The authorship of Tibullus 3.9
Jacqueline Fabre-Serris
Abstract
<italic>Corpus Tibullianum</italic> 3.8–18 have often been considered a self-contained unit. Gruppe (1838) attributed poems 14–18, written in the first person, to Sulpicia, and poems 8–13 to the so-called <italic>amicus Sulpiciae</italic> (8, 10, 12 are in the third person; 9, 11, 13 in the first). This division was widely accepted until Parker (1994) argued that all the poems in the first person were by Sulpicia. This chapter supports Parker’s view, examining [Tib.] 3.9 as a case study for discussions of authorial identity across Sulpicia’s oeuvre. After examining the intertextual references made in [Tib.] 3.9 to Virgil, Tibullus and Propertius, and variations on these poets’ themes, it is suggested that the poem’s author is Sulpicia, since the stylistic features that appear to be specific to poem 9 are common to poems 13 and 18 as well.