The Appendix (or Corpus) Tibulliana contains various elegies that were transmitted under Tibullus’ name in the manuscripts, but in fact differ in authorship. Two of the authors are directly named (Lygdamus and Sulpicia) while the rest (some poems about Messalla and others about Sulpicia) are from unknown authors.
The poems in the Appendix are unified less by authorship than by their association with Messalla’s literary circle.
LYGDAMVS
Not much can be gleamed from Lygdamus’ works about himself save that he is a Roman and that he was born in 43 BCE. Beyond that, nothing else is certain. Like other elegists, he writes about a beloved, whom he calls Neraea, but is likely a pseudonym, much like the ones adopted by Gallus, Propertius, and Ovid. The name Lygdamus itself is also likely a pseudonym, as it is the name of a Greek, while Lygdamus writes as a Roman from one of the old Roman families. For this reason, older scholarship often suggested that Lygdamus was actually a young Tibullus or Ovid. The former, however, can be ruled out on chronological grounds, and while Lygdamus and Ovid were born in the same year, and certainly features of Lygdamus’ poetry echo Ovid’s, most modern scholars posit Ovidian influence rather than identification.
SVLPICIA
Sulpicia was an elegist in the first century BCE.
Life
Very little is known of Sulpicia’s life. It is often presumed that she was the daughter of Servius Sulpicius Rufus, an eminent lawyer and contemporary of Cicero (famous, in fact, for his consolation letter to Cicero after the death of Tullia), and also the niece of Messalla Corvinus, the second most important literary patron in the Augustan Age after Maecenas (his other clients included Ovid and Tibullus). She likely would have been born in the middle of the first century BCE.
Works
While a consensus has yet been reached, a majority of scholars see elegies 13–18 in the Appendix Tibulliana as actually authored by Sulpicia and not by Tibullus or anyone else, though some remain skeptical. These are various love elegies on her lover, Cerinthus (whom a few scholars think might be a Hellenized pseudonym for the Cornutus in Tibullus’ poems).
Additionally, elegies 8–12 are written about Sulpicia. Scholars have dubbed the author the amicus Sulpiciae (“friend of Sulpicia”), though some have proposed that Sulpicia authored these poems in the third person; this remains a minority view and would be unusual within Roman elegy.
Lately, interest in Sulpicia has shifted from the novelty of a Roman woman writing poetry to her talents as a poet in her own right.
Modern scholarship increasingly emphasizes Sulpicia’s literary technique rather than treating her primarily as a historical curiosity as the sole female Roman elegist.
Sulpicia Online
Latin: PHI Latin Texts
English: Poetry in Translation (Sulpicia’s Garland • Sulpicia’s Verses)
Further Reading
- Matthew S. Santirocco 1979. “Sulpicia Reconsidered.” Classical Journal 74.3: 229–239.
- Alison Keith 2006. “Critical Trends in Interpreting Sulpicia.” The Classical World 100.1: 3–10.
