The Originality of Tibullus' Marathus Elegies

B. Verstraete

As far we can judge from the extant literature, Tibullus' three Marathus elegies are among the most sophisticated poetry of male same-sex desire and love composed in the ancient Greco-Roman world. These poems belong to a long and well-established tradition of male homoerotic poetry that goes back to the Greeks of the Archaic Age and was given new impetus centuries later in Roman literature. In this tradition, Tibullus' Marathus elegies stand out for their qualities of irony, dramatic engagement, and psychological finesse.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]