Smith's own reading is not printed. Two passages are
recorded as varying from Hiller in which Prof. Smith agrees with
Hiller: I. 10, 50 and II. 3, 34, where both mark a lacuna. In
two others the Appendix misleads one as to Hiller's text: I. 6,
72, where Hiller is said to have in medias propriasque, but actually
has in medias proripiarque, and II. 6, 45 where Smith omits
vetat Hiller. There is no record of the fact that Smith differs
from Hiller in the line numbering of the Panegyric from v. 113
(= Hiller ii2 a ) to the end. Hiller's final judgment on the text
is contained in his edition of 1893, which is still more conservative
than that of 1885. It is significant ol Professor Smith's attitude
toward the text that he agrees with Hiller in ten of the passages
in which the latter in 1893 adhered more closely to the
manuscripts.
Professor Smith's choice of Hiller as a guide indicates his sym-
pathy with that scholar's attitude toward those two nuisances of
Tibullian studies, transposition and strophic symmetry. He
makes the one transposition (iv, 4) which is universally admitted
and nowhere discovers couplets arranged in 'sevens' or 'nines'
or what you will, whereas in some of the most recent editions
(Postgate's 'Selections', 1903, and Cartault's text, 1909) there
are survivals of the time honored practice of transposition. The
ghost of Scaliger has been hard to lay. And yet the logic of
the transpositionists has had one good effect : it has forced the
defenders of the manuscript order to seek arguments, and in this
way they have attained a finer understanding of the development
of the elegiac mood.
On details of text Professor Smith's judgment is generally
sound, but there are, of course, decisions with which one disa-
grees. In i, 3, 4, for example, editors have always been divided
between Mors modo nigra A V and Mors precor atra ^ Smith,
and as Cartatilt is tond of saying, 'La decision est d61icate!'
Undoubtedly Mors atra is the regular phrase, but exactly for that
reason its presence in ty creates suspicion. Niger on the other
hand, though not applied anywhere to Mors, is used symbolically
of death by Lygdamus iii, 3, 5, a passage based in general on
this, cf. Hor. Sat. I. 9, 73. I should not venture to reject the
reading of AV — yet. V. 17 aves dant omina dira A V Smith
aves aut omina dira \fr Hiller, etc. The shift from the direct state-
ment aves dant, etc. (17) to the indirect Saturni sacram me ten-
uisse diem (18) is very hard, especially in Tibullus. The sup-
port cited (ii, 5, 71-78 and several passages from Livy) contains
nothing very much like this and causor seems nowhere in Latin
to introduce a direct statement (Thes. s. v.). It seems better to
follow ty in 17 and read in 18 Saturnive supporting the aut . . aut
. . -ve by examples from the Thes. s. v. V. 86 colo A V Smith
colu Fr. Hiller. The high authority of Fr. and the fact that it is
lectio difficilior commend colu. Tibullus's tendency to purism
REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 465
can hardly override this argument. I. 6, 7 ilia quidem tam multa
negat A V Smith. But no parallels for tam multa as adverb
(=' So many times as she is asked ') are cited. I. 6, 72 immerito
pronas proripiarque vias Smith, chiefly after ^ (A is corrupt).
Probably (cf. Cartault) proprias A has crowded out some word
which may have been entirely different in form. Therefore no
form of pronus is especially probable. Moreover the accusative
with proripi is unparalleled. Rigler's in medias . . vias is at least
better syntax, ii, 2, 22 hie veniat Natalis avis A V Smith. No
parallel is cited lor hie, cf. I, 3, 91. There are good notes on the
textual questions raised by ii, 3, 34; ii, 5, 79 (ihe ' shifted' pluper-
fect which renders changes unnecessary); iv, 6, 15; iv, 7, 1, but
none at all on ii, 5, 4 ; ii, 5, 108 (where ista A seems perfectly good
against ilia \jr Smith); iv, 2, 23; iv, 4, 6; iv, 6, 19, and some other
passages. In most of these difficult passages the best solution
has been adopted, but some of them call urgently for at least a
brief discussion, e. g. ii, 5, 4; iv, 4, 6 ; iv, 6, 19, in all of which
the reading of A is rejected. In iv, 8, 6 neu tempestivae saepe
propinque viae A Smith (Hiller 1893 and Postgate mark as
corrupt) the editor admits that no explanation is satisfactory. He
translates 'always on the eve of some untimely journty ' which
is the woman's point of view even if the Latin is decidedly what
Gruppe called 'weiblich', neu tempestivae being taken in the
sense of intempestivae. Moreover no acceptable parallels are
cited for propinquus with the genitive. But Professor Smith
seems justified in leaving the passage as it stands and trying to
interpret it instead of making several changes. This is in general
his attitude, and that such conservatism is sound is amply proved
by the history of textual emendation.
The connected presentation of those topics which concern the
history of Tibullus in antiquity and during the middle ages is to
be found in the Introduction, pp. 30-87, but these pages must be
supplemented by the material scattered throughout the Notes.
The first of these topics is the ' Life of Tibullus ' (§ ii). Professor
Smith uses for his reconstruction the vita and Horace's two
poems to Albius — sources which have been rejected without
sufficient reason by some scholars — in addition to the other
external and internal evidence. He displays admirable care in
stating nothing as a fact which is merely a more or less probable
inference and a still more admirable restraint in refusing to make
any inferences at all on some points which have too often been
taken as certainties. He says, for example, that the date of
Tibullus's death, 19 b. c, 'is the nearest approach to a definite
date in the life of our poet '. He refuses to assign the impover-
ishment of the poet's estate (I. 1, 19-22) to any definite cause.
He frankly admits that we do not know the order of Messalla's
expeditions to the East and to Gaul and thus abandons our only
hope of dating accurately I, 1, 3, and 7. All this is correct and
it is gratifying to have it stated so frankly. He expressly com-
466 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.
bats the favorite method of making inferences from the poet's
silence — for example, that Tibullus and the circle of Messalla
were politically opposed to the circle of Maecenas. The sup-
posed rivalry indicated by Vergil's ten eclogues and Tibullus's
ten elegies of Book i, by Horace's Priapus Satire and Tibullus's
Priapus elegy, is sufficiently explained by ' the common phe-
nomenon of a contemporary interest in certain themes and forms'.
Very interesting too is the suggestion (p. 39) that Messalla, who
is known to have been interested in niceties of style, may have
had far greater influence on Tibullus than we know. Against
the oft tried effort to write a history of Tibullus's love affairs
Professor Smith says (p. 43), ' The poet is free to interweave fact
with fiction, actual events with mere literary motives ; and only
those who are in the secret can be sure which is which ', and yet
' the simple faith of the old commentators who . . took every refer-
ence at its face value, is not more unreasonable than the sweep-
ing incredulity of some of our modern critics' — this last a
sensible protest against those who would make of the poet's
work a mere cento of bookishness. Of the Delia elegies the
editor says that although there is no chronological sequence, ' it
is significant ol the poet's art that . . . the emotional sequence,
the psychological development, and its effect on the persons con-
cerned, are at once complete and convincing '. To disengage
the realities from these artistic presentments of the poet's moods
is indeed ' peculiarly difficult', and one of these realities is the
character of the poet. To Professor Smith, as to most of the
poet's readers, ' he rarely fails to ring true ', he was tender and
refined, and loved the simple life of the country, but when we
read that the poet's reference (ii, 3) to his ' tender hands ' and
' slender limbs ' is no doubt really descriptive of his personal
appearance, that probably his vitality ' was low and his constitu-
tion delicate. Otherwise he would not have died at the early
age of 35 ', that in fine ' Tibullus was a hypochondriac ', we feel
that even Professor Smith's carefully qualified inferences are
going a bit too far. All this rests primarily on that interpreta-
tion of Horace, Epist. i, 4 which was recently elaborated by
Ullman (A. J. P. 33, 1912), and although Professor Smith appar-
ently rejects most of the exact agreements which Ullman finds
between the Tibullus of this epistle and him of the elegies, he
draws from it nevertheless the inference that Tibullus was a
hypochondriac. Some such meaning must certainly be con-
tained in the epistle, but even so we cannot date it accurately,
we know that hypochondriacs are often, when not obsessed, the
gayest of men, that Tibullus was by no means lacking in humor,
and that he had been vigorous enough to endure the hardships
of at least one campaign. I doubt whether we really know any-
thing about the poet's ' delicate constitution ', or whether ' the
last years of our poet's brief life were perhaps occasionally
haunted by the fear that he was destined never to realize his one
REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 467
consuming ambition, a permanent place in the Roman Temple
of Fame'. It is a cleverly drawn picture, it may be true, but it
cannot be regarded as more than possible.
The third section of the Introduction is a good sketch of the
Later Tradition and Imitation of Tibullus. The outline of his
influence on European literatures is entirely new and provides a
good basis for future work in this field. Indeed Professor
Smith has done an enormous amount of this work himself and
the Notes are full of the results of his reading. He has had in
addition the valuable aid of his colleague Professor Mustard,
who has earned a name as a specialist in this department. This
feature of the book will prove of value not only to classical
scholars but also to workers in modern literature. It is note-
worthy that Tibullus, like many another poet, has had his periods
of eclipse. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for ex-
ample, little attention was paid to him — there was no ' Tudor
translation', as Professor Smith says. Indeed Miss Palmer's
' List of English Editions and Translations of Greek and Latin
Classics printed before 164 1 ' shows that there was neither edition
nor translation as late as 1641.
The fact that the influence of Tibullus on modern literatures has
on the whole been 'less than that of any other great Roman
poet' is Professor Smith's justification for comparing Tibullus
with Propertius and Ovid in order to determine those qualities
of Tibullus which have retarded his influence. Such com-
parisons inevitably lead to the selection of certain qualities in
one's favorite by virtue of which he is superior to the others.
Professor Smith's favorite is Tibullus, but he disarms criticism
by admitting that ' comparisons . . . are more or less futile ' and
' the three poets are complementary rather than parallel '. He
does not forget that there are to-day, as there were in Quin-
tilian's time, those qui Propertium malint. Moreover in rehand-
ling this timeworn theme he has not only accomplished his
immediate object, but has supplied us with the best brief critique
of Tibullus in English.
Conservatism marks the discussion of The Corpus Tibullianum
(§ V). Professor Smith would like to identify Lygdamus with
Ovid's brother (Doncieux's theory), but thinks that the famous
natalem primo nostrum videre parentes, etc., cannot be proved to
mean the first anniversary of Lygdamus's birth, iv, 2-6;
13-14, are assigned to Tibullus and the stylistic arguments
against this are rightly characterized as of no value. In passing
we note an error (p. 77") : Gruppe was the first to note that
iv, 2-12 fall into two groups, but he connected 2-7, not 2-6, as
Professor Smith has it. A correct statement may be found on
p. 81.
The discussion of Sulpicia's elegidia is written with unusual
sympathy and insight. Professor Smith compares these little
poetic love notes in their straightforward simplicity and absolute
468 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.
lack of affectation with the poems of Catullus. He is rightly
skeptical about the ' weibliches Latein ' of which Gruppe and
Baehrens made so much and adds that ' inexperience in style is
not distinctively feminine ', but his citation of Cicero's oft quoted
praise of Laelia for speaking Latin like that of Plautus or Naevius
seems to me beside the mark, since a woman who spoke pure
Latin might not be able to write clear Latin verse and whatever
Sulpicia's conversational powers may have been, she certainly
cannot write clearly. Cf. Catull xxii for a masculine parallel.
The last section (vii) of the Introduction is entitled The Poet's
Art and contains a brief treatment of some topics which are illus-
trated more in detail in the Notes. There is first an admirable
account of Tibullus's method of developing his theme. This is
followed by an account of the development of the distich at Rome.
Catullus is correctly termed 'the beginner, still too near his
Greeks', but is it correct to say that Propertius 'especially in
his earlier work . . drops back almost to the inexperience of
Catullus?' Was not Propertius consciously attempting to carry
further those principles of Catullus which would have given the
Romans a form at once more Greek and less monotonous than
that which reached its perfection in Ovid? I for one regret that
Propertius abandoned this attempt and went over to the Ovidian
camp. The monotony of that eternally recurrent dissyllabic
ending would hardly be altered even if we could 'pronounce as
Ovid did '.
Extreme compression was necessary in the first section of the
Introduction, the Development of Elegy, and there are a good
many points on which one could wish for more light and espe-
cially the citation of more evidence. The views of Crusius (s. v.
Elegie, Pauly-Wissowa), to which the reader is referred 'for fur-
ther details ', are often not acceptable. Professor Smith is right
in declining to discuss the origin of elegy, but the insertion of
one or two typical ancient views would have been wise. The
emphasis laid on the subjective character of Old Greek Elegy
is correct ; it was both objective and subjective. But do we know
that the 'Nanno' of Mimnermus consisted of ' poems', and does
any certain fragment of the 'Nanno' have a clear 'sentimental-
erotic' character? There is almost nothing about the Attic school
or about Theognis, and yet Solon and Theognis, for example,
contain things which are of decided value to one who would un-
derstand Augustan elegy — the praise of abstracts, the satiric note,
the mythological n-apaSety^a in its erotic application. The ' Lyde '
of Antimachus is spoken of as ' elegies ' (p. 16), but Plutarch's
Words are tijk eXeyeiav rrjv KaKovpevriv AvSr/v.
The sketch of social conditions in the Alexandrian Age (pp.
17-18) follows Crusius too closely. Crusius knows too much
about the emancipation of women at that period. We are apt to
assume this from Catullus lxvi and from Augustan elegy, but
Berenice was a queen and the Augustans endowed the arnica
REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. 469
with attributes which were due to the higher position of women
at Rome. In other words it is difficult to prove that the ' femini-
zation of life, literature, and art' had made much headway at
Alexandria. It is in fact difficult to reconstruct a general picture
of the literary and intellectual development of that age, cf. Wend-
land, Hellenist. — rom. Kultur, p. 2. Again Professor Smith agrees
with Crusius in thinking it 'likely . . that the poems [of Philetas] to
Bittis were essentially lyric and subjective ', and refers to the lines
of Hermesianax in Athenaios, 13, 598 F. But this testimonium
tells us nothing definite of the lyric or subjective character of that
poetry. Professor Smith seems inclined to agree with Pohlenz
that Philetas wrote subjective-erotic elegy of the idyllic variety
much like that of Tibullus, cf. Pohlenz, Xiipirej etc., 191 1, and
Smith's review A. J. P. XXXIV, 208. A careful study of Poh-
lenz's article has convinced me that on this point his conclusions
cannot be regarded as more than possible. Likewise P. Troll's
interesting and valuable dissertation, De elegiae Roraanae origine
(1911), an attempt to show by analyzing methods of composition
that there must have been Alexandrian elegies like the Roman
type, has failed to prove its main point, although it throws much
light on the structure of elegy and epigram. We are in fact at
present not able to approximate a trustworthy view of the origin
of the subjective-erotic type of elegy. Much more work, like
that of Pohlenz and Troll, on the numerous elements which enter
into the problem is needed before we can hope for substantial
agreement.
The Notes — and the reader must bear the Introduction con-
stantly in mind — prove that Professor Smith has the highest ideal
of a commentator's duty. He aims not merely to determine the
characteristics of Tibullus himself, but to place these character-
istics in the proper perspective. This involves a comparative
study of Greek and Roman elegy and the related literature of
antiquity, and many excursions into modern literature as well.
All the features of Tibullian thought and style and metre are
lrichy paralleled. In the mass of this material there is very little
thatis superfluous, for Professor Smith never forgets that he is
interpreting Tibullus, and yet his method is so broad that the
commentary is a sort of handbook of Roman poetics so far as the
general nature of Roman poetry may be illustrated from Tibullus
and the elegy. Anybody who has attempted an adequate inter-
pretation of a single Latin poem will perceive at once what
enormous toil has been required to produce this commentary
and all who have attempted such an interpretation of Tibullus
will appreciate the fine taste and excellent judgment with which
the work has been performed. Every statement has been care-
fully considered and the omissions are hardly less significant.
Indeed the excellence of a commentary based, as in this case,
upon the accumulated labors of centuries is determined almost as
much by what is omitted as by what is included.
470 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY.
It is not accident that the first elegy has been the chief centre
of controversy concerning the poet's art. It is one of his most
characteristic poems. Whoever interprets it correctly can be
trusted with the other elegies — and a scrutiny of some crucial
points proves that Professor Smith can be trusted. He does not
know, for example, the exact date of the elegy, the special occa-
sion which impelled the poet to write it, nor the exact cause of
the poet's impoverishment (vv. 19-22) — prominent examples of
good judgment by way of omission. An understanding of the
development of the thought is absolutely essential to an appreci-
ation of Tibullian art. There is an admirable discussion of this
question (Introd., pp. 93 ff.), together with a better arrangement
of i, 1 than has hitherto been given — even by Vahlen. The
break after v. 52 seems to me exactly right. The note on v. 3
contains a good discussion of those puzzling plurals about which
editions of Latin and Greek poets contain so many wild state-
ments. Similar notes may be found at v. 23 (on anaphora), v. 29
(the ' aoristic' infinitive), v. 33 (-que . . -que), v. 38 (the dissyl-
labic close of the pentameter — a condensed statement of the facts
in Latin poetry), v. 40 (postponed -que), v. 54 (homoeoteleuton
and rhyme). These are not mere local phenomena and each is
treated from the broader point of view. The same method is
maintained throughout the notes. The characteristic motives of
elegy are exceptionally well handled : witchcraft (i, 2 ; i, 5, 49 ff.),
the golden age (i, 3, 35 ff.), lover's oaths (i, 4, 21 ; i, 5, 35), the
sick arnica (1, 5, 9-18), the rich lover {ibid. 47-48), etc., etc.
No other edition contains so many adequate notes. There are
of course many statements about whose validity opinions will
differ since the questions concerned are not yet solved, but errors
of fact are very rare — for example, the statement accepted (i, 1,
35) that que . . et never occurs in Cicero (cf. Att. 4, 1, 5) and
the misleading note on i, 7, 2 concerning diaeresis of soliio (cf.
i, 10, 62).
The foregoing gives but a hint of the richness of this commen-
tary. Professor Smith has laid a very solid foundation on which
to build in the future. All who use the book will realize that
such blemishes as it may have are exceedingly insignificant in
comparison with its great merits. It is immensely superior to
any other edition of Tibullus, and it will live because it possesses
in so high a degree those qualities which are essential to an
edition of the best type.
Arthur Leslie Wheeler.
Bevn Mawe College.
